Currently viewing the tag: "Personal Power"

A Life at Peace Lessons from the Guitarist

By On August 6, 2011 · 8 Comments

One of the many pasttimes I took up during the last two years of my transformation has been teaching myself to play the guitar. I am no John Mayer but I think I’ve established a fair degree of proficiency considering the fact that I’ve had very little time to dedicate my instrument. While I learnt to play the guitar the guitar also taught me some lessons about life.

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  1. There is no substitute for practice. You need to put the hours in building up those calluses hitting the wrong strings. Until you have you’ll never gain mastery of your instrument. It is said that you need to 10000 hours of practice to attain mastery of any skill. The only way to get there is one hour at a time.
  2. You get what you practice. Make sure that when you’re practicing you’re practicing playing the correct way. Your body doesn’t know the difference between the correct way to play and the incorrect. Avoid shortcuts learn the correct form. Practice using the correct form, pay the price now and you’ll reap the benefits down the line. Similarly in life if you spend your time practicing and focusing on bad behaviors don’t be surprised when you become really good at being bad.
  3. Two hands acting as one. Playing the guitar is a true lesson in synergy neither hand can achieve individually what they can achieve together. Playing with feeling can only happen when your hands move as one. Each knowing the position of the other. There is an economy of movement a grace to the guitarist movement that should be a guide to all of us. The guitarist moves his hands no more than he must to get to the next note. Ensuring that he is able to give voice to each beat and to give each beat life. Live your life this way. The only way to succeed is when you are able to find this inner synergy.
  4. Timing is everything. Playing music is all about keeping time. The guitarist needs keep his playing in time with the rhythm. Within the constraints of the rhythm the guitarist has complete freedom to explore himself within the music. Similarly in life there are immutable laws like timing which we cannot change but we can rule our lives within them if we only open our eyes and ears to see them.
  5. Less Haste and more Speed. The Guitarist like any musician understands that speed is key it’s not about knowing what note to play but rather it’s about knowing when to play what not. Music is a rich tapestry of sound and silence. Knowing when to keep quiet is often as important as knowing when to play. Don’t rush your playing. When you’re truly invested in playing much like when you’re fully invested in living you will feel the urge to hurry along. Resist this urge remember the right note at the wrong time is as destructive as the wrong note at the right time

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Real Growth, Personal Development from the Inside Out

By On July 23, 2011 · 9 Comments
Real Growth this way

Real Growth this way

 

It’s a tricky business. You can think you’ve pulled all the weeds of in-authenticity and the next thing you know, you’re realizing you’re doing something for the sake of “growth” that doesn’t really matter. The prolificacy of fake growth often hides in hard-to-find corners of your mind. It often arrives in unassuming forms.

Jonathan Mead – The Number One Self-Development Mistake, And The Fake Growth Addict

In the realm of Personal Development, Real growth is the key indicator of success or failure. So what defines real growth or false growth? Much of the information and programmes in Personal Development available are at best insincere and at worst scams. The belief that your problems can be fixed from the outside in, that your goals can somehow be found in between the covers of  the latest glossy Personal Development book is the myth. Personal Development is well, personal. The Personal Development industry can only help accelerate real growth, it can’t start it.

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Take back your time! 3 ways to take control of your life one minute at a time

By On July 10, 2011 · 17 Comments
Take back your Time

Take back your Time

I find that every week, every day, every hour I have less time, less minutes at my disposal. More and more I find that somewhere during all work and play I’ve lost sight of what is important. Where is the meaning in our lives. When did we stop trying to live meaningfully in the time alloted to us.

I put it to you that the meaning in our lives does not live in the big things the huge projects or enormous undertakings. Rather the meaning is standing in plain sight in all the minutes between this one and the last one you’ll ever see. Tomorrow is nothing, next year even less. Meaning is realizing that we can have 60 memorable moments or one average hour. Meaning is time well used. Meaning is the conversion of time to goals successfully completed, to dreams realized, to relationships cemented. Time spent meaningfully not squandered.

When I find the world is taking from my enjoyment of the universe I fall back on some of these great ways to forget about the lonely hours and scary years and take pleasure in those silly minutes we allow to slip by so recklessly.

Take some time and breath

Take 60 seconds and concentrate on your breathing- Besides the spiritual well being breathing correctly brings, physiologically it’s a great tonic too. As we become more stressed our breathing becomes more and more shallow, hunching our shoulders and limiting the amount of oxygen available to our bodies. You’d think your body knows how to breath properly, and yeah it does but with the the sedentary lifestyle we currently all live we become so accustomed to our stressed state our bodies adapt that as a norm. Want to know how bad it is let’s take a deep breath now forcing as much air into your lungs feeling your chest expand and your diphragm pushed down. Feel how unnatural that feels? That’s the way you’re meant to be breathing. That’s the state every second should find you in. Lungs full, head clear and ready to react. If you can concentrate on breathing correctly for just one minute you’ll immediately find yourself more centred and able enjoy yourself.

Take some time to Rock out!!

Get your favourite song out and play it. Listen to it and don’t do anything else just enjoy all the reasons it’s your favourite take some time and remember those. Maybe it reminds you of your first kiss or that summer that went on forever or perhaps it just makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Whatever the reason you’ll find that when you connect with those feelings you make them real again and each time we play that song as background music we kill some of the meaning. If you’re not a music person dig out that painting that makes you want to weep. That poem that makes you laugh or that garfield cartoon you haven’t read in ages and let yourself remember what it felt like the first time you did that. Ok so this one would take a bit longer than 60 seconds sue me!

Rate your coffee

Go now grab a cup of coffee. Start drinking it and try describing it as if you were reviewing it. Are the tastes bold and earthy or bland and lifeless. Be as descriptive as you can don’t use the word nice for goodness sakes. Let your imagination run wild and grab some words from the musty recesses of your mind that you haven’t used in a while and dust them off and shine them up today we’re taking them to town. You can use this for any of thing you currently take for granted even some of those things you currently find distasteful. How about a play by play on the drive home or a review of the last excuse you gave your boss for that late report. The important thing is to take the time to look at something differently. Explaing the mundane moments an you may find that those moments become progressively less mundane.
 

There are many other ways to kickstart your if this post teaches you anything let it be that your time is as valuable as you make it. If we spend our time waiting for the next hour, day, week or year we lose out on all the things we have the power to do right now. Truly our minds are the most powerful tools we have at our disposal and if we use them we’ll find more and more ways to make our time count.

So how does this fit in with the idea of monetizing our lives? All of the minutes of our lives have value. One cent is only one cent but think of this $100, $1000 or even a $1m dollars is nothing but a collection of cents. When we play fast and loose with those little coins we stop our chances of becoming truly rich. Find more ways to get the most out of those minutes of your life and you’ll soon find that the hours, days and weeks will see to themselves and your life will become progressively richer.

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Find time to do meaningful things in your life

By On November 4, 2009 · 15 Comments

Disclaimer

Please note I wrote this post last week before going off on my trip and started editing it this morning and realized it’s kind of impossible without changing the tone of the whole post so this post is kind of a time travel into last week with me.

Find Time to find meaning

Find Time to find meaning

So I’m hitting the road, and leaving my blog unattended for a few days, its been a long time coming but I’m really looking forward to this get away for more reasons than I care to share with you. The trip should be 229kms or 114 miles. After making my way through rush hour Johannesburg  traffic I whip past due east of our countries capital, Pretoria , I’ll hit the country roads which the nice people on the internet promise me has stunning scenery, who can argue with alliteration like that.

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