| To Succeed...Just Let Go - Willie Horton |
| ISBN 1-85756-645-9 |
Do you ever feel that nothing works out for you and that you are not actually much of a success at anything? Do you find yourself dreaming about what you would really like to happen in you life but always dismiss these thoughts as unobtainable and fanciful? It doesn’t have to be that way. What you are lacking is self-belief. In this book, Willie Horton looks closely at our attitude to life and the fundamental importance of positive thinking in achieving our goals. He takes us through various mind-training processes, encouraging us to identify our desires in life, work out a plan as to how to achieve them and then work assertively towards the fulfilment of those goals. He stresses the need for the strength of will not to give up in the face of adversity. To Succeed … Just Let Go tackles issues that affect many of us at some time in our lives, especially during periods of frustration or stagnation. It is a practical and accessible guide to facing life head on and throwing down the gauntlet to good fortune and success.
My daughter, Louise, is one of the leading tennis players in our part of France, for her age. She plays about eighty or ninety matches a year and trains about five times a week. As a result, we came to an agreement with the Director of her school that she could us one of her two weekly sports classes, during autumn and spring, to train with her tennis coach at her tennis club.
Her November school report arrived at the house – second in her class overall but last in her class at sports! I asked to meet Louise’s head teacher together with the sports teacher. He explained that, because she only did one test that Autumn and because she was sick that day – which meant she couldn’t run non-stop for twenty minutes – she got the lowest mark.
When I said that didn’t seem fair and that it would affect her marks in the following Summer’s State exam, the head teacher asked him to see if he could come up with some other way of marking her. He started shouting at me. So, I turned to the head teacher and, behind my back, in front Louise, he started making faces at me.
But that’s not all. We decided that Louise would not do any more of his sports classes – and the Director agreed.
The following Spring, a couple of weeks before the State exam, Louise turned up for the in-school part of the exam – the sports teacher was exam supervisor! Just as everyone got ready to open their exam papers, he stood over Louise and told her to write an explanation and apology for not turning up in sports class. When she said that the Director had arranged for this, he stormed out of the class to question the Director – the exam was delayed by half and hour.
I suggested to the Director that the sports teacher’s behaviour was threatening and that he better sort it out. After I then suggested that the police needed to be told, the sports teacher suddenly found a new school for the following year.
Have you ever had any trouble with those in whose care you place your children?
The World Health Organisation believes that stress will be the biggest killer of the 21st century. UK Government statistics indicate that over 15 million workdays were lost in 2008 due to stress. In the US, the National Institute for Occupational Safety predicts that depression will be the leading occupational disease of the 21st century. The same organisation regularly publishes reports on the affects of stress on heart disease, accidental injury in the workplace, etc., etc. – it’s a pretty long list.
The World Health Organisation published a list of recommended ways of combating stress, which included listening to music, horticulture – or growing your own fruit and veg! – and meditation. Not a single drug made it onto the list!
You see, as psychiatrists in Ireland, UK and US point out, stress and depression are not illnesses – they are emotions. To put it more simply, stress is a state of mind. Same with depression.
We allow ourselves to get stressed – we allow ourselves to become depressed. In fact, looking at it from the perspective that we choose our own thoughts, we decide to be stressed or depressed. Outside events don’t stress us – how we react to outside events is what determines how we feel about them and ourselves.
You might be forgiven for thinking that this is madness – surely, no one decides to be stressed or depressed. But consider eighty years of psychological research that proves that ‘normal’ people are mad! Research shows that we use a tiny proportion of our mental capability – perhaps as little as 1%. It’s also been proved that we live automatically – our behaviour and reactions dictated by our subconscious programming.
In other words, we react like pre-programmed robots. What other explanation could there be for the way we react to situations and make matters worse? Why else would we shout and abuse our nearest and dearest? For what other reason would so many people put up with work they don’t like?
Unfortunately, stress, just like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder! And, as long as we don’t take control of even just a little more of our own mental power, we’ll all still be hassled, stressed and even depressed. We allow ourselves to be stressed – because we do nothing about it. Research that I’ve carried out with my own clients in discussion groups could be summarised by saying that we allow ourselves to be stressed because we’re lazy. And, remember, most of my clients are already successful business leaders!
What my clients mean is that they know how to access and control more of their mental capability than ‘normal’ people – and, yet, they still let themselves slip – by not taking action to ensure that they’re in the right state of mind. But, what do ‘action’ and the ‘right state of mind’ mean?
If you’re normal, living automatically, you cannot take action – you can only react. Also, you will always be in a state of mind dictated by your automatic reaction to outside events. You will never be in control. Indeed, research from the Universities of Milan and Chicago has proven that you’ll only ever be in the right state of mind by accident – when you have a ‘peak experience’ – like watching a beautiful sunset, witnessing the birth of your child, scoring that perfect goal or watching a great film – when two hours seems like ten minutes. Otherwise, if you’re ‘normal’, you will never be able to place yourself in the right state of mind.
What is the right state of mind? Certainly not stressed, depressed or hassled! Neither is it a positive state of mind. I know plenty of positive people who cave in when something bad happens – because they didn’t expect it!
The right state of mind is when you’re fully engrossed in what you’re doing – just in the here and now. That’s why the World Health Organisation suggests things like music, gardening and meditation. That’s why I’ve loads of successful business people meditating!
Now, don’t get me wrong, meditation is often misunderstood – particularly by people who meditate! The key everyday practical purpose of meditation is to develop your own mental self-discipline to stay cool, calm and focused in the present moment – whatever that involves.
But, as I’ve already said, even many of my clients don’t meditate – they’ve admitted themselves that they’re lazy. So, why not try something easier – something I borrowed from Harvard Business School. Do some little things – habitual things that you do everyday – differently. In doing so, you break the chain of automatic reactive behaviour. You decide that you have a choice how you will behave, just in that moment. And by doing a little something differently, you will pay more attention – becoming more engrossed in what you’re doing.
Now that’s the perfect state of mind.