4 Great Paradoxes of a Great Life–Explained
Everything is about perspective. The happiest people, the ones who are the most successful and the wealthiest just found ways to make the world work for them. A paradox is when 2 ideas seem to directly oppose each other, and yet can both be true.
The most common example is the phrase: Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink! It may seem contradictory, after all, how can you be surrounded by water and not be able to drink it? So is the case if you are stranded in a life boat in the middle of the ocean. This statement would then be true, and make sense.
As you’re reading these ideas, relax and let the concepts sink it. Don’t fight them if you don’t understand or don’t agree. Hopefully, it will end up expanding your thinking and help you further discover your authentic life.
#1 Be selfish, but always Put the other person first. This is what got me in thinking of this topic. On one hand, I feel that it is most important to make yourself happy first because you can’t rely on others to do it for you. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that I can’t make another feel good too. That is my understanding of this paradox. Overall, I hope to get to a place where I can be happy, no matter what, AND because of that others are happy around me. After all, it is so much nicer to be around someone who is joyful and content, rather than resentful or frustrated. So feel free to put your happiness first. When you are happy, you’re a great role model for those around you.
#2 Live in the moment, but Focus on your future. This is another one that has been rolling around in my head. I have noticed there are two crowds teaching the LoA, and they’re either saying to live in the moment and enjoy what is in front of you, or that you should focus on where you want to go, not where you are. So which statement is true? Well, both. The key to understanding this paradox is the underlying fact that you need to follow your feelings. Yes, enjoy the moment. Feel really good about where you are, while knowing that you’re headed in the right direction. If you don’t feel good about the moment, then view it as a small section of time in your life, focus on the small amount of good, and put the rest of your energy into aligning with how you will feel once you have manifested your dream life.
#3 Fake it to make it, but Be Authentic. This was something one of my mentors wrote about on her own blog and I loved it! I could help but add this one to my list. I have been an advocate for “fake it til you make it,” but only under certain circumstances. So how do you know when to fake it, and how can you still be authentic? The secret is all in knowing why. What do you want to be the outcome? That is, if you want to be successful in business, but are struggling, what do you want? You want to be successful. This is a great example for when you should fake it! Start by creating an office space that commands respect and says “Successful.” Then dress the part. The confidence will slowly follow, and so will the increase in business. By being clear on what you want, you can “fake it” but be authentic. I’m not saying that you should buy an office building, spend lots of money and jet around the world, because that’s what successful people do. Start slow and identify the core idea of success for you. Personally, I never want an office building and I really don’t want to jet around the world speaking at conferences. So that kind of “faking” would be inauthentic, even thought I might end up successful.
#4 Find joy in life by Embracing anger and resentment. This comes from one of my favorite all time paradoxes: No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. It’s impossible to be happy when you’re angry or upset, so pretending to be happy, pushing it down or faking won’t do anything but aggravate you. There is also a false understanding of happiness. Being happy doesn’t mean you don’t get mad. You can experience the entire range of emotions and still be happy. Being joyful means a couple of things: a) you have a trusting in the universe that things will work out (takes the pressure off you having to ‘control’ everything) b) you don’t take things too seriously c) you bounce back easily from disappointments (due to the first 2). Which means you can feel the anger, be disappointed, hate someone, want to throw something…and then recover quickly. Embrace the feeling instead of fighting it. You won’t have to fight it, it won’t hang around as long, and you’ll be a lot happier. Everything is about perspective. The happiest people,the ones who are the most successful and the wealthiest just found ways to make the world work for them, rather than feeling like it’s against them.
These are ideas that will help you find happiness, if you just embrace them., rather than feeling like it’s against them.
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What I’ve learned from the 2010 Olympics
I absolutely love the Olympics. For those couple of weeks every 2 years I am basically glued to the TV. Since I am not terribly athletic myself, I really admire the skill, determination and strength it takes to get to the games. And then there is the fact that it high-lights sports I would never hear about otherwise (I mean, really…how crazy is luge and skeleton!!! So cool…) Combine all that with a chance to cheer for the country I LOVE and I’m hooked!
But on Saturday, I was standing in my kitchen. The TV was on in the living room (my house is fairly open concept, so I can see the TV from my kitchen) and I heard the broadcasters high-lighting a player from Canada’s Olympic Women’s Hockey team. Her dad happens to be a sports psychologist and they were talking about the advise he would give her.
(not a direct quote, for emphasis purposes only)
“He’d say enjoy the moment. Don’t focus on the result because that takes you out of the moment.”
A man after my own heart apparently…or maybe I missed my calling and should have stuck with psychology 
I’ve heard wisdom like that all week! Canada’s athletes are absolutely brilliant (at least the medal-winning ones) in their abilities to deal with pressure and stay focused and the speeds, distances and heights they are participating at. So I’ve come up with a short list of things that the average gal/guy can apply to our own lives.
