I get a lot of emails from people who are struggling to change their lives in one way or another: losing weight, quitting smoking, getting fit, fighting procrastination, changing careers, and generally trying to live their dreams.

And I've been seeing a really common theme lately, that mirrors my personal decades of degradation as a self-help junkie.

You see, I've spent a lot of years guilt-tripping myself over my supposed inadequacies, and agonizing over things that really weren't my fault.

So I'm writing this, in the hopes that it will save someone else -- maybe you? -- an awful lot of grief.

However, be warned: if you are currently a self-help junkie, addicted to one or more of the (figurative) sacred cows I'm about to slaughter, you will probably find some portions of what you're about to read to be personally offensive.  So if someone whose teachings you follow, someone you look up to and admire gets ripped a new one in this article...  don't say I didn't warn you.

'Cause junkies never like it when you mess with their supplier.

Click here, if you think you can take it.

When I made the to-do list, I had no idea how big a mistake I was making.

It was Friday night, the end of a spectacular week in which I made more progress on more projects than I would have dreamed possible for me just a few years ago.  I hit all my critical targets for the week, and didn't have any planned for the weekend and coming week.

But then I made a stupid mistake: instead of continuing to do the things that produced that success, I got lazy.

It was late, and I was in a hurry, so I just dashed down a sloppy old to-do list, the way I used to, in no particular order, mixing high-level projects like "prepare this month's topics" with low-level odds and ends like "return library books" and "backup PC".

Now, I just recorded a CD a few weeks ago with a detailed explanation of how to plan things in a way that's actually motivating...  and that way was soooooooo not a to-do list!  So, it should have come as absolutely no surprise the next day, when I had absolutely no interest in doing a single damned thing off that list!

For some reason, though, this didn't even occur to me at the time.  I spent a frustrating Saturday in which only the little things on my list got done...  and damn few of those.  Meanwhile, I felt the old deadline pressure building, and felt like things were getting out of control.

Sadly, I'd made the oldest mistake in the motivation book: confusing the output of a process (some writing on paper) with the process itself (stuff that has to happen in your brain, in order to make a difference).

I deluded myself into thinking I could make a list that looked like the lists I'd made before, and still get the same great results... even though I hadn't gone through the same thought process I used for the earlier lists.

This is why some people can take a new time management or organizational method and have it work great for the first week or two... until suddenly it seems like just a bunch of work filling out forms, that's not really helping anything.

It's like being a little kid who thinks that turning the steering wheel of a car back and forth is what makes it go.  You might look like you're driving the car, but all you're doing is spinning your wheels!

This is also the big difference between thinking you "already know" how to get results in your life... and actually getting them.  Truth is, if you're not doing it, it doesn't matter what you think you know.

And nobody is immune.  I mean, I just recorded a damn CD about doing this motivation-based planning technique less than two weeks ago, for crying out loud.  I've actually been using the technique for a whole month, and getting phenomenal successes with it.  And still, I succumbed to "already-know-it" disease!

There is a phenomenal gap between knowing and doing, because the "knowing" and "doing" parts of the brain are barely on speaking terms.  But if you don't get both of those parts to work together, you will end up filling out the forms and going through the motions of whatever new "system" you pick to run your life...  without ever feeling the calm and confidence of really being in control.

Let's imagine that I made a video of myself working, using the method I now teach.  If all you could do was watch what I did on the outside, you would probably focus on the fact that I'm using index cards, writing a title at the top of each one, and breaking down further details on the cards.  You'd notice things about how I mark items to be done today or next, and how I track what things are in progress or completed, what things need to be or have been broken out onto other cards, and so on.

You would then conclude that you "already know" how my system works, because you could faithfully go through the motions of copying everything I do on the outside.  And you would, quite logically and correctly, conclude that it's nothing special at all.

And so you would never actually try it for yourself, and even if you did, you wouldn't get the same sense of control, motivation, and ease that it gives to me!

Because you'd have missed the real system, which lies entirely within my head.  The writing on the cards are merely a convenient record of what already took place in my mind.  A matter of mere style, rather than the real substance.

And unfortunately, this is what virtually all self-help material consists of: detailed sets of instructions for copying the visible side-effects of what successful people do differently in their minds!

This is why I've been building a second career around changing all that -- teaching people the real distinctions, the "differences that make a difference" to finding your focus and living your dreams.

So, being the big-shot professional guru that I am now, it only took me a freakin' day to realize my mistake, instead of weeks or months like it used to take me.  ;-)

And once I got done slapping myself upside the head for my stupidity, I went ahead and replaced my weekend "to-do" list with a motivation-based plan for having a great week.

And in a matter of minutes, I knew exactly where I stood on every important project, and was able to rapidly identify which things I needed to get done right away...  so I could take the evening off and take my wife out for dinner and a movie.

Without spending the entire date thinking I should be working!

So I had a great night out with my wife yesterday, and lo and behold, what do I find in my inbox this morning?  Why, this email from Jack, an associate member of my self-improvement group:

"I was a little skeptical at first about whether the last CD would really make a difference, but I gave the technique a try yesterday.  I felt like I have too much to do (or not enough time).  At the very least, it helped me relax and decide what not to do.  Plus, I've still got the notecards from yesterday for the things I didn't finish, and it feels like it's going to be easy to pick up where I left off.

Interesting that it reminds me of the "breadth first" tree searching algorithm.  Though really, I'm building a tree of action items, rather than searching.  But it seems to work better than the sort of A* search I'd been trying to do usually, because I'm more relaxed.

And, of course, that whole "feeling relaxed" thing is just is side effect of creating the mindset that I'm going to "win" each of these "games", (i.e. the "gain brain"), which is available once I've gotten things broken down to a size where I can visualize/imagine the steps.

It'll be interesting to see how things go as I keep doing this.

Also, having the notecards reminds me of a technique called "parking downhill".  The analogy is to parking a car on a downhill slope, so that it's easy to get started next time.   The "parking downhill" technique is simply whenever you have to interrupt a task that you are working on, make a physical note of what you would do to get started on it again, while that context is fresh in your head.  Like pushing a context frame onto a stack, so you can pop it off later.  With the notecard, I usually already have that note as one of the steps in the list.  If not, I can just add it to the card.

Good stuff.  Looking forward to more,

  --Jack

Ah, Jack, you are truly wiser than I.  You actually did what I recorded on the CD, even while the big shot guru was getting lazy and ruining half his weekend.  Good on you, mate.

Jack's certainly also got it right about "feeling relaxed" being another side effect of the process.  And of course, some of this is basically straight out of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" philosophy, except that he leaves out some really important parts of this stuff...  parts he probably does automatically, and assumes everybody else does, too!

Unfortunately, it's precisely these small, seemingly trivial differences in thought process that make such a huge difference between the naturally successful David Allens and Tony Robbinses of the world, and "the rest of us".

And the traditional self-help field has utterly failed at teaching the rest of us to change our thinking processes.  Instead, we get fed the same old tired retreads of the output of successful people's thought processes.

We get told that successful people "aren't afraid of failure", for example, but not how they get that way.  We get told that they "see everything as an opportunity", "take risks", "write down goals", and ten thousand other stupid little things that you could spend a lifetime trying to force yourself to copy...  while never even remotely matching their levels of success -- or feeling any better about yourself in the process.

