Hi guys :)
As you will be able to tell, i have not written a proper post in a good few weeks....and its been killing meeee!!!! I love spending time writing, it gives me so much joy. Especially when i get messages and e-mails from all you readers who say that it has helped you in some way. But yeah i have been really REALLY busy over the last few weeks so have been unable to write. One of the reasons i have not written anything properly though is because i was have been researching something i wanted to look into. Something that interests me and i hope will interest all of you. On my notes this is what i said my goal was for the research i did;
Goal
To find techniques and tools that will simultaneously result in improving consciousness and creativity for the purpose of improving social interactions (and other situations).
I also wrote down why i thought this was important....have a read....
Look at every sport, every skill, every situation where you need to show how good you are at something....you see people who train for months and months, by the end of their training they are perfect at the skill. But....when it comes to the time when they show how good they are...they fail. Why? Maybe because they were not conscious and focused because they were in their head worried about what was about to happen. Maybe...They were unconscious. Being unconscious is not bad remember, if you have a good unconscious then that's great. But the people who fail are the ones who have a bad unconscious, the type of unconscious that doubts and makes them believe less in them self. Now i could create techniques to change their unconscious but that is more of 1 on 1 coaching thing. So i have chosen to make good consciousness techniques instead. Purely because when you are conscious it takes away thinking and negative emotions and any unconscious negative energy. Plus it is a skill in itself... and it is very powerful to be able to be outside of your mind.
To me...having the ability to be conscious and creative is probably one of the best skills you can have, the ability to Be There in the moment AND be productive at the same time. Its so important because it is one of the main reasons for lack of success even with training. Emotional attachment to what you do can sometimes be a burden if not controlled right, so i was looking for ways that this burden would not need to be worried about. I wanted to also begin doing more "how to do" articles, i dont do enough of these, as alot of people have pointed out. For a few simple reasons....teaching and advising is better done in person with someone. Its hard to tell someone if they are doing something right or wrong if you cant see it for yourself and all they do is come back to you and say "i did this, why didnt it work" etc. But hey, lets give it a try and hopefully you will all benefit from all this.
Here's a few techniques i discovered that will hopefully help you to become more present and more productive in anything you do;
Tasks that are Prerequisite to get into conscious and creative state
- Apply positive emotional state.
- Listen to a song that reminds you of a good time or a time when you were focused/creative/conscious
- Remind yourself of the benefits that you will get from being in a conscious and creative state.
Once done...do these.....
1. Turn off your phone...Exercise (The simplest one had to be first!)
Last year my best mate Oliver Hambling came to Manchester to see me for a few days. While he was here we went to a big shopping centre one day but before we left the house he had this idea for us to not take out phones with us. I thought why the hell not lets do it, i cant remember why he said to do it but it was probably for no important reason. At one point in that day, we were both playing mini golf and i asked Oli what time it was, he had no watch on, we had no phones with us, i had no watch on... so we asked someone near by. At that very moment we both realised how we didnt know what was going on in the world because we didnt have our phones with us. We suddenly felt, free!! As if nothing else mattered beside what we were doing right there and then. This was Power of Now in action. You see....people without realising escape the moment they are in simply by using their phones, intentionally and of course unintentionally. When you are in an awkward situation you may pull your phone out for example. The worst are people who have blackberry's.....i HATE blackberry's. The phones are very good....but what they do to people is just terrible. People i know who have them are on them 24/7. Blackberry Messenger is basically like being Online 24/7, so you are constantly on it, its terrible. I hate when i am talking to someone and all of a sudden they will put out their blackberry and start typing away. Its not their fault, its a habit to them, remember habits are unconscious and your brains unconscious does not no the difference between right and wrong, all it knows is what you tell it to know. But.... i tell you what....for one day.....if you can....dont take your phone out with you. You will start to see the whole world open up in front of you, you will start to notice so much more. You will become more present.
Exercise ; Anytime you are in a social situation or anything where you need or want to focus, turn your phone off. I would say leave it at home but you may actually need it at some point. This rule should especially be applied to PUA's and people wanting to improve their dating lives. Remember if you are out in a club to meet girls, then why the hell would you be on your phone texting girls you already know? Turn it off and focus on whats around you.
2. Sense to Sense Exercise
To be conscious, you have to find ways to get you out of your mind and into your body, like anything the more you practice the better you will get. Some people never practice and dont even realise that they pass in and out of consciousness all the time. I was watching The Weakest Link last week and a lady on their got voted off, in the interview straight after she said something like..."I dont know why i did so bad, when i am at home i get all the answers right, but when i was up there i couldnt get any, its harder than it looks at home!" Little do people know that negative emotional energy blocks natural brain functions. In other words, when you are emotional you cant think productively. Emotions block the ability to be creative. Remember that. If this women did not get emotional when she was up there, she would have done alot better.