- Live In The Moment.
This is the most prominent phrase so far. I’ve heard it over and over again. They’re all saying that the key to staying calm under such intense pressure, is to live in the moment. The moment you start focusing on the outcome, you feel stress, pressure, anxiety, overwhelm. You’re out of the moment, and your chances of winning are done.
So true in life, too. I know that when I am in the moment (the zone, the vortex, happy, whatever you want to call it) life flows really smoothly. I just do what needs to be done. I don’t add a story to it (Why can’t he pick up his darn socks for once! I’m not his maid…grumble grumble). I don’t start to think about what I need to do to be a total success in life. I don’t get overwhelmed. But the minute I over think stuff, it starts to get a little ugly. I stop truly listening (preferring to just interpret everything through my own lense). I get bossy and controlling. I get stressed. I start to feel like all responsibility for the entire worlds happiness relies on me. When I notice that, I can see how ridicuous I’m being and reign myself (and my ego) back into the moment. It’s almost as if being “in the moment” makes the ego disappear. Which I think is what Eckert Tolle’s, A New Earth was all about.
- Never Give Up.
Go as hard as you can, as long as you can, until the last second because THOSE are the people who win. Now, in context, this is not hard for me. I don’t work crazy long hours. I don’t even consider it work. IT does require effort. Like a favorite friend of mine said, it is “effortless, but requires effort.” Meaning it’s easy, but you still have to put action into it. LIFE is the exact same. It doesn’t have to be hard. But the people who are happy, healthy, successful and wealthy kept at it longer than their competition.
If you want that “gold medal” you have to put inspired action to work for you. Quit holding back and waiting for the perfect time (there will never be one) and don’t let someone else tell you how to live your life. You know what you have to do.
I can’t say this as a fact, but isn’t there a story of someone who fell or tripped in an event in the past, all thoughts of medals were gone. The person got back up and continued anyway, only to come in first or second place…people were disqualified, others fell…Am I crazy or just making it up? It does make for a good story if it is true! This also brings us to my third point.
- Crazy Things Can Happen (aka You Never Know What the Future Holds )
When Canada won the second gold medal, something really amazing was said. Maelle Ricker (Women’s Snow Cross) has enjoyed the sport since she was a child and always dreamed of going to the Olympics and winning a gold medal. This is all great and not uncommon, EXCEPT that until 1998 snow boarding wasn’t an Olympic sport. And Snow Cross wasn’t a sport in the olympics until 2006. So despite her current reality and all that people told her, she dreamt of and olympic gold one day. I think that says a lot about our dreams and how powerful they are if we have faith in them. Maelle didn’t have to worry about HOW it would happen, she just new it would and prepared herself for when it happened.
- Have Faith in Your Dreams.
Like I said in the above point, have a little faith. Even though it doesn’t look like your dream will ever come true, you have to keep going. Act like it is coming true. Prepare for it. The HOW is not up to you, but you have to be ready and follow inspired action. People will try to bring you down. They will tell you to be realistic and to look around at the current reality of the situation. You don’t have to believe them. You don’t even have to listen. Follow your dreams, have faith in what you believe!
So those are my Olympic epiphanies. Feels really good to know that I am on the right track and that others, in really admirable places, follow the same advice from their sport psychologists, as I follow (and teach) as a coach. I guess I am a coach. That’s what I do. If you need help getting your own epiphany (or just want happiness and harmony in your life), join me for the free Happiness & Harmony Makeover call. Sign up at http://kimberlyenglot.com/hhteleseminar.
Enjoy the rest of the games!
Want to use this in your eZine or on your blog? That’s fine as long as you don’t alter it in any way and include the following:
Kimberly Englot is the Authentic-Life Coach, & CEO of Authentic Self Personal Development. Her VIP Coaching and group programs will teach you to discover your authentic self and be free to change careers, find relationships, lose weight and pursue greatness! Clear away 6 years of “baggage” in 6 weeks with The Master LIFE Cleanse.
Standard transmissions, business coaching & consciousness! What do they have in common?
What do those three things have in common? ME!
my mazda (the "funnest" car ever)
A couple of years ago, I could drive a standard…if I was forced to. It was rough and jerky and I tended to just tell people I couldn’t, rather than get sucked into doing it. The suited me fine. My hubby had a standard, but my car was automatic, so I never needed to drive one. And he probably dreaded trying to be patient with me as I jerked and stalled and caused havoc with traffic, so he never forced me to.
Time to buy another car…and the one I wanted was a standard!
