Tag: Healthy Relationships

Everything We Do Is About Legacy

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Leadership, Relationships, Success

When we think of legacy, we think of having children or building a business or community organisation that will go on for generations, but I would argue that everything we do is about legacy.

Whenever we interact with someone, the impact, whether positive or negative, from our words and actions can be far-reaching. Like ripples across water, we can deeply wound or deeply enthuse those we interact with. Someone could be having a terrible day, but kind words or an actual of kindness can turn their day around and could be a catalyst for positive change.

Alternatively, if we are mean or unkind, we could change a person’s life trajectory down a dark path. Our words and actions have the power to impact the lives of others significantly.

Some years ago, I met a homeless man sitting outside a shop crying. I stopped to talk to him, and he told me that it was his 40th birthday and he was alone. It was November, and we were coming into a cold winter in the UK. He told me that he was on a waiting list for a hostel but had to wait 12 weeks. This meant he had to survive living on the streets through the winter before he could get a place to live.

I talked with him for a while, and as I lived nearby, I went home and packed a bag of warm clothes, including a woolly hat and gloves, and gave them to him. He was very grateful. I like to think that this small act of kindness got him through the winter and may have dissuaded thoughts of suicide during that difficult time. I also like to think that he has a better life now and is passing on the goodwill to others. I have no way of knowing, of course, but I hope. A small act of generosity from me could have had a big impact on him.

We don’t know the impact we have on those we interact with day to day. So, be kind, be generous, and be accepting of others, and together we can make the world a better place one interaction at a time, and if we make this a habit then this will change us for the better too.

The Law Of Receptivity

Happiness, Relationships, Success

The fifth Law of Stratospheric Success for the book The Go-Giver is The Law of Receptivity.

“The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.”

The Go-Giver

When we give something to someone at least part of us wants that person to be grateful that we took the time, the effort or the money to give them whatever it is. However, sometimes we can be ungrateful when others give us things, because it is not what we wanted or we don’t want help from others or some other reason.

When we are not open to receiving gifts from others we disrespect the act of giving. In fact, being open to receiving honours the gift and the giver. It is a gift to wholeheartedly receive a gift from others. Who are you to refuse a gift from someone else. In order for giving to work at all there has to be a receiver.

It is a kind of partnership that goes around and around. You give and then you receive and then you give again. It is the exchange of effort and time that keeps relationships going. To be an effective giver you have to be an effective receiver too.

Reducing The Suffering Of Others

Happiness, Health, Relationships

Naturally in life we don’t want to see other people suffer. However, we often go about the world interacting with others from our own point of view. We think about things in terms of how they impact us. This can cause us to be reactive to life’s events, asking ‘Why have they done this to me?’, for example. A better question to ask is ‘Why did they do that?’ This moves the thinking from us to them and allows us to consider the reason the other person is behaving the way they are.

Hurt people hurt people. So if someone hurts you with their words or their actions it is an indication that they are suffering, and rather than becoming reactive and trying to hurt them back, we could be compassionate and empathetic. This diffuses the situation and creates a space to helps the other person to heal. We will heal a little too.

If we reframe how we see our interactions with others and move from ‘How can I make things better for me?’ to ‘How can I reduce their suffering?’, then your relationships will improve and life will become more fulfilling.

Learn To Listen

Happiness, Relationships

If we listen to the language people use and the topics of conversation they drift towards you can get a sense of their priorities and values. You can figure out what they care about.

This is not a strategy to get the better of them or try to sell them something. It is a strategy, however, that can help you build better relationships. When we understand each other better we can serve each other better.

The Key To Positive Interactions

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I used to work in a special needs school working young people with conditions like Autism and ADHD and I was thinking today about how we often assume everyone else experiences the world in the same way that we do. It is an assumption that we don’t necessarily decide on, it is just there.

Some Autistic people struggle to understand social rules, empathy and some find facial expressions difficult to process. Seeing the world as someone with Autism sees it is very different to someone who does not have Autism. We all also see through the lens of our own experiences as well. Our experience of the world is in fact unique to us. This means that it is unique for everyone else too.