Because all those little things, from writing down goals to having a "positive attitude" aren't really what makes people successful.  Those things are just the output of a process -- the record of something that already happened inside them.

And if you try to copy those outputs, you'll just be going through the motions...  feeling hollow and empty inside.

The same way I did, for nearly 20 years of self-help junkiedom.

But earlier this year, I finally "cracked the code" -- the critical insight into the difference that makes ALL the difference, between the people who are "naturally successful," and those who are "naturally struggling".

But insight is still not enough.  You must actually become a different person -- the kind of person who does things differently.

And part of the path to becoming a different person, is being in an environment that supports that process.  Yes, you can learn some things just by reading or listening to them, but in order to become different, you ultimately have to interact with people who are either already different, or seeking to become so.

See, your brain doesn't give a flying fart what you think your life should be like.  Your body didn't go to all the trouble of growing you a brain just to get you whatever you want.

No, not at all.  It grew you that big brain so you could keep track of tribal politics.  There are actually studies that suggest that brain-to-body size ratio in primates is directly related to the number of  members in a typical band of that species...  and the human brain weighs in at just the right size for a 150-person tribe.

And so the reason you have a "self-image", as pop-psych and self-help have it, is not so you can become "self actualized", but so you can keep track of your public image -- your tribal PR, in other words.

That means your brain -- by default -- cares a whole heck of a lot more what other people think, than it does about what you think.

So, if you want to change your behavior, the fastest, strongest, and utterly easiest way to do it, is to change what tribe you're in!

I fought this for a long time, because I believed that I ought to be able to be strong enough to do it all by myself, without any help and regardless of my environment.  But as it turned out, that was just my tribal brain's PR spin.

See, if you've ever wondered why your brain plays tricks on you, making you do things you don't intend to, and making you not do the things you do intend to, here's the answer in a nutshell: your brain is a spin doctor.

It's job?  To make you look good, or more precisely, to make you NOT do things that will make you look bad and get voted off the island.  If you got kicked out of the tribe, you died... and more importantly, didn't reproduce.  And since by definition, all your ancestors were people who managed to stay in their tribe, you inherited their cowardly brains.

In my case, I grew up learning that "being good" (in the form of doing my schoolwork without assistance) brought rewards...  and that having to get help (especially from a teacher) resulted in humiliation and shame.

So, from my brain's perspective, it was more important for me to NOT seek help from people, than to actually get results!  As far as it was concerned, needing help was something that might get me "kicked out of the tribe".  (Because human societies use shame to teach children what is and isn't acceptable behavior in that society.)

And so, instead of getting coaching or participating in a group, I struggled for a ridiculous amount of time irrationally trying to prove I didn't need any help.

And boy, was I wrong.

Because just minutes of actual interaction with the right people taught me more about myself than I'd previously learned in decades of trying to figure it out on my own.

Now at first, all I noticed was how uncomfortable I felt around successful people.  How nervous and defensive I got, and the various twinges and flinches I got when they said certain things about their beliefs or what I should do.

And ultimately, that drove me to seek out ways to find the source of those inner conflicts, and remove them, before I began teaching other people how to do the same.

Of course, the other big thing that held me back was an addiction to knowledge -- and especially, showing other people that I had that knowledge.

I mean, it was literally an addiction.  I always had to be the smartest person in the room...  which usually made me avoid rooms with smarter people in them, or be somewhat obnoxious when I couldn't otherwise help it.  In recent years, I managed to tone it down a bit so I didn't always have to correct other people out loud, but after I was out of the room I'd still have to go tell somebody else about all the ways those other people were wrong.

But you don't grow, when you "already know".  An information addiction is not the same thing as a thirst for wisdom.  And it's definitely not the same thing as becoming a better person.

And that holds true, whether you define "better" in terms of improved moral qualities, greater practical effectiveness, or just enjoying your life more.

So if you want to become a different kind of person than the one you've been, look for ways you can change your environment.

Because your brain really doesn't care that much about what you think.  And without outside support, it's not just your to-do list that's going to fail.

Next time: Hardassians vs. Fairylanders...  FIGHT!

--PJE

P.S.  I've already helped hundreds of people change their lives through my work in the Circle.  And if you're finally ready to do the same...  you can be next.  Join me for my next workshop, "Small Steps, Giant Leaps", on Saturday, June 28th, by becoming an Associate or Full member of the Circle today.  (And then, among other things, you'll get the CD and newsletter that Jack got.  Plus the next ones, that will be on creating instant good habits and instant motivation.)

But look, life is not a game, and you don't get do-overs.  As much as I wish I could, I can NEVER get back all the years I wasted trying to prove I "didn't need any help" and "knew" more than anybody else.  So all I can say to you is, don't be like me.

If you value your life, then stop sitting on the sidelines of it!  Become the player in your life, instead of just being a spectator, watching it go by.  Do something different.  Now.

Boy, do I feel stupid.  All this time, I've been reading books about planning and organizing and just completely not getting it.

See, every single book says that to make a good plan, you need to break things down into smaller pieces.  But my trouble is, those pieces get really small, really quick, so it seems like less trouble just to start the damn thing already.

Of course, what  happens next is that I spend a ridiculous amount of time on preliminaries and fixing tiny details of things that aren't really very important...  especially if there aren't any other people involved in the project, or any looming deadlines to keep me on track.

Now, they say that this is an ADD trait, something called "hyperfocus".  It can be really handy in cases where you really do need to focus in on something and get it absolutely right, but it's also a perfect way to throw your project... or your life!...

Completely out of balance!

And in the last few days, I've been studying my own hyperfocus tendencies, trying to understand how they work and what could be done to mitigate them.  And along the way, I've discovered what seem to be a set of three general principles or processes that have to be in place for a person's life to be "organized", in terms of either space or time.

Well, "discovered" is maybe too strong of a word.  Thing is, these proceses are already implicitly expressed in many books, including the "Inside-Out" books by Julie Morgenstern. ("Organizing From The Inside Out", and "Time Management From The Inside Out".)  But, in order to use these three processes, you first have to be able to plan well.

And unfortunately, there is one absolutely critical piece that seems to get left out of all these books: namely how to think in a way that naturally leads to making good plans!  (Especially if you are blessed with -- and/or suffer from -- hyperfocus tendencies.)

Even "ADD-Friendly Ways To Organize Your Life" misses this piece entirely.  I almost threw that book across the room when I kept finding section after section that basically recommended people with ADD get their non-ADD friends and family -- or professional organizers -- to do their thinking for them.  (Jeez!  So what did we need the freakin' book for, then?)

But, it was really good for one thing: insight into all the ways in which this single "ADD" trait leads to all sorts of quality-of-life issues, through poor planning and prioritization.  So it got me thoroughly motivated to figure out precisely how my thinking worked differently from that of the "normals"...

And what I could do instead!

So here's what I figured out, about how to plan things in a "non-ADD" way:

Think in successive approximations by breadth-first traversals of the desired end-state.

Brilliant, isn't it?  Well, I guess I need to explain it first, so you'll know what I actually mean.  Otherwise, it won't be of any more use to you, than all those organizing and time management books were to me!

See, the problems I've had with planning are all about three things: the sequence of my thoughts, the content of those thoughts, and their level of detail.  When I start brainstorming a goal like "clean the house", I end up with a list that mixes very high-level and low-level items in the same list, like "take out the trash" and "clean the living room".  (Different levels of detail.)