I actually never thought twice about it. I thought to myself…Hey, I have all the tools I need. I can do it, I just need practice and what better way to ensure that I practice, than to set myself up so that I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. And this was the case with 2 standard vehicles in the family now.
To be honest, I had a buffer period. We kept my old car about a month, while I was learning. Eventually there comes a point where you’re either going to do it, or your not. And I invested a lot of money into it…so I HAD to. The other choice, to admit defeat and lose thousands of dollars trying to resell the thing (not to mention the time and the headache) just wasn’t an option for me. So I learned. And it didn’t take that long. When you immerse yourself in an environment where you have to succeed, you succeed much quicker.
The brain is a fascinating thing (much like automatic transmissions! I’m telling you, they are truly miraculous! If you’ve never had to drive a standard, you can’t possibly realize how masterful they actually are. To get a machine to do it so smoothly….).
There are 4 stages of learning.
1. Unconscious Unknown.
This is where you don’t even know what you don’t know. Years and years ago, when I learned the basics of driving as a teenager, I didn’t know all of the stuff that went into driving! I never paid attention to the different kinds of signs, and what everything meant, and how to actually get from one place to another without hitting anything, or killing anyone. My coaching is the same. My first year in business, I had absolutely NO CLUE! I thought I did, but there is so much to know it’s impossible for anyone to figure it all out on their own, and be successful in the first year. (Hiring my own coach was the best choice of my life…because she is in a very advanced and aware stage 3).
2. Conscious Unknown
This is when I knew I couldn’t drive a standard. I sucked at it. Same with business (or anything else, really). After being in business for a month or so, I was very much aware of how much I didn’t know. This is also great, because it opened up doors everywhere. There was opportunities in places that I never even thought to look! And because I had someone who knew where they were (and how to get there…and how to open the door and fit in with the crowd beyond it) my transition through these stages was much smoother than most!
3. Conscious Known
I could finally drive a standard. I just wasn’t very good at it. This is the fine line between knowing you don’t know something…and just starting to try it. At this point all you can do is practice, hope for the best and don’t give up! It takes effort, but you’re also starting to see results (I finally got out of the driveway without stalling, and no longer accidentally spun my tires when shifting to first gear).
In my business, things were starting to take off, but it still took a lot of conscious effort! I spent countless hours screwing up my autoresponders, getting the forms wrong, and straightening out my messes! There were so many times when I would get something “just right.” Then my intuition would start bothering me….”you better recheck that.” So I would, and of course, I’d missed something! (I got really good at listening to my intuition!). It took all of the screws up to grow my understanding. If you want to know the ins and outs of your business, you need to learn to do it yourself at first. You’ll grow as a person, and you’ll really appreciate how much work it is when you can hand it off to someone else!
Ideally you will get to an advanced stage of conscious knowing, at least for the majority of your life. I’m not saying that you need to think through every thing you do, but being present as you do it will create appreciation and gratefulness for the small things in life.
4. Unconscious Known
This is a habit. And this isn’t necessarily the place you want to be in life. I’ll explain in a second, first the analogy.
Now I am at the unconscious know state in driving my car. I shift easily, without jerking or spinning my tires, or even noticing. It feel completely natural. In fact, I can’t remember what the big deal was about learning in the first place. I have this assumption than anyone can do it, and that it is really simple. Not a problem!
There are some things in my business that are at this point…my autoresponder is one of them (at least until I switched software, which I did about 2 months ago and the process started all over again!). Now, you might be thinking that this is the ideal place to be. But it isn’t. Do you really want to go through life, unconscious? Uh uh, you sure don’t.
This is what they’re talking about avoiding when they say, “live in the moment.” Again, it’s not that you need to put a lot of effort into thinking about the process for everything you do. But at least do it, aware that you’re doing it! Sometimes I have a bad habit of driving somewhere, caught up in my thoughts, and I arrive at my destination not really knowing how I got there. That is the kind of unconscious known I want to avoid.
What stage are you in right now? Where do you want to be?
If you are in stage 1 or 2 and want life to get a little easier, the fastest way to get there is to find someone who has gone through and get them to “show you the way!”
Want to use this in your ezine or blog? That’s fine as long as you don’t alter it in any way and add the following bio:
Kimberly Englot is the Authentic-Life Coach, & CEO of Authentic Self Personal Development. Her VIP Coaching and group programs will teach you to discover your authentic self and be free to change careers, find relationships, lose weight and pursue greatness! Clear away 6 years of “baggage” in 6 weeks with The Master LIFE Cleanse.
Stop Picking At It Already!
I was thinking today about when I was a kid. I’d fall down and get a gash on my knee, or go flying into the bushes while riding my bike and come out scratched up. Because the body is a miraculous thing, within a day I was well on my way to being healed.
