Guest blog at "Make Your Someday Today"

I was honoured to be a guest blogger at Trevor LaRene's awesome site: Make Your Someday Today.  My article is entitled "Stop trying to be happy!  Just enjoy life!"

Check it out:

http://makeyoursomedaytoday.blogspot.ca/2014/09/stop-trying-to-be-happy-just-enjoy-life.html

Breaking Bad… Habits

Breaking Bad… Habits

©2014 Scott Wilson

No matter what the goal, we have all experienced setbacks in our life that were entirely due to our own poor actions. When starting out towards a new goal it is quite natural and wise to make some changes and start some new actions that we intend to develop into positive habits.　 Creating new positive habits is just one challenge but in the long run commitment and repetition will eventually yield results in those areas.　 The difficulties of discovering a new and better path and walking it is another discussion in itself.

For those of us who have found a new path it is not so much the creation of new improved and constructive habits and activities that tends to trip us up. It is our well-worn bad habits, poor attitudes and negative thinking that so often sabotages our noble efforts and saps our resolve for success.　 When losing weight, we might be counting calories and getting active but it is that midnight craving that catches us unaware.　　 When we start a new enterprise, it is not acting on the good ideas and constructive plans that sinks our boat; it is the negative thoughts, self-doubts and dwelling on initial mistakes that will torpedo our efforts.

So it is fair to say that breaking bad thought patterns and habits is obviously an important factor in our quest towards success in any endeavour. One thing that should be recognized is that bad habits are natural.　 Bad habits and negative thought patterns develop like any habit, by continual repetition over time. 　Destructive patterns themselves usually arise as a poor response to normal difficult situations. For example, let us look at smoking.

Most people knew that smoking was unhealthy and unwise when they started. Many began smoking to ease a difficult social situation.　 The smoking made the person accepted with a friend or group. The person sanely reasoned that they were in control of the substance and this was true initially.　 As time went on smoking actually fulfilled a need to pacify anxiety and the nicotine soothed emotions.　 Eventually the person lost control over cigarettes, biological cravings ensued and the action of smoking became mindless and habitual.　 However, smoking did fulfill a positive role at first, allowing the person to control their anxiousness and gain positive social acceptance.

It helps to understand that the root of all negative habits, both physical and mental, was once positive or in some way beneficial. The problems spring from the unintended negative consequences of the actions that resulted from the initial choices.　 When breaking a bad habit, it helps to determine what situations trigger the thoughts and actions of the habit.　 Our smoker might keenly crave a cigarette most frequently during social or stressful situations.　 In this case, the person seeking to break the habit would need to prepare for anxious situations that trigger temptation.

Since all habits are both formed and maintained through repetition the key to elimination is by breaking the cycle and maintaining increased periods where the habit is deprived. I doubt there is anything new or revolutionary about what I will have to say on this matter but I hope that I can present it in a unique way that better helps you to understand and apply it. Here are four methods that can be used to deal with negative patterns:

 Replace
 Remove
 Resist
 Reward/Reinforce

Replace: One way to eliminate a poor habit or thinking is to replace it with a beneficial one. If the role of the poor habit is understood then a preferable action or thinking can be implemented in its place. If a habit like smoking or eating is triggered by social situations or anxiety then soothing the anxiety itself should be addressed. Some people have had success with sugarless chewing gum in these situations. They keep an ample supply of gum with them and use it when the craving for food or cigarettes arises in social situations. We humans soothe ourselves in many ways. Sometimes stress can be relieved by squeezing a squishy ball. Other times, some people overcome feelings of anxiety by mentally imagining themselves in control and in a different environment. Each situation is unique. Find the trigger of the craving and creatively address it, meeting your specific needs.

When negative thoughts are part of the negative pattern then sometimes a physical object can be used to help refocus the mind. Place items around your environment that remind you of the thinking and attitude that you want to foster. These can be pictures, quotes, or anything that you can use to keep your mind and heart on track when they get distracted. We can keep an object in our pocket or close at hand that reminds us of a quote or idea that counteracts our negative attitudes when they arise.

For instance, we might feel like a failure in social situations, being constantly reminded of our imperfections and disappointments. A counter-measure against such thinking might be to keep some reminder of a past victory in your pocket. Perhaps you have a medal or small award from a past successful achievement. If not then purchase one and use it to fix such an event in your mind. Seek to remember your victories in this life, no matter how few or small that they may seem.

Remove: Whenever possible we should completely eliminate the elements that support a negative pattern in our lives. With cigarettes and alcohol people generally completely eliminate these materials from their lives. In food addiction, this often means eliminating a particular food type that is problematic or eaten mindlessly. In bad thinking, removal means catching a negative thought pattern when it arises, acknowledging its destructive nature and choosing to completely deny the validity of the thought. Removal can be very effective in severing bad habits if it can be maintained. It is also the most challenging method to employ.