Sometimes, I'll break down a few of the bigger pieces, but mostly what happens is that I pick only one, and dive into that one in great detail, until I get overwhelmed and don't want to do any of it.  Or, I don't go into any further detail, and end up just doing the smaller, well-defined items...

Leaving the big pieces to rot indefinitely!

But, on the rare occasions that I've done well with planning a major project, it's been when I've used processes that encourage the planning to occur in what programmers would call a "breadth-first" ordering.

In other words, instead of listing small pieces and big pieces together, it works much better if I first put all of the big pieces in one list, then make a pass back through the list to make more detailed sub-lists for each piece.  Then, when all of those sub-lists are made, only then do I make any sub-sub-lists.

And the key insight that I got about this today, is that it allows you considerably greater flexibility in the planning process, as well as preventing hyperfocus from occurring at the wrong times, because it ensures that the links in your mind run in the right directions.

See, if I drill down too quickly, I lose sight of the big picture.  I get caught up in solving the details of this one little thing, that might not be all that important overall.  That's because the sequence of my thoughts is going from a big chunk to successively smaller chunks of the same thing, instead of cutting back and forth over the big picture, seeing each part in relation to the whole.

Because, if I start immediately digging into "clean the living room", it's very easy to end up thinking about stuff like vacuuming or cleaning the carpet or re-organizing the bookshelves.  But if my goal is just to have the house neat enough to have the copier repairman over to do some maintenance, then some of those actions might be...

Serious overkill!

And that brings up the last issue: content.  By thinking this way, it's all too easy to end up making a list of tasks, instead of a list of goals.  Cleaning the living room is not really a goal; it's merely a logical subdivision of a task...  and a highly abstract one, at that!  (I mean, what does it really mean to "clean the living room", anyway?  No wonder I'd get bogged down in it!)

And so, this way of thinking is really not planning.  (Although I used to think it was!)

What we really need is not division at all, and certainly not of tasks!  We want to see pieces of the desired end state, not the tasks required to get to that state.  And, we need those pieces to be seen as a part of the overall goal.  So, if my goal is to have the place clean enough for the copier repair guy to come over, then I need to progressively increase the level of detail I see in my envisioned result, while focusing on individual parts.

This would then result in me listing items that describe chunks of my vision.  Like:

•  "the floors and carpets between the front door and the copier room are free of non-furniture items",
• "the tables and countertops visible on this side of the house are free of clutter and disarray", and
• "the floors and carpets on this side of the house are free of any readily visible dirt or large stains".

Then, when that list is finished, I can then break each subgoal into sub-subgoals like, "I've broken down all the Amazon shipping boxes and put the cardboard out for recycling."  And once these goals get small enough, they can be treated as if they were tasks instead...  nice, well-defined, easy-to-do tasks.  And, if I want to...

I can even do them in hyperfocus!

So, once again, the three keys of planning are to:

• Think in successive approximations,
• By breadth-first traversal,
• Of the desired end-state!

Successive approximation means you see things vaguely at first, then get more detailed.  Breadth-first means you see the whole thing at a given level of detail before you go to a finer level of detail, thus keeping all the parts connected to the "big picture".  And finally, end-state means that the picture you're making is of what you want, not what you have to do to get it.

Because if you leave out even one of these three things, you will get frustrated with both the planning and the execution of your goals.  For example, I've been planning to write another book for well over a year now, but I've been repeatedly focusing on the wrong things.

So, when I've tried to plan, it's always been ridiculous step-wise lists like "Step 1: write the outline...  Step 2: write the book!"

Of course, I've never gotten past step 1, because I have the same problem with the outlining.  My first book got finished only because I assembled it from already-written essays: if I'd tried to write it the way I've been trying to write my books since then...

I'd still be working on the outline!

See, when I've been trying to outline my book ideas, I've generally ended up drilling straight down into chapter 1 and then writing a chapter that really doesn't go anywhere, leaving me with no idea what to do for a chapter 2.  That's because I've been trying to envision chapters as complete units, without first envisioning the whole book as a complete unit.

But now, I can easily see that what I need to do is to define successive approximations for the end state of my book.  Not by asking what chapters it will have, but rather, what will someone know after reading it?  How will they feel?

And most importantly, what will they do, and how will their lives be different as a result?  Because that is what will determine what has to go into the book, and in what order.

So once I've answered these questions at a more general level, I can progressively break down the answers into smaller and smaller pieces.  But, this will not be the outline of the book!  See, that's the problem I've been having up until now: trying to leap directly from this high-level definition down into a chapter-level outline.

What I need to do instead, is to break down the objectives into finer and finer pieces, then reassemble those pieces to build the outline back up again, from the bottom.  That way, I'll be able to sort out the best presentation order for the material as I arrange it, without getting into any blind spots of, "Oops, I probably should have covered this other bit first", or...

"What the heck am I going to say next?!"

What's crazy about all this, by the way, is that I've been digging through writing books for like the last two or three weeks, looking for stuff about how to outline a book, and nobody said a damn thing about this -- or at least not anything that let me see how the way I've been doing it was wrong!

Anyway, now that I've seen how my old approach was broken and how this approach can actually work, I can already see how I can apply it.  Not just to planning my books, but also to planning my time...  organizing my workspace and bookshelves...  heck, it even gives me some fresh ideas for improving my health!

Of course, I don't know all the details yet (since that will come with successive approximations!), but I do know I'll have a lot more to say about all this in the next Owners' Circle newsletter, and probably on the CD as well.

I was actually inspired to investigate all this by an article I read recently about how small steps can make huge differences in performance.  And it got me to wondering, what small steps could I change in my everyday life, that would have a similarly huge impact?

And I looked at a lot of different things, but they all ended up converging on this one point: lack of adequate planning and prioritization.  So, I think this "one small step" is going to be one giant leap  for me, not to mention for anyone else who has a similar problem!

Of course, you'll actually have to practice this and put it to use, which is why I'll be putting more detail and examples in the newsletter and CD.

Also, I should probably mention that the three keys I gave above for planning are not the same as the three processes I mentioned back at the beginning!  The three processes are actually about how you get organized and manifest the results in your life, not how you create the plan or vision of what you want those results to be.  There's a big difference between the two... and you need both to be successful!

So, in addition to expanding some more on this planning process, the newsletter and CD will have even more to say about the "getting results" part.  Sign up as a Friend or higher level Circle member here (if you're not a member already), and I'll send them to you as soon as they're ready.  (Probably late next week, or early the following week.)

Best wishes, and happy planning!

So, after my success with last night's post, I decided that today I would take the time to try and set down the essential principles of my work on a single page.  To do that, I had to leave out any attempt at justifying the principles, providing supporting evidence or examples, or anything like that.

It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, though.  I had expected to cover the page with a lot of brief references to complex ideas, but I ended up instead with just eight fairly basic principles:

1. Success does not require you to become someone else -- just you, with less baggage.

2. Indecision is the source and essence of all "effort" and "suffering" -- and indecision's sole source is the fear of loss.

3. Fear of loss is an emotional attachment to something you believe you have, and it should not be confused with the merely rational desire to trade as little as possible to get what you want!

4. The worst fears of loss are ego-based: fear of disrupting the image we project to others.  These fears are the worst because, unlike a legitimate crisis, they can never end.