Exercise; This is a little trick i think you can do to get more conscious and therefore become more creative, as the title states its called Sense to Sense. Its as simple as this.......Focus on what you see around you for 10 seconds....then focus on what you hear around you for 10 seconds.....then focus on what you feel around you for 10 seconds......then focus on what smell around you for 10 seconds (i.e. breathe in and out)...then focus on what you can taste for 10 seconds. Do this twice if needed. Going from sense to sense is a real revitalising experience (well for me it is)....It makes you so sensually aware its powerful. The effect of moving from one sense to another really emphasises your presence and how much you become in touch with your own senses. Now this is a simple exercise but not easy....because the average person is not used to Not Thinking. What may happen when you are doing your 10 seconds is you may start to hear your brain start talking, it may start saying some random things. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN TRYING TO GRAB YOU BACK INTO UNCONSCIOUSNESS, DONT LET IT.
3. Internal Dialogue Change Exercise
What you say to yourself is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo important i could write a whole article on just that. Can you remember the last time you found it hard to get to sleep, now...can you remember what you were saying to yourself...probably something like "Uh i cant sleep"..."Uh i am never getting to sleep tonight" Uh i am going to be so tired tomorrow". Insomniacs do this constantly. If they only knew that to get to sleep all you need to do is change what you say to yourself they would be fine*. If they started saying "Wooow i am soo tired" they would go to sleep so much quicker.
Exercise; Say words to yourself that you WOULD say if you were feeling creative and conscious, or think of the last time you were and what you said then. Another method is to say things to yourself like "I am happy" "I am extremely confident"....It will change your unconscious therefore making you think less*.
If you use these 3 techniques above i can assure you that you will become more conscious, start to think more clearly AND become more creative in what you do. I dont want to get bogged down in theory and why it works and doesnt. Just know one thing.....
Quick thinking is possible when emotions are kept to a minimum, as emotions uses one side of the brain while thinking effectively uses the other.
Oh as well, if you are someone who is in a field where your focus, conscious and creative abilities are extremely important....then here are also a list of supplements that will help you with that;
- Yerba Mate Tea
- Vitamin D
- Fish Oil
I wont get in to why to have them, but if anyone wants the scientific background on them then comment below and i will answer :) Oh and also....remember to have a good level of carbohydrates inside you when you are about to take on a task, i find when my carb's are low i start to get more edgy, stressed and basically experience more negative emotions. Good rule i live by for carbs is to always adjust them to your lifestyle.
BONUS.....here is a Warm Up Exercise i wrote down on my notes for anyone who is about to undertake a task involving socially interacting;
Usually a warm up for social interactions is one where you will approach a complete stranger and interact with them. That is not a good warm up for the simple reason that it is not easy to keep them talking to you for long because they have no reason to. When warming up you want to be in a situation where you are interacting with someone for as long as possible AND you want them to WANT to talk to you. But when for example pua’s try and warm up they try and game a girl by displaying interest etc which may not keep the girl for long. So how do you get around this....simple.....go to a place where there is someone working who’s job it is to talk to you. Remember the goal is not to get this person to like, the goal is to warm up. When we say warm up we mean “warm up your brain”. So you can go to a shop and speak with the sales person there. Or you can be clever and go and speak to a person who is working a job you know they hate and is just waiting literally waiting for someone to come say hi. Receptionists, or anyone who is averagely bored. Hell speak to anyone who looks bored and you can tell needs someone to talk to.
DOUBLE BONUS.....Some notes i made on what to do while you are interacting with someone;
Everything said so far has been pre planning ideas. Now for some ideas to use while actually interacting......
Remember the purpose before you interact is to get you into a state where you are in your body and not your mind. For reasons said above but also....if you are in your body and not your mind then what you are listening to, you take as face value with no background meaning which is vital because you do not always want to be someone that relates what other people are saying to your own experiences. That can be a bit egotistical and arrogant. The idea when communicating should be to understand what the other person is saying in their own world and not trying to find the connection with what they are saying to how you know it in your world. So by completely LISTENING to what they are saying you naturally and creatively think of ways to understand what they mean.
So yeah, when interacting....focus on listening, using external senses, focus on every word . The more you focus externally the more you will be able to naturally create ways to connect what someone has just said to something else. Because there are no negative emotions taking place you will experience natural neurological processes that allow for creativity (one cell connecting with another) You wont feel it happening, but i assure you it is. This is a reason why planning what to say before is not pracatical. If you plan what to say or react, it means that you do block out natural brain processes.
For example when i speak at events i do not have a sheet of paper with me with everything planned. I get myself into a conscious state and then see what comes out. Often i will be talking about something and then NATURALLY will connect it to something else i may have experienced or know. Or someone in the audience may ask a question and that will spring another idea for me to talk about something. When you plan and make a routine of things, you can miss and even ignore what the environment is saying. Ignoring your environment will not get you the results you want.
Hope everyone enjoyed reading this, bit disorganised this time, everything was everywhere....as you know i dont like structure or routine, it bores me ;)
Take care.
Sam Ben-David
www.howtochangelifenow.com
*People who have a good unconscious actually think less....meaning they become more conscious....This is because your brain has a primary need to problem solve and make you happy, but if you are unconsciously happy or maybe have just had some of your problems solved (maybe a recent success) then you will actually THINK LESS. This applies as well to changing your internal dialogue as it will create a different state inside of you.
