A Blog Post Crammed With Lots To Challenge Your Thinking

I haven’t done quite as much writing within the last few weeks as I’d like but, believe me when I say, I am never short of ideas. 😎 When I don’t act on a flash of inspiration or the spark of an idea immediately I find I lose the buzz of it very quickly. Anytime you have a flash, act on it quickly. To not do so is denying your deepest inner guidance and voice which is showing you truly who you are and what you desire.

I’ve also had an abundance of ideas and haven’t been able to get them all down on the blog as yet so I was thinking why not try something a bit different? This post is 7 articles in 1. (A worlds first maybe? :-P) With that in mind this post so easily could’ve become 5 – 10,000 words and so it was a challenge to keep this all within 2000. I guarantee though that this post will have something for everyone and will challenge the way you think about certain things. So, scan the headlines, find a topic you like, and peruse!

1. Unleash Your Uncommon Sense

I was scanning the news recently and came across and article whereby the police gave a ticket to a man for blowing his nose whilst his car was stationary in traffic. In the UK you can given a ticket over something like that under the charge of driving without due care and attention.

We had this debate on my show and it wasn’t the only story of its kind. I asked myself if common sense had been lost. What is common sense? If the actions of today’s society is anything to go by then maybe what is needed is not common sense, but uncommon sense!

Following the norms of society and what we’re told is not working and we need new paradigms in thought. Maybe the status needs the quo taken out of it! I’m not talking about anarchy. I’m talking about challenging conventional thinking. If something doesn’t work, change the approach. That’s not a hard philosophy to adopt. Shift your thinking and ask yourself if your actions are just because that’s the norm or because you’ve done it with conscious elevated values in mind?

We are a great species, a wonderful race, and it’s about time we started thinking that way.

2. How To Let Go Of People

People will come and go in your life. That’s a fact. Sometimes you will outgrow people and people will outgrow you. It’s nothing to be afraid of. This is just part of the journey of life. When some people go, others will arrive and fill a different area of your life. I still maintain that we are all connected and an extension of one another.

Learn to let people go gracefully. Understand when a relationship is no longer serving you. Some will see that as running away from something, some will see it as moving away from something that wasn’t good for you in the first place. No one can decide that for you. It’s a decision you must come to alone through your belief about the situation. Are you fixated on whether your belief is right or wrong? It’s neither; it’s just down to how you choose to perceive it.

3. How The Media Try And Sway You And How To Become Immune

Take a close look at the two following news articles:

1. Happiness wards off heart disease, study suggests

2. Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn

There’s a distinct difference between the two. The first is reported news on a study. The article is given the spin it needs to attract attention. That’s ok, we writers do that; we would be fools not to. The problem is that there are so many of those articles that very often they contradict each other. As an example, on a regular basis you will see contradictory articles with regards to alcohol, some say it will benefit certain things, others will say it is bad for such and such.

You have to come to your own conclusions on such things. Research can only guide us so far and as the title clearly says it is only suggesting the idea; remember that! Don’t take that knowledge at face value. It is only an indicator. With the specific article I’ve referred to, It’s doesn’t take a genius to realise that happiness helps the health overall. Saying happiness does anything otherwise would just be totally stupid.

So long as it’s genuine happiness and nothing forced I think it’s pretty safe to say that your health with benefit. Maybe we can chalk that one down to common sense! 😉 I actually laughed out loud when I read the part that said: “They could not categorically prove happiness was protective, but said people should try to enjoy themselves.” – Well duh!

The second article is a firsthand account of research and is pretty fascinating. It’s still not absolutely conclusive and should not be taken as gospel but the experiments are clever and gave a very clear indication that you can make your own luck with a simple shift in thinking. It’s a clear and definitive message to those who truly believe that they have bad luck that they can change it.

Do you see the clear difference between the two? The media often try and sway the opinons of the masses through such spin. See through it, don’t just be one of the masses.