Resist: Resistance is not futile! Sometimes negative habits cannot be entirely eliminated. Problems with food consumption are not solved by simply starving yourself. In these cases we need to regain control over the thought or the action. Many poor habits are mindless. They arise without warning and catch us unaware. At these times it is best if the temptation can be postponed or delayed so that it cannot be immediately satisfied. If you have locked a tempting food in a drawer and you are required to take a few minutes to first retrieve the key then the delay and increased effort may give you time enough to think about the habit and reconsider if it is something that you truly want to indulge.

Resistance can also mix in an element of removal. If there is something that you do not want to eliminate but you do want to control then you might want to ‘fast’ from the habit for a while. You might feel that the TV has become a bad habit for you because you simply spend too much time watching it but you do not want to eliminate it altogether. One way to regain control would be to abstain from television completely for thirty days to break the habitual element. You could then introduce TV back in measured amounts, say one hour a day.

The best way to resist negative thoughts and attitudes it with truth. Let say that when encountering difficulties someone becomes reminded of all the times that they have failed. The fear of failure may loom large in their heart. This challenge can be met if the person mentally prepares so that they can remind themselves that not even trying is merely failure by default. Or they could understand that any failed attempt is still a chance to learn about themselves and improve so that the next attempt will have a better chance of success. The key to resistance here is to prepare our minds in advance for the battle that our hearts will wage against us. In these cases we can even keep cue cards in our pockets with written reminders about ourselves – important positive truths that we have learned or that others have identified about us. Again, get creative. Find ideas that support and remind you about the good and noble truths that you seek to manifest and maintain.

Reward/Reinforce: Rewards and incentives can work powerfully to help us change our minds and habits. The key to rewards is to make them achievable and meaningful to you. If a reward is simply unrealistic then you will become demoralized trying to achieve it. If a reward is not meaningful then you won’t put in the effort to gain it. Incentives can be used to extinguish a poor behaviours or they can be used to reinforce new and better ones. In a given period you could either allot a number of times that you want to achieve a good activity or a maximum number of times that you will allow a negative behaviour to occur. Again, the choice is yours. Whatever it is, make sure whatever you give yourself is worth the effort that you will need to achieve it.

So that is it. Those are my simple tips to help break bad habits that seek to undo our best efforts. As stated earlier, we all encounter road bumps in ourselves along the journey to a better place. Be gentle with yourself. Beating yourself up for a bad habit actually reinforces it. The effort and focus that the activity is given rewards our minds for engaging in the pattern. Instead, look on your bad habit with compassion and remember that it once rewarded you before its consequences caught up with you. Take the necessary steps to think through the negative pattern and address the cause with Replacement, Removal, Resistance and Reward. With perseverance, one day you will look back and wonder what happened to that old bad habit of yours.

Sticky Problems!

Sticky Problems!

©Scott D. Wilson 2014


Whether you are an illustrious business tycoon or a lowly street sweeper life is full of trials and problems.  Married or single, rich or poor, famous or obscure, the process of living presents us daily with challenges that we need to face.  Author and speaker Helen Keller once so eloquently put it:

“The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Troubles are a universal part of the human condition and will continue to be so for as long as we exist.  Many make it their goal in life to avoid as many problems as possible but that is futile. It is far wiser to learn how to better handle the challenges that befall us.  I work as an engineer.  Engineers are often viewed as professional problem-solvers because they tend to have a knack for developing solutions to physical problems.  One thing I have learned is that how you look at a difficulty has the greatest effect on your ability to discover a solution to it.


I once took a driving course called "Skid School" where they purposefully put us in vehicles and caused them to skid and spin.  Our job was to skillfully apply what they taught us in the classroom to recover from the skids, regain control of the car and avoid hitting objects on the road.  The most valuable lesson that I learned from this experience was simply this:  We tend to hit the thing that we look at.


In driving, the instructors emphasized that many people unintentionally get stuck staring at an unexpected object that enters their driving path. The people then unfortunately tend to hit these random distractions.  During one lesson we drove a car down a slippery road and an instructor would move an object from either the left or right side and we had to avoid it even when the vehicle started to skid.


It is so instinctive for us to focus on the problem when it appears.  Many in the class saw the object in their path and despite carefully braking they were helpless to avoid colliding with it because they kept their attention on the obstacle.  The instructors explained that to avoid the problem the driver needed to look beyond it towards the destination that the wanted to go.  When we learned to look down the road we could readily avoid the obstacles that suddenly appeared on the path even though our cars were on slippery roads and began to skid.


In the final lesson the instructors sent the cars into a rear wheel skid with the car viciously spinning in circles.  The students had to recover control of the vehicle and keep the cars on the road and going in the original direction.  Again, to do this the drivers had to maintain focus on the destination, far off down the road that they were travelling.  I learned that day that I could recover from a very dangerous skid as long I kept my eyes on where I wanted to keep the car going.


I offer this long-winded story on safe car driving to illustrate a common flaw in how we often approach less tangible problems in our lives.  When we encounter challenges in life so many of us lose sight of our goals and spend our time looking at the barriers.  This is somewhat instinctive and natural.  Fear draws our attention away from the objective that we seek and desire!