So, when we interact with other people it is best to try and listen to understand the other person’s experience and how they understand that experience. Empathy is the key to successful relationships of any kind. If you understand where someone is coming from and why, then compassion is often the next step in connecting with them. If we assume we are always right, we will never learn anything new. Every interaction with another person is an opportunity to learn something new.

2022 Goals: Healthy Relationships

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Our wellbeing is intrinsically tied to the quality and number of the relationships that we have. Feeling lonely or being in a relationship where you are treated poorly has a direct impact on your mental health and physical health.

Steps 4 on the Pathway To Fulfilment is Healthy Relationships. It is important that we have healthy relationships in our lives. This includes having people you can talk to about anything, people you connect with, people who are part of your ‘tribe,’ people who will be there for you when you need them.

This includes all of your relationships; colleagues, family, friends and partners. Relationships are always two sides as well, so we have to make sure we put the effort in to maintain good relationships by spending time with people, caring about what is going on with them and being there for them too.

So, what are you going to do this year to ensure you have healthy relationships?

You could spend more time checking in with people to see how they are, you could spend time with people rather than just commenting on their social media posts, you could reconnect with old friends who you haven’t seen for a while, or you could focus on finding balance in the significant relationships in your life.

Meet People Where They Are

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we have big plans or we want to bring something new into the world or we are strong with our views, we often forget to see the position other people are in, because we are so focused on our own message.

This way of communicating often feels natural or the right way to behave, but when we do we miss a huge opportunity. When we communicate in this way we meet people where we are, we project 100 percent outwards. This often causes clashes and conflict, because others are doing the same thing.

We could let others communicate 100 percent and become completely passive, but this is not good either. The ideal is to meet people where they are and where we are and aim for a 50/50 exchange. This involves actively listening and caring about the other person and taking turns. All very basic things to do, but often forget to do them.

Disagree More

Happiness, Success

Often we spend time with those we agree with on the majority of things we have an opinion on. This is good, in that we are spending our time with like minded people, but if we rarely disagree with anyone we can find it difficult to do so and maintain a positive relationship when a disagreement arises.

Social media also does not help with this for two reasons. Firstly, if we disagree with someone that we interact with on social media then we can find it easy to go on a full on rant, as we are not face to face with them, or we can ‘ghost’ them by unfriending and blocking them. An easy solution that does not resolve the disagreement.

Secondly, the content we see on social media is collated to show things similar to what we have liked, commented on and even spoken about within earshot of our device. Google is always listening. This is because the social media companies are selling our attention to the those who pay for it. Our attention is a commodity.

This creates a kind of echo chamber where we only hear our own views reflected back at us in the content we see. This removes the opportunity to develop the skills to disagree with someone respectfully, as many people spend more time online than they do interacting with people face to face.

My advice would be to spend more time interacting with people face to face and to practice disagreeing with them respectfully. Debate topics with people that you trust to be respectful back.

When the opportunity arises to give a different point of view, do it, because what you have to say may well be valuable. We learn more from each other through debate than we do through simply agreeing to avoid conflict. It is not an easy skill to master, but an essential skill to be successful in life.

Building Trust

Happiness, Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, and often it does. The difficulty comes when technology promises to make your life easier and then it does not deliver. This is kills trust.

I have a pre-payment electicity meter, which is a Smart Meter that is not so smart. I can top it up easily enough on the company’s website using my debit card and the promise is that it will reflect on my Smart Meter in my home within 60 minutes. It never does.

When you search for guidance on how to top up the meter manually, you find a video on the company’s website where a man gives instructions on how to manually top up the meter by entering a twenty digit number, one digit at a time.

Each number requires you to press the button repeatedly; eight times for a number seven and once for a zero, twenty times. The man even suggests, in his mannerisms and words, that this is a common problem.

The point I am making is not to have a moan about this poor service. My point is that the company appears to find it easier, and possibly cheaper, to make a video explaining how to manually top up the meter rather than fixing the problem to allow the meters to top up automatically once they are topped up online. This may benefit the company in the short term but trust is lost with their customers, which may be more costly in the long term.

