Three Experiments To Help You Take Control Of Your Life

The thought of taking control of your life can seem very daunting. Fear of the unknown and change is always a concern for people who are not used to take a bit of risk in their life. The good news is reality is vary rarely as bad as anything you can come up with in your head by over worrying and paralyzing yourself with fear. I have put together three different mindset and experiments for you to try right night to get you on the road to taking control of your life.

The First Step To Taking Control Of Your Life

One of the problems you face as you go through the daily routine is that you are constantly shown that there are people who are better than us.

In sport, in business, music, engineering and the whole range of human pursuits I can guarantee that there will always be the elite group who are simply the best.

Behind their excellence are several myths, and shining a light on these can give you a different truth to live by.

One of these is the myth of instant excellence.

Malcolm Gladwell has suggested that mastery of a subject can be achieved with around ten thousand hours of practice.

World class sportsmen, musicians, bear this out. Footballers are on the pitch for 90 minutes, but they spend the rest of their week training, kicking hundreds of balls into the back of the net, so that when they get the chance during the game, they just do it.

If you had to tell a story about a footballer, would you focus on the training or on the goals they score?

To watch someone doing something for ten thousand hours would be pretty dull, and doesn’t make for good telly.

If you edit ten thousand hours into a twenty second slot of kicking balls, you can then get onto the good stuff – the goals and the fancy game play.

So the lesson is lost, and a new learning takes place – they are great because they are gifted, they have ‘talent’.

If you want to get good at something, give yourself a break.

You won’t be world class after trying it for ten minutes, nor should you expect to be, but you will be better than you were ten minutes ago.

If you continue to practice, you will get better every time.

Experiment 1: Practice Makes Perfect

Choose a skill that you would like to get better at.

If this is the first time you are doing this exercise, choose something relatively quick and simple, like writing your name with your non-dominant hand, or drawing a certain object, or learning to count to twenty in a foreign language, or saying “hello” to a stranger.

Nothing dramatic like brain surgery!

On a plain piece of paper, write the task out and make a note of how good you are at the task, on a scale of one to one hundred, where one is absolutely unable to perform the task, and one hundred is when you can perform the task in your sleep.

Write out the numbers from one to one hundred on separate lines (using more paper if you have to) and then do your first attempt.

Once complete, make any notes of your experience next to number one.

Are you better?

Probably not noticeably, but just note your score.

Fill in the list every time you do the next attempt, and be curious as to how many times it takes before you notice an improvement in your technique.

The aim of this experiment is not to get 100% perfect, it is notice the rate at which you improve and also to notice your emotions as you go through the experiment.

The Second Step To Taking Control Of Your Life

Let’s play a little game.

Think of a fizzy drink….what is it?

How about a fast food restaurant?

Who is the most beautiful supermodel?

The most popular popstar?

Name a tall building in Europe.

Now one in North America.

Knowing a little about how people tick, I’m pretty sure that when asked for each example, something would pop straight into your mind, before you even had time to think about it.

Now try this.

Think of someone who makes you angry.

Think of someone who makes you laugh.

Do you notice that again, someone springs almost instantly to mind, and that you also started to feel something too?

As you noticed, the answers come fast, very fast.

And in the case of the people I asked you to think about, the emotions arrived at just about the same time.

Let me introduce you to your fantastic unconscious, a part of you that produces consistent results, without you getting in the way.

Think of your unconscious as having an evolved Google search engine.

Whatever you ask for, it seeks through the library of your memory for answers, and gives you those answers quicker than you can blink.

If it cannot find answers in your memory, it will have a good go at making up a plausible one.

If it can’t make up an answer (how tall was the fourth president of the United States of America?), then it might start to get uneasy.

So what does this have to do with choice?

Good question deserving of a good answer.

If you do not decide what will happen when exposed to different stimuli, then you will forever be vulnerable to the instant reflex reactions that your inner Google will throw up at you.

If you do not decide what questions to ask, you will always ask the same questions – and – you will always get the same answers.

If you ask great questions, great!

You get great answers that pull you towards the life you want to live.

If you ask crappy questions, that’s great too!

Because you can, right now, make a decision to learn how to ask better questions, and you can also, decide, right now to switch your inner Google to look for better answers.

Experiment 2: Choosing Your Destiny

Make a list of the typical reactions you have when you think about the following:

1. Getting intimate with someone
2. Standing in front of a large audience and doing a presentation
3. Confronting a work colleague about a mistake they have made, which you both need to sort out.

Note the feelings that pop up, note the way the movie plays in your mind, and notice if the end of the scene is one you desire.

Now, imagine that you are a storyteller, and you could choose how each scene went.

What changes would you make?

What differences would make you enjoy watching the scenes?

How could you change it from a horror movie to a show that you actually want to watch, where you do exactly what you need to do to get the results you want?

Is this a better story to tell yourself?

Once you start to realise that you can develop the skill of telling yourself better stories, you will start living better stories and you will enjoy the story of your life like never before.

Enjoy the movie, and I look forward to sharing your story soon!

The Third Step To Taking Control Of Your Life

In today’s crazy mixed up world, it is no surprise that fun ain’t what it used to be.

You live in a world dominated by the seven deadly sins. (Pride, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, avarice, wrath; in case you’d forgotten!)

This is a world where status and possession are top of most people’s lists.

For those who reject wealth’s vulgarity, there is the joy of superiority.

Don’t you get the feeling it’s all a bit rushed and serious?

Technology improves, the messages are delivered faster, and we end up pursuing ghosts of success that haunt us with feelings of inadequacy, fear and loathing.

Not much fun there then.

But what if it was all illusion?

What if all that success, all those adverts, and all those newspaper headlines, travelling faster than the speed of thought, were nothing more than confetti, just flimsy flashes of colour with no substance to them?

What if we didn’t have to take it all so seriously and get back to actually just having fun?

Because the secret behind the secret is not just that ‘you get more of what you focus on, you also get more of how you are focused.

That’s a crucial idea, and worth saying again, slowly.

Because the secret behind the secret is not just that ‘you get more of what you focus on’; you also get more of how you are focused.

Because if you focus on the good life, with the big house and the fancy car and the model family and you are doing it with tight lipped determination, bordering on desperation, you will get more of all of it.

All of it, the success and the tight lipped desperation.

But if you focus on a life that inspires you, and turns on those parts of your brain that go wow!; then you will get more of all of it.

All of it, the success and the inspiration.

Sounds better, I hope you’ll agree.

If your goal is build your self-esteem and you are desperate to do it, you will end up with desperate self-esteem.

Choose, therefore to build your self esteem and have fun at the same time, because the payoff is that you get more of both.

Experiment 3: Making Life Fun

For the couple of days, keep a journal of all the stuff you do that is fun.

Every evening, just before you go to sleep, review the day and notice where and when you had the most fun.

Then think about the following day, and get curious as to where and when you will have the most fun.

How much fun can you have in one hour?

One day?

One life time?

The answer is up to you, and you might even start having fun finding out.

Your life is not about having low confidence, low self-esteem or having anxieties that put your stress levels through the roof.

Get Your Free Report – You can get a free copy of “How To Build Self-Confidence & Take Control of Your Life by CLICKING HERE and entering your email address.

 

About The Author – Jon Daniels is a Top UK Self-Confidence Coach. Find out how you can build self-confidence and take control of your life today by visiting www.stepupspeakout.co.uk

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