Now if you have a mom anything like my mom, you remember how mom’s know everything. And some of the wise advice my mom shared with me was, “stop picking at it!”
She was right, of course. The more you pick at something, the worse it gets. Eventually it scars and you’re disfigured somewhat, even if it’s in a place where only you can see it.
The exact same is true with life. There is a more eloquent way of putting it, but “Stop picking at it” works really well too.
When there is something bothering you in life, it is tempting to try and force it to go away. So you “pick.” And what happens…it comes back, probably uglier. So you try to ignore it for a while, but eventually you get the urge to “pick at it” again. Finally you can’t help yourself, so you do. And after years of doing this, it scars you. You’re doing it to yourself and it’s unnecessary.
You can avoid the scarring process all together if you remember one thing: “You can only be exactly as you are in the moment.” This is the eloquent way of saying “don’t pick it.” You may not like it, but you can only be what you are, at any given time. Sometimes that involves feeling pain or being hurt. Sometimes it means being happy. Either way there is no use fighting it, because that moment cannot possibly be any other way.
You can argue with me. You can come up with all sorts of “alternate universe” or “what if” hypotheses, but guess what…it still is what it is. And that means the moment is perfect. No point in fighting it, or picking any longer. AND because everything is perfect, you will heal yourself, if you stop aggravating it and making it worse. (Just like your body heals scratches without you “willing it” to.)
Time to leave your wounds alone. Stop telling the story over and over again. Love the scars you have because they demonstrates how you’ve grown, but you don’t need to pick them anymore.
Want to use this in your ezine or blog? That’s fine as long as you don’t alter it in any way and add the following bio:
Kimberly Englot is the Authentic-Life Coach, & CEO of Authentic Self Personal Development. Her VIP Coaching and group programs will teach you to discover your authentic self and be free to change careers, find relationships, lose weight and pursue greatness! Clear away 6 years of “baggage” in 6 weeks with The Master LIFE Cleanse.
What I learned from Maxx
Maxx Christmas 2006. Doesn't that look cozy?
This is an article I wrote for my newsletter this summer, just after getting back from a week in the woods with my family.
Nothing like a bit of time away from everything to add clarity and perspective to life. While I was away I had a lot of time to catch up on my reading and actually breathe! I was lying in the hammock thinking about life when my cat, Maxx, when breezing by me on the hunt for a particularly irritating squirrel. I got this light of inspiration at that moment:
Why read hundred of books and spend thousands of dollars “pursuing” happiness and success when you can learn it all from your pet?
Maxx is a perfect sample of what it means to be happy and have a great life and I want to share some of my insights with you for how I learned happiness and success from my cat.
1. Maxx is incredibly persistent. Have you ever tried to pry a cat away from a tree that a squirrel is hiding in? I have, and let me tell you that cat has a one track mind and isn’t letting you derail its mission!
2. Maxx take life as it comes. Yes, she might be unhappy when I stick her in the car kennel to go to the vet (or on a fairly long road trip), but after a loud meow and some crying she cut her losses and re-prioritizes (comfort above all), and goes to sleep. This leads me to the next point…
3. Maxx has her priorities straight! Food, sleep, chasing bugs, sleep, cuddles. That is what her day usually looks like, and she “tolerates” the odd disruption, but always does her best to refocus on one of her priorities afterward.
Kim and Maxx (both as "babies!")...seems like yesterday. This was 2004?
4. Maxx can be happy without effort. Even when a cuddle is “forced” on her, she can express her disatisfaction with you by flicking her tail, but also enjoy the moment by purring. (She would never want YOU to know that she is actually enjoying it, but I happen to be a cat mind-reader and I can tell. Ok, I lied about the mind-reading bit…)
5. Maxx has purr-fected “living in the moment”. Yes, all of the above points have been leading to this last one. Maxx lives moment-to-moment. She has no sense of time, she lives on a schedule of her instincts and what makes her happy. You would never see Maxx intentionally hurting herself or calling herself bad names. You never see her struggling with self-esteem issues. She realizes her life is great and she is going to enjoy it!
Bad jokes and puns aside, we can learn a lot from those around us…even when “those” include 4 legged furry creatures.
A Lesson from Lord of The Rings
I was watching Lord of The Rings:The Fellowship of The Ring (the first one) last weekend with my husband. This line from the movie really struck me:
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.
It is from the beginning of the adventure, when the fellowship is not that far into their quest. I think it is exactly at the point where they are trying to get into the mines of Morian. Anyway my geekiness is showing …The point of this blog is that we don’t always know what is meant for us. What appears to be hardship, is actually destiny and there is no way for you to predict how things will turn out. Everything is exactly as it is meant to be…because that is how it is. Do you best to see light, focus on what you might learn, rather than how you migh suffer.