5. Fears -- no matter how trivial -- tend to engage the brain's "crisis management" mode, causing us to conserve energy, avoid risk, be less intelligent and creative, and to shrink from pain instead of reaching towards pleasure.

6. Opposing fear through willpower is useless, since this does not eliminate the fear itself, and therefore keeps the brain in crisis-management mode.  To live a happy life, therefore, does not require courage: it rather requires the absence of spurious fear.

7. Likewise, any change which is produced by forced attention to one's actions, is not really a change at all!  It is nothing more than a split between one's previous attachments, and one's current intentions.  (A new inner conflict, in other words!)  Therefore, if your actions do not serve you, change the cause of those actions, rather than the actions themselves.

8. Our essential nature is fearless, pleasure seeking, and creative.  But these qualities are blunted and suppressed by our learned programming.  Thus, we cannot attain these qualities by adding more mental programming!  Instead, we must edit or delete the existing programs whose output is fear.  Otherwise, we are simply increasing our sources of inner conflict... and therefore, our suffering.

Not particularly poetic or eloquent, but not a bad synopsis.  These ideas essentially explain why trying to copy successful people doesn't help people who are stuck, why popular conceptions of change and self-improvement are so unhelpful, and so on.

On the flip side, these ideas say nothing at all about how to edit or delete the existing programs, but that's to be expected.  That stuff is technology, rather than science or philosophy.  And by its nature, technology is a complex beast.  The brain includes many different routes through which to arrive at fear: conditioned responses, social codes, personal judgments, perceived social rank, subconscious prediction...  just to name the first ones that come to mind, that I currently have methods for finding, editing, and deleting.

(And that's not even counting the fact that the brain loves to hide its fears under layers of rationalization.  Sometimes I have to drag a client kicking and screaming through a series of, "and what's bad about that?" questions until they get to an ego-fear like, "Well then I'd be a failure.")

But anyway, this is a start.  If we're really going to change human nature, one human at a time, we sure could do a lot worse than to begin with these ideas.

In the last few weeks I've been working off and on, trying to jump-start a book project.  I've brainstormed titles, written outlines, and written literally almost a dozen "chapter ones".

And the more I work on the damn thing, the more I realize that I have absolutely no idea what to say, or who I'm saying it to.

Oh, sure, I know exactly what needs to be communicated.  I know what skills are needed to solve a huge host of problems that I've had, and that other people have.  I know what beliefs are necessary, and which ones get in the way.

What I'm not convinced of -- as yet -- is that I can actually say any of this stuff in a way that will get people to really  believe it, and take action.

At one level of detail, I could write it all very simply, just stating what I know and how it works.  But presented at that level, rather a lot of it would sound like any other self-help book: vague, over-optimistic, and lacking in tangible reasoning behind its recommendations.

And We Can't Have That, Can We?

At another level, I could write a scathing critique and expose' of the self-help industry and why most of what is recommended simply does not work for most people, most of the time.

But that likely wouldn't appeal to anyone besides skeptics...  who probably wouldn't like me pointing out the things that do work!

In a way, what I really want most is to write something that I could have read and benefited from, back when I was young and in pain and thought it was only me who was broken.

But it almost seems as if the body of knowledge I have now acquired is inextricably bound to the journey of learning through which I acquired it.  That the only way to learn it besides repeating that journey, is to accept it on faith.

And taking things on faith, I find myself thinking, is not something I would have done, back then, when I needed these understandings most.

But then a deeper reflection tells me...  

That's probably not true.

Because the real reason, I think, that I hesitate to write, is that I also want the book to reflect well on me.

So it should do well in the market.  Be easy to get PR for.  Easy to condense to media soundbites when I'm interviewed.

And of course it should be unique and distinctive, while also being nothing less than the purest distillation of my knowledge and skills.  No simplification of the facts just to make it more "accessible".  And it must be immediately obvious from the book's positioning why it is absolutely nothing like any other self-help book ever written, so that even the most cynical of people won't hesitate to snatch up a copy in a bookstore feeding frenzy.

(Hm.  Inner conflicts, much?)

This, of course, is the exact same pattern that we all fall into.  We want to eat our cake, but still have it.  Indecision is suffering, and that is all that suffering is.

Suffering is a clash between mental control systems, the hot and cold flashes we would feel in a room with two thermostats set to different temperatures!  It's impossible to satisfy both settings at the same time, and so we suffer.

But this suffering doesn't come about because we desire things.  It comes about because...

We Won't Give Any Of Them Up!

See, people think that "non-attachment" means you don't want anything, or that you don't pursue what you want.  But they're wrong.  Attachment is not about whether you get what you want, it's about not losing what you think you have.

In my case, I fear that writing a simplified form of my learnings will somehow corrupt or cheapen them.  That not sufficiently communicating their uniqueness, or using too much emotion and not enough logic will make me "just like everyone else".  That I will, in some sense, "lose my soul".

And yet, when it really comes right down to it, I have already very nearly stated the heart and soul of my philosophy here in this post.  Indecision is suffering, and the fear of losing is the one thing that stands between feeling like a loser, and being naturally successful.  (As opposed to the pump-yourself-up, willpower-based variety of success that's never worked for me.)

Now sometimes, the way we stop being afraid of losing is by "hitting bottom" and feeling we have nothing else to lose.  And sometimes, we realize that what we're afraid of losing is...

Something we never had in the first place!

But other times, the path is not so desperate or dramatic.  Sometimes, we just systematically work to eradicate our fears.  Not by willpower or affirmation, but by understanding the nature of the mind.

And above all else, by knowing what to look for.  If you don't know that fears of loss and failure are perhaps the only difference between succeeding and failing (due to the differences in brain mode), then you won't spend the time needed to find them...  or eliminate them.

And if you don't know why it makes a difference, you won't be motivated to try.  You will think it's just the same old same old, that you've heard before...  and didn't do anything about.

In other words, it'll just be another "neat idea" to you.

Now I suppose I feel that in my live workshops and one-on-one sessions I have at least some small chance of figuratively grabbing my listener by the throat and making them see.  And after this last weekend's workshop, I got notes from a few of the participants saying that the exercise I put them through sparked a breakthrough for them, and telling me about the cool results they've achieved since then.

But still...

I worry about the ones who didn't send me notes!

Because I want everyone to have a breakthrough.  I want to be the Oprah of breakthroughs: "You get a breakthrough!  And you get a breakthrough!  And you, and you, and you..."

Now on an intellectual level, I realize this is purest ego on my part.  I'm sure that nobody, not even Jesus and the Buddha got 100% breakthroughs from every talk they gave!

And most people think ego is about self-aggrandizement, but in my case at least, it usually masquerades as an excess of altruism.  Among writers and speakers creating their first product, it usually manifests as a desire to make sure the product is of sufficiently "high quality" -- which is usually code for "the packaging reflects well on me", rather than "actually helps people".

(The same thing also applies to most of us computer programmers, by the way.  We don't like to release a program that hasn't been polished enough to stand up to the scrutiny of our peers... even if people are already willing to pay good money for it.  But I digress.)

And in truth, I must admit I do not have a perfect philosophy or method.  It must be applied in order to work, and it must be applied to each new area of life I come into contact with.  And although I will certainly be able to use my methods to banish the fears I just exposed by writing this, it will not foreclose the possibility that as I tackle bigger goals...

I'll find new fears.