This is a business relationship between a business and a customer, but the same can be said for personal relationships. A quick fix in the short term will not build a strong relationship. For example, you cannot buy trust, you must trust others and act in ways that allow others to trust you, this takes time and consistency.

As another example, if you said that you gave £10 to a homeless person this morning you might get a vague well done. If you said that you gave up your weekend to help paint a community centre then this will be much more respected. The point is that time spent helping others has more meaning and value than money spent, which is quickly done.

The very definition of money is that you are giving an IOU for someone else to provide goods and service in the future, it states this clearly on all bank notes. In effect you are passing the buck.

The fact that it takes time and energy to build trust is true in all human relationships.

5 Rules On How To Build Trust

Happiness, Success

Trust is one of those things that can be hard to actively create with other people. We have all built trust with those we spend a lot of our time with, whether they are family, friends or colleagues. The longer we spend with people the more opportunity there is to build trust, so we often trust our friends and family more than we do our colleagues. However, trust is vitally important if we are to work and live together well.

Here are a few rules to follow in order to build trust with others.

Firstly, trust must be shared and we must go first. Always doing what you say you are going to do does not make you trustworthy, it just means that you are reliable. We must give people a certain level of responsibility over something important to us and leave them to do it. The more you do this the more the person feels trusted. They will then trust you with something and on it goes.

Secondly, if someone trusts you to do something or to keep something secret, you must do so, every time. This is the second part of the human covenant that is trust. It must go both ways. Over time the process builds strong trust.

Thirdly, gossip is a trust killer. When someone gossips to you about someone else it does two things; you know that they will share other people’s personal lives and their secrets behind their back to gain attention and that they will likely do it behind your back too. If you gossip you will not be trusted.

Fourthly, the giving of trust should not be given regardless of whether the trust is honoured. Sometimes you can trust someone over and over and the person proves themselves untrustworthy. At some point you need to draw a line in the sand and withdraw your trust. When trusting someone begins to effect your wellbeing it is time to withdraw that trust.

Fifthly, all people should not be trusted equally. The nature of human relationships is that each is unique. This involves differing levels of trust with different people. This is normal, and you should not feel that everyone should always be trusted. Trust is an aspect of a relationship and rules one to four should be applied in each relationship.

Developing The Pathway To Fulfilment

The Pathway To Fulfilment

My intention is to create a process by which you can start to live well. To me living well means to live in a way that brings about happiness and success, which in turn brings about fulfilment in our lives. This is not a life hack or magical cure for what ails you. It is a deeply personal journey of self-discovery, of life balancing and of purpose finding. This is an evolving process, until I feel a clear and actionable ‘Pathway’ is created, so it can be shared and used effectively.

I have reflected on the first two steps to the existing Pathway and have moved Acquired Wisdom to Step 1, as I feel that wisdom gives us a strong foundation from which to build. I have replaced Self Knowledge with Self Mastery and moved it to Step 2, as self knowledge is a useful mental exercise, whereas self mastery is an actionable way of being, which is built on both wisdom and self knowledge. This, I feel, is a more effective part of the journey, as self mastery is required in order to have a life well lived. The six steps  are now Acquired Wisdom, Self Mastery, Good Health, Healthy Relationships, Defining Your Purpose and Living Your Purpose.

The six steps of the Pathway To Fulfilment are divided into Where To Begin, What To Maintain and How To Live Well. Now that I have an outline of a process that I believe will bring about fulfilment in ones life, I aim to add in the detail of the activities and actions you will follow within each step of the journey towards fulfilment and a life well lived. Watch this space and the Facebook Group Community for up and coming updates.

WHERE TO BEGIN

Step 1: Acquired Wisdom

We acquire the wisdom of others from a variety of sources, spiritual and secular. Wisdom challenges us and enlightens us. Often this is achieved by extensive reading, but, with the internet, a lot of this same wisdom can also be obtained through videos, audio books and pod-casts, however you learn best. This wisdom will feed into what you already know about yourself, it will influence how you see yourself and how you choose to live; helping towards self mastery.