This mistake seems to happen in so many areas of our lives.  In engineering we can get lost trying to fix a technical issue when we might do better looking at developing alternative ways to achieve the same objective.  When looking at our health we tend to get stuck looking at our diseases rather than improving well-being.  With fitness we get mired focusing on our weight and our fat when developing our muscles and overall health would serve us better.

We can plainly see this kind of thinking at work throughout our society.  We have anti-bullying campaigns not inclusivity and empathy programs. There are anti-poverty initiatives but very few prosperity movements.  As good intentioned as they may be, it is my experience that anything with an 'anti' focus tends to exacerbate the undesirable element.  Many bad ideas and thinking unfortunately thrive through resistance rather than diminishing. 

I have discovered that when I let go of the problem and start to focus again on where I want to go that the best ideas to address my present situation arise.  Whether it is my weight, my finances, my personal relationships or my job, I have learned that the fears about my goals become distractions.  My success is surer when moving towards the goal remains the objective rather than avoiding the pitfalls.


So I encourage you today to approach your troubles better.  Let go of your sticky problems.  Look again down the path towards the goals that you want to achieve.  Keep your attention on what moves you forward and not on the things that block your path or have you looking backwards.  Only then will you be able to keep control, steer clear and keep on the road to success!

Engineering Your Own Day

Engineering Your Own Day

©Scott D. Wilson 2014


I am an engineer.  I think I was born this way.  The primary work of an engineer is to design practical things using scientific principles.  I like designing stuff.  I enjoy putting mechanisms together to make them work in new and different ways.  I used to think that designing was only about pragmatic devices that enable us to do so much more than we could before.


For example, I work daily as a telecommunications engineer.  I design communication system that enable people to connect and collaborate faster and easier so that they can innovate and solve problems better.  I enjoy learning about new technological advances and products. Many of the technologies that I use have only been developed very recently.  I am pleased when the people that I serve show enthusiasm about the systems that I develop for them to share, cooperate and communicate.


I have realized that engineering high-tech systems is only part of what I enjoy.  I realize that I also relish learning about new ideas and thoughts on many diverse topics.  I am also very good at putting various ideas and principles together in innovative and interesting ways that allow people to see things from a new and helpful perspective.  This is simply the engineering and designing ideas and concepts instead of physical systems.


Another peculiarity of the way I operate is that I often think in pictures, emotions, smells, tastes and sounds rather than simply in words.  Consequently, I tend to connect diverse things like food, joy, music and math.  My difficulty then comes in finding the words to express these feelings and ideas.  As the saying goes, a picture truly does paint a thousand words.  So to do emotions, tastes and other sensory experiences.


I trust that you, my reader, can understand how difficult it may be to adequately explain the richness certain concepts to those who may never have encountered them.  How might one properly explain a freezing snowy winter day to someone who has lived their entire life in tropical desert? And so it has been with some of the ideas that I have encountered.


One such idea that came to me was about the days of our lives and their true value.  If you indulge me I will try to paint a picture of my unorthodox thoughts.  Imagine if you will, the infinity of time and space laid out from the beginning of the universe until today and stretching on until the very end of time.  Within this vast physical plane our small area of existence is almost unthinkably small both physically and in terms of time.  Nonetheless, we each are privileged to both experience and observe life, an exceeding rare commodity in the vast cosmos.


As an engineer I have deep respect for all forms of life because they are all incredibly marvelous fragile designs. Like snowflakes, every genetic sequence of life is unique and  the slightest change in environmental conditions would extinguish them or render their creation impossible.  Both science and spirituality can appreciate the miraculous combinations that exist to generate life here in all its shapes and sizes.


And here are you amid this mathematical improbability that has somehow generated and sustained life.  You are alive and reading these words now.  And here is the amazing thing:  This moment, this hour, this very day is yours.  It may sound unbelievable but the facts attest that this day with all its opportunities and perils was designed specifically for you.  The fact that you are experiencing it right now bear witness to this truth. 


Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your own personal day just like Christmas, St. Patrick’s or Groundhog day?  The reality is that you already do right now.  This is your day.  The universe or God, whatever you conceive them to be has conspired to have you born and living at this very time and place.  Your options are almost unlimited.  You can squander this time worrying or considering things that may never happen or that have long past into history. Or you can start right now with whatever you have and begin engineering something new and better.


Every person with a sound mind has the capacity to design a new reality for themselves.  This time and place holds opportunities and risks that are unique to you and you alone.  You unique genetic make-up will not pass through this time period again.  Our society’s siren song tells us that it is easier to accept the reality that is presented to us by those around us.  It is possible to coast through life doing what is needed  to remain alive.  Mere existence is commonplace.  Intentionally living and experiencing our unique day is rare.


It is up to you to make the most of what this life has handed to you.  This challenge is yours alone.  I feel called to remind you that life has gifted you with this moment to experience, experiment and learn.  The past can either hold you back or teach you how to move forward.  Yes, failure is a possibility.  Disappointment is a risk.  So too are the probabilities of success, joy and wonder.  All you need to do is grab this moment and begin to engineer you own day!