My consolation, however, is that each time I get stuck, I can simply turn back to the basics of my method: examine what I want, find the conflicts, identify the fears of losing...  and eliminate them.

And as for the people who don't get a breakthrough from just one reading or talk, I suppose they will just have to wait for the next one.  Because I know that when I take away the belief that I have "failed" by not being the perfect guru, I will feel...  and not just think...  the message of the starfish story.

You know, that story about an adult who sees a boy throwing starfish back in the water after a storm, trying to save them from drying out and dying on the shore?   The adult says, "there are thousands of starfish washed up here, but only one of you -- so what makes you think you can make a difference?"

And the boy smiles as he throws one back in the water.  "It sure makes a difference to that one."

And who knows, maybe the tears welling up in my eyes right now, threatening to pour down my cheeks at any moment, could be some indication that I'm already beginning...

To feel that way, too.

For the longest time, I would hesitate before taking action -- any action.

Or so it seemed.

I mean, I didn't hesitate to turn on the TV or check my email or any other habitual action like that.  I didn't even hesitate that much before semi-routine but not-quite habitual actions, like taking out the trash.

It was only goal-directed actions that I hesitated before.  Like when I was about to start a new programming project, or take the next step in one that I'd already started.  Like when I was thinking about exercising, or thinking about cleaning up a bit around the house.

I noticed this yesterday while doing some programming.  I would think about the next test to be written, and get to a point of thinking, "Yes, I should do that next."

And then, nothing.

I would just sit there, quietly.  Thinking, "Yep, I should definitely do that."

Silence.

"Okay, this is getting silly now."

Nothing.

Finally, I just sort of seize control of my body and force my fingers to start typing something, anything.  And I get the test written.

Now, I'm making it sound like a big deal, but it's actually something I'm pretty used to.  Until I get into the "flow", it's always like that, or at least, it always has been for me.  And fortunately, I'm good enough at what I do that I'm still more productive than most, even after taking this little hesitation habit into consideration.

But it still bugged me. 

Because, in other areas of my life, I don't have that extra edge of skill (and determination to push through) that makes up for it.  When I flinch at exercise, I usually don't exercise.  When I flinch at cleaning or organizing, I usually don't clean or organize.  And when I flinch at my planning or writing, it doesn't get done, and the work piles up until I make an all-out-effort to do it at the last minute.

So today, I resolved to find out what the hell was up with this hesitation thing.

And what I discovered, surprised the heck out of me.

Because the cause of the hesitation wasn't anything like what I'd expected.

I thought that perhaps I was hesitating because there had been some historical consequence to taking action.  That maybe I'd boldly done something as a kid and gotten smacked for it, either by a sibling or schoolmate or parent.

But that wasn't it at all.

As it turns out, the real cause of the hesitation -- and a bunch of other things as well -- was a rather innocent-sounding belief I'd had since childhood:

"Imagination isn't real."

Now, it's important to understand that the words of a belief are not the same thing as the belief itself.  If you look at "imagination isn't real", it sounds on the surface like a perfectly sane belief, that no-one in their right mind would want to tamper with.

However, like nearly all beliefs, platitudes and self-help sayings, the words themselves are merely a summary of a more complex process or map embedded in your brain.

In this case, the foundation experience for my "imagination isn't real" belief was actually an experience of trying to make something real by believing in it.  Specifically, at a certain age I thought that what I read in fiction could be made real by acting it out, as long as you believed in it.

And after trying to build the "weather machine" described in a story, and finding that it did not, in fact, change the weather, I decided that you couldn't make things real by believing in them.  And I have a vague recollection of a grownup saying something about things in books being imaginary and not real.

These and other experiences formed my "evidence file" for the belief.  The words "imagination isn't real" were merely a label that goes on the outside of this file, for reference and retrieval purposes, like a link to a web page.  So saying "imagination isn't real" would call up the experience as a prototype for my behavior.  And so did any attempt to...

Make something I imagined...  real.

Realizing this hit me like a ton of bricks.  I could suddenly see the common thread between this one kind of hesitation, and a whole host of other issues I've tended to have in my life.  If things in books aren't real, and imagining and believing won't make them so, then it stands to reason why I've rarely, if ever, sustained a change I've made based on something in a book.

And why, the more I wanted the change, the less likely it would be to become real.

Because the "evidence file" for my belief was full of disappointment at not being able to make real, things I desperately wanted to make real.

And as I skimmed forward and backward through the movie of my life, I saw the part of my teen years where I tried to build lots of things out of books, and tried various handicrafts, and mostly failed at them, before taking up computers.

Because, as it happens...

Computers weren't really "real", either!

I could "make" things inside of them, and I viewed it as being like just a direct extension of my imagination.  I mean, computers don't actually do anything -- they just show pictures or make sounds.  How can you call that "real"?

It's no wonder I dropped the handicrafts and wound up a programmer.  No wonder that so many things I've tried didn't work, and other things did.  If it came out of a book or I imagined it, my mental model implicitly included failure and disappointment as the ultimate result of any attempt to make it real. 

And even if I succeeded part-way, or for a time, I always found a way to bring things back around to disappointment, creating a life-long cycle of ups and downs.

Even though I've successfully helped other people get out of cycles like these, it always bothered me that I never seemed to be as successful at helping myself, as I was at helping others.  But talking to someone and helping them sort out their brain, wasn't quite the same thing as...

Making something I want, real.

The irony, of course, is that this "imagination barrier" I created for myself, is itself an imaginary creation, made real.

And in the moment I really see that, the belief disappears in a puff of logic.  After all, if it's imaginary, it can't be real!

And a moment later, I know what belief I want to replace it with.

The belief, that for the rest of the day so far, has propelled me -- without hesitation -- into everything I choose to do.

The belief that if I can imagine it...

I can make it real.

"I feel kind of angry", he confessed.

"Good!  That means you're improving."

I was doing a one-on-one, helping him to move from shyness to sociability.  And in the process, we were changing his feelings about certain kinds of actions.

"There is a spectrum of emotions.  Nobody quite agrees on the precise order, but nearly everybody agrees that being angry is better than being sad or afraid."

(After all, when books as diverse as a spiritual guide to the Law of Attraction and a salesperson's guide to practical leadership agree on something...

It's probably worth a closer look!)

"Oftentimes, negative feelings occur in stacks.  First, we get angry at something that's happened, that we want to change.  Then, if we get beaten down and stopped -- whether it's by parents, other kids, or other adults -- we begin to become afraid of what will happen if we take action.  Finally, we decide it's hopeless and become sad."

"And when we apply feeling elimination or other techniques to these feelings, there's a tendency for them to come out in the reverse order.  After getting rid of sadness, you may feel fear.  After the fear, you may get angry."

And this is good, because anger lies on the threshhold between the brain's success and failure modes.  It's the energy to choose a new direction and make a change.  The crossover point from moving away from one thing, and moving towards another.

In fact, there are certain types of change, where, if you haven't passed through the "angry point", there's a good chance that...

You're Not Going To Change At All

For example, before people make identity-level changes -- changes to who they are -- passing through the angry point is a critical step.  To become a different person, you have to be truly fed up with the person you were before...  which often means being angry, with yourself or with your results.

And if you listen to people who have successfully made changes like that...  people who've made extremely rapid, major shifts in their personality, behavior, or lifestyle, you will find that they have this one thing in common.  At some point, they decided that enough was enough, and enough was too much.