There is a lot of wisdom out there to acquire, and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish wisdom from well sounding ignorance, so to simplify things for you I have broken down the wisdom I have found into ten Principles Of A Life Well Lived that will help you navigate the world skilfully. They are what I consider to be the essential wisdom to acquire. I will delve into each principle and explore how it will enhance your life. I have divided the principles into those that relate to Self and those that relate to Others. The principles related to Self are Growth, Equanimity, Fortitude, Seeking and Self Competition, and those related to Others are Stewardship, Servant-hood, Reciprocity, Joy Making and Connection. I will be sharing more detail on these moving forward.

Step 2: Self Mastery

The process of self mastery begins with getting to know yourself more substantially than you may have before; figuring out what really makes you tick, what you believe and don’t believe, what you think is true and false, what you think is ethical and not ethical, etc. It includes figuring out your beliefs and your ethics. Also, what happiness and success look like to you, personally, because our happiness and success are relative to our values, which are very personal to each of us. Our happiness and our success will not bring about fulfilment if they are not aligned with our values.  Self mastery begins with broad and deep self-knowledge and then in order to gain and maintain mastery of yourself you will need to cultivate both body and mind, the tools for which will come from the ten Principles Of A Life Well Lived.

This will primarily be mastery of your thoughts, which is the same whether you are embarking on self-development or a journey of faith. Our mind and body are in a sort of synergy, which means our thoughts effect the chemistry our brains create in our bodies, which in turn creates sickness or wellness. Wellness, being the optimal state to be in. Also, that if we fine tune our body through exercise, through practices such as Yoga, and if we cultivate strong Qi (Chi) in our energy system, through practices like Tai Chi and Qigong, our physical well-being will flourish and allow our mental mastery and well-being to develop too. Self Mastery is both physical and mental, which leads me to Step 3: Good Health.

WHAT TO MAINTAIN

Step 3: Good Health

Your health should be of great concern, because good health is essential for your well-being and having an active, fulfilling life. I have included the usual physical health and mental and emotional health, and I have also included energy health; all of which could be thought of as a triad of good health. Good physical health includes diet and exercise. Good mental and emotional health includes mastering your emotions and balancing your thoughts. Good energy health includes mastering the Qi (Chi) that flows through your energy system, like blood through your bloodstream, as detailed in Traditional Chinese Medicine. To have good health you need to work on all three of these areas.

Step 4: Healthy Relationships

In this step you look at your relationships, and identify those relationships that are good for you and those that are not, and those that are a mixture of the two, that need work to become good. You should continuously work towards all of your relationships being healthy ones; meaning that they bring you happiness rather than stress, they uplift you rather than bring you down, and they are aligned with your values and ethics. These relationships are in circles of community, which are relationships with your self, your partner, your family, your friends, your colleagues and your acquaintances, and they are all interconnected.

HOW TO LIVE WELL

Step 5: Defining Your Purpose

After working your way through this journey so far, you will have a solid foundation for how to start living your life better. From this new understanding of yourself, your defined beliefs and ethics form part of what I call your Purpose Prism, the third piece of this prism being your purpose. You will go through a process of building on your beliefs and your ethics, weaving in Acquired Wisdom and Principles Of A Life Well Lived, and all you have learned from steps 2, 3 and 4 and define your personal purpose. This prism is the filter through which you will see and experience the world, and it will influence your thoughts, speech and actions, making them wiser in nature. Your purpose comes from a vision of a better world that you want to help create.

Step 6: Living Your Purpose

You will then be set to start applying your beliefs, ethics and purpose to your life, to find your best way to live them out in your thoughts, speech and actions; to act on your vision of a better world through everything that you do. This is living your life on purpose. All of this work will mean that both happiness and success become personal, and therefore fulfilling, all three of which are bi-products of a life well lived. When the garden of our lives is tended to properly, these things blossom, but if we focus on achieving them without tending to the important things in our lives then these things will not blossom. Your happiness, success and fulfilment along your journey then feed back into your acquired wisdom, self mastery, health, relationships and your beliefs, ethics and purpose, and on it goes, because this journey is a life long endeavour. Follow the Path To Fulfilment and live well my friends.