4. Great Minds DON’T Think Alike

I’ve never liked the saying that great minds think alike. They think alike in the sense that they all follow a specific pattern to attain success. They don’t actually think alike though, they think very differently; hence their greatness.

They look at what is and ask ‘what if?’. They look at what isn’t and ask ‘why not?.

To be a great mind all you have to do is look around you, find out what the world needs, look at what inspires you and then find how you can bring those two universes together. What unique talent can you bring to the world? Your talent may be similar to others, but I promise you it is unique.

5. How To Be Frugal With Your Communications

I did a communications sabbatical last year and have since trimmed down on the amount I communicate with people. I have now totally stopped using IM’s like MSN, Google Chat, Facebook Chat and Blackberry Messenger because I found them to be a huge distraction. It’s wonderful that we have so many options through which to communicate but there’s a side of me that wants to communicate less.

People got offended when I stopped keeping in touch as much and it wasn’t anything personal. It was just a personal choice I made. We often pressure ourselves so much to be good friends and always satisfy the needs of others. Keep in touch, but not at the detriment to your own wellbeing.

With so many forms of communication it’s very easy to become a little bit overwhelmed. Choose your methods of communication wisely. I know of people who only use Facebook to keep in touch with very close friends. Others completely stopped using it and I was considering closing my account today. I realised I don’t really need it. As far as I’m concerned this blog, twitter and my phone are more than enough.

I don’t have the opportunity to miss people anymore.

I like it when I don’t speak to people in a while because when I do we have so much to talk about. Regular communication has its benefits too in that you can go incredibly deep and get to know people on a very intimate level.

I do keep in regular contact with my close friends and it’s is ironic because, when we don’t speak for long periods, it feels like no time has passed at all and we pick up from where we left off. There are no questions about why it’s been so long. We don’t make each feel guilty about the fact that it has been a while.

6. How To Fully Immerse Yourself In Your Comfort Zone

There are two types of comfort zone:

1. Being in a situation and feeling so comfortable that you take no risk even though you desire change.

2. Entering a new situation and feeling comfortable because you understand how to be your true self.

The latter is the one I want to talk about. Have you ever been in a situation where you were so comfortable that you felt totally at ease? You were surrounded by strangers and yet you felt like you could totally be yourself without feeling the need for any kind of pretence. You might possibly have felt that way when you were surrounded with close friends and family, and as a result, you personality sparkled. Would it not be awesome if you could replicate that amongst strangers?

You can! There are many techniques to do so. Anchoring is a great one to begin with. Next time you feel that comfort, Anchor it. The next is to simply practise. Put yourself in that situation often. Get comfortable with strangers. With practise you will arrive at that place naturally. Those are the two main ones, if you want more, just ask!

7. Understanding The Nature Of Trade Off’s

In this day and age everyone is directing their consciousness towards being environmentally conscious. What most people don’t realise that no matter what path they take there is still a cost. So you are saving resources by recycling, but the recycling process is creating waste and using additional energy. We may drive more environmentally friendly cars but those cars require many resources to build in the form of increased energy and materials.

I’m not saying that we don’t have to care for our planet, what I am saying is that you may think you’re doing good but the truth is that there is so much more to be done. If we are going to make a truly global change then we need to think on a much larger scale and think much further into the future.

I remember seeing an episode of Star Trek TNG when the crew realised that using warp drive was causing tears in the fabric of space-time. It was a great episode and it was a reflection of what we’re doing now, but on a universal scale.

So whatever you do, be aware that it isn’t the solution you think it might be. Understand the costs and start thinking about what else can be done. How can we as humans take a different stance or different approach to make sure we look after this small home of ours?

—

I know I’ve encompassed a lot in this blog post but I sometimes feel like if I don’t get this stuff out it will go to waste. I would love to hear your thoughts on all the topics I’ve written about today; what do you think?

Photo by Masood1226

P.S. Imagine being a passenger on that train! 😯