In NLP terminology, they "went over threshhold".  In essence, they got mad enough to be willing to do whatever it takes to make the change.

And I've been studying this stuff lately, because I'm developing a systematic set of principles and processes for doing rapid personality makeovers.  In the last month, I've made a few minor adjustments to my own personality, including making myself a lot neater, and a lot more decisive.

And the really great thing about this kind of change is that, once you do it, it's completely automatic.  I don't have to think or try to be neater or more decisive.  It just happens.

Even when I don't necessarily want it to!

Sometimes I find myself expecting to hesitate over a decision...  and then I notice that I've already made the right decision and am taking action.  For example, looking at a catalog that came in the mail, I might be thinking to myself, "Gosh I wonder if I should keep this..."  and then I notice that my hands have already gone and thrown the thing in the trash!

Sometimes it almost seems like my body has been possessed....  by a friendly and helpful demon.

And I've been helping my clients to make similar changes, too.  The one I mentioned earlier, who I was helping become more sociable, later described the sensation of finding himself acting more sociable in similar terms: like being literally possessed by the new self we'd spent an hour or so designing and installing.

Now don't get me wrong: this sensation of being repeatedly surprised by your own behavior in a positive way may be a teensy bit spooky at first, but...

It's absolutely not a bad thing!

And that's why I've decided to go ahead and share with the world some of my first steps towards developing this powerful change technology.  In the February issue of Change Without Pain, Life Without Struggle, I wrote extensively about some of the groundwork that's needed to make personality changes like these, including the importance of switching the mind from "failure mode" to "success mode".

And although the newsletter is normally made available only to Friend or higher-level members of the Owners' Circle, I'm making it available to you, for a limited time, as a free PDF download.

I'm doing this because I believe that some of the people reading my blog have reached a point in their lives where they're almost "fed up" enough to make a big change.

Sure, a whole lot of people -- the majority of people, in fact -- are going to just read it, nod and agree (or pat themselves on the back for "already knowing that"), and then go on to the next link in their web surfing.  But those people, I can't do anything about.

And so I'm doing this on the slim chance that you might be one of those few people who are "on the bubble" -- wavering between the person you've been, and the person you'd like to become.

Because if you are, then this material is going to be like rocket fuel for you.  Download the PDF, and get started now.  Get angry... and get ready to change.

When I was a kid, my first bicycle was a one-speed.  Instead of hand brakes, you stopped it by pedalling backwards.  Later on, I had some trouble adjusting to a 3-speed bicycle, because I kept trying to stop by pedalling backwards.

And I always wondered, why they bothered to have the pedals even able to turn backwards.  After all, it's not like pedalling backwards does anything.

And I used to wonder the same thing about a book I read when I was about 11 or 12 years old.

The book was called "Psycho-Cybernetics", and it claimed that our brains included both a "success mechanism" and a "failure mechanism".

Now, I could easily buy the idea that God or nature could have put a mechanism in our brains to help us succeed...

But why include a failure mechanism?

For nearly thirty years, that idea made absolutely no sense to me.  Indeed, the more I learned about evolution, the less sense it seemed to make.  The idea of having a "failure mechanism" seemed about as useful as pedalling backwards on a 10-speed bike.

But as it turns out, our brains are actually a lot more like my first bicycle.

Because pedalling backwards -- i.e., the "failure mechanism", is actually how you make it stop.

So it's really just the names of the two mechanisms that confused me.  If the book's author had called them the "acquisition mechanism" and "protection mechanism"...

• Or the "leader mechanism" and "follower mechanism"...
• Or the "offense mechanism" and "defense mechanism"...
• Or the "creation mechanism" and "preservation mechanism"...
• Or the "pursuit mechanism" and "escape mechanism"...
• Or the "pleasure mechanism" and "anti-pain mechanism"...
• Or the "opportunity mechanism" and "threat mechanism"...

I might have understood it a lot sooner!

You see, every animal in its natural state requires both of these systems, and their operation is governed by a simple, but iron-clad law:

In the presence of a perceived threat, the threat mechanism is AUTOMATICALLY activated.  In the presence of perceived safety, the opportunity mechanism MAY BE ALLOWED to activate.

So think about that for a second.  Suppose a tiger twice the size of your desk suddenly charged towards you right now, leaping towards your face.

Would you think about what to do next?

Or would you already be running or diving for cover before you even knew what was happening?

Yeah, I thought so.

So the reason Dr. Maltz (the author of Psycho-Cybernetics) called this subsystem the "failure" mechanism, is because in modern life...

Most threats are imaginary!

And as a result, we're always running and diving for cover...  even from our goals!

Because if you even imagine a threat, or remember pain, your defenses can automatically kick in.

And procrastination, lack of "motivation" or "willpower", fighting yourself, and inability to follow through, are all just symptoms of this defense system kicking in.

Worse, you can't stop these symptoms by trying to!

Why?

Because that would simply mean...

You see them as a threat!

And that, ironically enough, just locks your brain deeper into protection mode!

You see, the goal of protection mode can be phrased fairly simply: "make the best of a bad situation," or maybe "try not to lose too badly".  And its rules work roughly like this:

• If the threat is nearby and inbound, duck and cover, or run like hell  
• If the threat is still at a distance, freeze and try to look like a rock or tree or something
• If the threat is a human of my tribe, placate or threaten it according to its relative status in the pecking order

And if you look at those rules closely, you'll see where a lot of self-defeating behavior comes from...  like procrastination (freezing when the threat's at a distance).

And you can't switch this machinery off... which is a good thing.  After all, if a tiger really burst into the room right now, you'd need the "duck and cover or run like hell" part to kick in.

You can try to override it by sheer willpower, but that only works for a short time.  Think about it: willpower is something you use to override your evolved instincts.  That means that if there was some evolutionary benefit to doing that all the time...

You'd have evolved different instincts!

So willpower is implicitly designed to be temporary.  (And no, I'm not implying the existence of a designer or ascribing "goals" to evolution.)

And, as scientists have found in experiment after experiment, willpower is a very limited resource, that is depleted by almost any kind of stress.

Like the stress of using willpower, for example!

Now, there is some evidence to suggest that concentration and willpower can be trained and exercised by meditation, actually causing new brain growth to support the enhanced ability.  But there's not a lot known about that yet, and in any event, it takes time, just like any other form of exercise.

So, willpower is definitely not a quick fix for the backpedalling of the failure mechanism.  Luckily, however...

Nature Left Us A Loophole

You see, the threat-response system or "failure mechanism" is triggered by detection of a "threat".  However, the response system is not responsible for defining what consitutes a threat.

You are!

Well, not exactly.  It's your memories, beliefs, and imagination that define threats.  And this can include things you saw in the movies, heard in a story, picked up from parents and peers, had happen to you, etc.  So your "threat portfolio" can contain an awful lot of stuff that you never consciously decided to put there.

But you can clean that stuff up, as my work on myself and my clients has shown.  You can "declassify" things as threats, thereby ramping down fear and avoidance responses.  You can delete imagined negative futures, and shut down and reroute your pain-avoidance beliefs and behaviors.

You can, in other words, turn every threat you face...  into "no big deal". 

And if you want to live a fulfilling life, it's incredibly important that you do so.  Because the problem with the "failure mechanism" is that it's all about avoiding losing.

Which Is Not The Same As Winning!

You see, when you're trying to avoid loss, you don't take risks.  You don't invest as much.  You don't commit to taking action.

In short, you duck and cover, in the hopes of minimizing the pounding you're going to take.

But to actually win at anything, you have to put yourself out there.  Expose yourself to pain.  And be willing to pay the price.

And that will never happen while you're in "failure mode".

Unfortunately, most self-help material completely ignores this basic fact, choosing instead to focus entirely on the "success mechanism", and the best methods for exploiting it.  Even Psycho-Cybernetics (whose author at least acknowleged the existence of the failure mechanism, as few others do)  had very little to say about how to turn it around.

That's why I'm doing a workshop this weekend called "The Art Of The 'No Big Deal'", to share with you the wealth of things I've learned about the failure mechanism.  Including how it works, and how to circumvent it.

So you can stop backpedalling.

And start living.

--PJE

P.S. The workshop is a conference call that will be held on Saturday, February 16th, at 3pm Eastern time, and you must be an Associate or Full member of the Circle in order to participate.  If you bought my Procrastination Cure course in the last few weeks during one of my special promotions, then yes, your trial month of Associate membership qualifies you to participate.

I used to think that criticism of my work and life didn't affect me that much.  I even blogged to that effect a while back.

But something my wife said last night made me realize that I was thinking about it in the wrong way.

It's true: actual criticism doesn't affect me that much, except emotionally.  I feel bad about it, and occasionally lash out.  But I very rarely consciously change anything in response to criticism, especially criticism of the spiteful variety.

But last night made me realize I've actually been doing something much worse:

Changing In Response To Imagined Criticism!

When I write, it's almost as if I have an entire team of imaginary critics poised just over my shoulder.  And the team consists of the very worst elements of the internet: armchair a**holes who've never created a meaningful thing in their lives, but love to trash the work of others.  People who rejoice in finding even the single, tiniest of holes or weaknesses in an idea, and gleefully trash anyone who finds any value in that idea.  People who love to think of themselves as Skeptics with a capital "S", as if that were somehow more important than coming up with good things to be skeptical about.

Now, my point isn't really to rant about those people -- after all, they're not really critiquing my work as I write.  (God, that would be hell on earth!)  No, the point is that my brain has seen them trash on plenty of other people whose work I like, and so has built up a model of what kind of attacks they employ.

And so, over the years, I've evolved an approach to everything I do, that's designed to minimize the number of available attack vectors and maximize the number of defense options.

And it all happens at a relatively-subconscious level.  I mean, I've been aware of the imagined criticisms themselves, but it never occurred to me to treat them as...

Anything But Real!

And while my subconscious figuratively pats itself on the back for avoiding loads of criticism, it also occurs to me that the real reason I'm not that criticized, has nothing to do with the quality of what I do, and everything to do with the fact that I'm not a big enough target yet.  (i.e., not successful enough to be worth "taking down a notch".)

Now, the criticial voice over my shoulder has just pointed out that the last paragraph is going to make me sound arrogant, self-centered, boring, yada yada yada.  It advised me that this paragraph should refocus on how all this relates to you, the reader, if you are not worried about whether you have a high enough profile to attract critics.

That actually sounds like a good suggestion, though.  After all, I didn't understand how this was affecting me, so if you're doing the same thing, chances are you're not aware of how it's affecting you, either.

But, as is so often the case when I'm writing a "real essay" -- that is, one like this one, where I'm writing as much to understand as I am to communicate -- I don't know the answers myself yet.

I do know, for me, that always following the advice of imaginary critics means you'll never get any real-world information.  You'll never know if people really like the real you, for example, or just the "censored you".  And even if they seem to like the censored you...

It won't feel like they like you!

Instead, you'll feel even more like the "real you" isn't worthwhile.

But unfortunately for me, I've never really thought all that much about the self-censorship I do.  (Especially since I've often gotten the message that I should self-censor more!)

Instead, I've just assumed that the voice over my shoulder is just "how things are", and believed it.

Worse, I've been taking its advice for a lot of things besides just its direct input on my writing.

Last week, I wrote about how I dropped my goals for 2008.  Afterwards, that same evening, I created a new goal list full of things I actually wanted to achieve in the following week, two weeks, month, quarter, and year.   I got really excited and passionate about these things, and started doing them.

In fact, I finished some of my two-week and one-month goals in the first week.

But then, I made the mistake of writing about this to the Circle mailing list, and suddenly...

All My Goals Became Chores Again!

Why?  Because now that I had written about it, I felt I had to keep doing everything perfectly in order to be consistent.  How can I claim (says the critical voice) that I know how to make goals enjoyable and achievable, if I should falter in the slightest, or finish one of my one-week goals on the eighth day instead of the seventh?

"Heresy!  Sacrilege!  Faker and Fraud!  How dare you claim you know anything about goals...  oh, and don't let me catch you changing any of your goals either, despite the fact that the new travel plans required by your day job have just caused a weeks worth of your night/weekend time to disappear!"

And the truly sad thing about this voice, is that you really don't notice it's there, unless you think to look for it.  It just seems like reality, until you have something to compare it against.

This, of course, is what mentors and coaches are for.  (And, if you're really lucky, spouses or close friends!)  And hopefully, they're ones whose blind spots are just enough different from yours that they can see the plank in your eye, irrespective of the splinters in their own.

And during this week, my wife has been relentlessly critical -- in the best possible way! -- about the emails I've been sending to the extended Circle.  She's been telling me that I'm way too watered down, that I soften and sugarcoat everything that I'm telling people, and being too intellectual.  All very valid criticisms, and none of them things that my internal critic was paying any attention to.  In fact, those things were in the writing...

Precisely because of the critic!

My business coach, Matt Furey, writes a fitness newsletter in which he sometimes says rather mean or derogatory things about people who aren't fit.  (For example, he sometimes refers to people as "Lardassians".)  While this has often seemed a bit outrageous or unkind to me, I have also seen that it actually helps a lot of people get the motivation to do something different with their lives.

And as good as it would be for everyone to be motivated more towards "gaining pleasure" than "escaping pain", it is not the reality for many people, who desperately need to be put in the figurative "hot seat" before they'll take action.

But I've been extremely reluctant to even imply that someone reading any of my work might be a lazy slob, with the spine or self-discipline of a limp dishrag.  In part, that's because I know it's neither true nor relevant to their self-development.  (It doesn't really take what people think it takes to be successful; the actual answers are entirely elsewhere.)

But, when I think back to where I started, I have to admit that negative motivation (like the fear that I was a lazy slob)  had tremendous motivational power for me.  If somebody had been selling a "How to Stop Being A Lazy Incompetent Jackass" program, I'd probably have bought it in a heartbeat, in spite of the fact that I was not any such thing.  Not really.

But I Sure Felt Like I Was!

So, me being hesitant to "tell it like it is" -- or at least like it  seems to be, to people in that place -- probably isn't really helping the people who most need what I can teach!

And I not only water down the negative side, I dilute the positives as well.  I make only the most brief, and modest claims for most of the workshops and teachings that I give.  Mostly, I limit myself to talking about what I teach, for example, rather than emphasizing what kind of difference it'll make to people's lives, if and when they actually use the teachings.

At most, I'll usually talk about what something has done for me, about where I was "before" and "after" applying the material.  And even though I have testimonials, and plenty of people who'd be willing to give me more if I asked, I rarely include them in my writing, for fear of seeming too self-serving.

It's pretty disappointing to look back and realize that I still have such a long way to go, even after all the work I did a couple years back on being able to self-promote and ask people to buy things and such.

At the same time, it now makes a lot of sense to me why I still haven't put up even the most basic product information pages for any of the literally dozens of workshops, CDs, and other materials that I've produced.

Because on a subconscious level, I know that if I put those pages up...

I'll Have To Actually Say They're Good!

And that scares the crap out of me, even though I intellectually know they are good, especially compared to almost anything else on the market.  (At least, if you're looking to learn how to change, as opposed to getting a rah-rah speech about why you should change.  In which case, they're fantastic.)

Now the critic looks back over the last several paragraphs, pointing out all the places I've opened myself up to criticism.  "You call this kind of bragging 'brief and modest claims'?  I'd hate to see what you think hyperbole looks like!"  And the critic is now happy that at least I've relayed what it said: it thinks that by being first to take a shot at myself, I can pre-empt others from doing the same...  or at least stop it from hurting as much if they do.

But that's just superstition.  The critic believes I can control what other people say or do, when in fact I cannot.  All the available evidence suggests that mere success is more than sufficient to motivate critics.  It doesn't matter in the least what that success consists of: success itself is threatening to some people -- maybe all people.

In a recent Circle newsletter, I wrote about how I used to hate people who were well-organized, well-groomed, and charismatic...  as well as people who were fit and liked to exercise.  I didn't usually express this hatred outwardly, but the resentments I felt towards them prevented me from ever becoming any of those things myself.

And while I'm still not sure I'd describe myself as having fully acquired any of those characteristics, I've certainly made more progress to being them in the month or two since I shed the hate...

Than in the many years I tried to before!

So it helps a little to realize that I do understand the hate displayed by the kind of critic my subconscious is modelling.  It's not that they feel envy or jealousy consciously, and then actively seek to pull someone down.

Rather, what happens is that when someone gets what you don't believe you can have, it creates an uncomfortable feeling.  Your mental model is no longer consistent, so reality seems to need adjusting!  For example, if you believe that nobody can do or get the thing you want, then your tendency may be to put the successful person down as a fraud or charlatan or cheater of some kind.

Or, you may decide that "yeah, but some people just know the right people" or "some people are just born with it", or some other reasoning that allows your mental model to still fit the facts...  without actually changing your mind.

So knowing this helps a lot.  It makes it easier for me to forgive, and let go of, the hurtful things that people have said to or about me in the past.  To see that I don't need to conduct myself so as to avoid such things, because the truth is that such a critic is someone who really needs what I do: helping people see they can get what they want.

After all, if I'm stirring up enough cognitive dissonance for somebody to want to go on the offensive, it means they must believe they can't have what I say they can.

And clearly...

That Belief Needs Challenging!

Now, my inner critic informs me that some people might think that I'm saying I (or you) should ignore all criticism as being cognitive dissonance.  (And that's a helpful point for the critic to make, even though it made the point by picturing the whiny blog comments I would probably get if I didn't address this, and how annoyed it would make me to have to read and respond to them.)

So let me just clarify, in case it wasn't obvious: I'm not talking about criticism that actually seeks to improve you or me, or even straightforward statements of preference.  If somebody says they find my writing too long or whatever, cool, that's their opinion.  If a whole bunch of people say it, maybe it's even worth considering changing something.

But that's an entirely different kettle of fish, than the sort of critic whose only intention is to make you look bad.  I don't think they even care whether they make you feel bad, either.  All that's important is that they have something in writing that's an excuse to maintain their current thought pattern.  So there isn't anything worthwhile in this sort of criticism, because the person was only looking for flaws.

And if you look at anything long enough, or with enough motivation, you'll find flaws...

Even if you have to make them up!

But enough from my critic.  If I keep listening to that thing, I'm going to keep going off on tangents.

(After all, I wrote and am writing all this, mainly to figure things out.  Telling you about what I figure out, is just a bonus!)

So let me see if I can bring this to some kind of conclusion for myself, resolve all the loose ends and refactor my relationship with the inner critic.

Clearly, I need to -- and can, now -- forgive the people who've attacked me or my work in the past.  I'm okay, no harm done, and I understand.  I can also see that anybody who does it in the future, is someone who needs my compassion, and maybe my help.

But this is not a complete solution.  It makes me feel a lot better about past and future criticism of that kind, but it hasn't released the silent snare of the critic within.

But strangely, just as I wrote that last paragraph, something let go in my head, and the "test" I was using (imagining putting up a web page saying good things about my work and products) stopped producing apprehension.  I don't know what fixed it, exactly, although I think it was actually when I paused to see if I'd used the title phrase ("silent snare") anywhere else in the article yet.

That pause took place in the middle of me running the test, so I'd gotten to the place in my mind where the critic was about to object... 

And then I got distracted.

I think this actually ended up disrupting the automatic process, but that's just a wild guess.  The brain-as-computer metaphor only works so far, although I've taken it a lot farther than most.

Oh well.  The test "passes" now -- I can at least think about praising my work now, without the negative feeling kicking in.

Of course, whether it's a brain or a computer, testing a program isn't the same thing as actually using the program.  Reality always has to have the last word.  But in this case, I've already used it!  Two paragraphs back, I said "I've taken it a lot farther than most" -- an offhand positive remark about my work.  And I didn't even notice I'd done it until the middle of this paragraph, so it wasn't because I was consciously trying to praise myself!

And that is the always the real test of self-improvement, to me.  Anybody can use "willpower" to do something once, on purpose.

But the real test is what happens when you're not paying attention.  Are you spontaneously a better person, without needing to think about it?  If not, then...

You haven't really changed!

And that's only one of the ways my body of work improves upon "traditional" self-help and coaching approaches.  (More spontaneous positive remarks, yay!)

It's surprising how nice it feels to be able to say good things about my work now.  It's occurring to me that even when I did manage to say such things before, I had to force myself to do so, with my jaws unconsciously clenched.

By comparison, I feel so relaxed now.  It's like talking about the weather...  "Yeah, it's been really cloudy lately, and by the way, I'm making real advancements to the state of the self-help field that I really should be disseminating more widely."  No big deal at all!

Oh, and I suppose I should point out that that's another one of my contributions: the "no big deal" test.  The goal of self-improvement is not to pump you up and get you excited about doing the thing you fear -- because then you'll always need the excitement to overcome the fear.

Instead, the goal is to remove the drama, so that the thing is just ordinary: no big deal.

When you do that, your natural tendency to seek and prefer pleasure is more than enough to accomplish the necessary motivation for success.  The problem is simply that our danger and pain-avoidance systems impose priority overrides on our consciousness.

So removing the override, the Compulsion to Avoid Pain or CAP, as I call it, is usually more than enough.  We are naturally compassionate, friendly, peaceful, and motivated, as long as there is...

An absence of perceived threats!

Anyway, since I've now fixed the problem in myself that I set out to fix by writing this, and I have only about an hour before my next workshop starts ("How To Find Pleasure In A World Full Of Pain"), I think I'll wrap this essay up for now.  Thanks for listening, and I hope this gave you some insights you can use!

Yours in the Circle,

--PJE