Maslow and Productivity

I f you spend time wondering why you do what you do and for what purpose, have a good look through this article, it may surprise you.

Many of us are pursuing activities that directly or indirectly we hope will take us to new levels of fulfilment. But how can we set ourselves up to achieve fulfilment in our chosen field, and in our lives generally?

Fulfilment might also be called Self-Actualisation or expressing one’s full potential. According to Abraham Maslow (American psychologist whose theories have been influential in 20th century thought), it is intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is.

Maslow believed we have a hierarchy of needs, beginning with (a) basic needs for food, shelter, then (b) needs for safety and security, (c) needs for love and belonging, (d) the need for self esteem, and (e) the need for self-actualisation. We cannot meet the higher-order needs until the lower ones are met. A hungry or fearful person will not recognise yet their need for self actualisation.

How do we characterise Self-Actualised (SA) people?

* Generally they are realistically oriented with an efficient perception of reality extending into all areas of their life. SA persons are unthreatened and unfrightened by the unknown. They usually have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth.

* SA people accept themselves, others and the natural world the way they are. They see human nature as is, have rid themselves of crippling guilt or shame, enjoy themselves without regret or apology, and have no unnecessary inhibitions.

* Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses, SA people are unhampered by convention. Their ethics is autonomous, they are individuals, and are motivated towards continual improvement.

* Focus on problems outside themselves. SA people tend to have a mission in life requiring much energy, and their mission is their reason for existence. They are usually serene and worry-free as they pursue their mission with unshakeable determination.

* Detachment, the need for privacy. Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. SA people are self starters, responsible for themselves, own their behaviour.

* Autonomous, independent of culture and environment. SA’s rely on inner self for satisfaction. Resilient and stable in the face of hard knocks, they are self contained, independent from love and respect of others.

* Freshness of appreciation. Have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Moment to moment living is thrilling, transcending and spiritual. SA’s live the present moment to the fullest.

* Peak experiences. “Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences.” Abraham Maslow.

Eight Ways To Self Actualize

Work towards meeting and satisfying the lower-order needs (food, shelter, then safety and security, then love and belonging, and then self esteem). Once you have done this, and I acknowledge that it may be difficult and time-consuming, you will be able to make progress with the following:

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
 

2. Life is a moment-by-moment choice between safety (out of fear and need for defence) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Consciously make the growth choice many times a day.
 

3. Let your true self emerge. Try to go beyond socially-defined modes of thinking and feeling, let your inner experience tell you what you truly feel.
 

4. When in doubt, be honest. It may take some courage, but look honestly at yourself and take responsibility for who you are and what happens to you. Self-delusion is the enemy of self-actualisation.
 

5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular if necessary.

6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem.

7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and conversely what you are not good at.

8. Know thyself. Who are you? What are you? What is good and what is bad for you? Where you are going? What is your mission?

Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means recognising one’s defences–and then finding the courage to give them up.

Good luck,

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

The Productivity Coach

Extraordinary Results for Professional and Personal Freedom

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P:      0421 210 444

Setting Goals

 

In this short video, James explains some of the processes he uses in helping people in identifying, setting and achieving their goals.

 

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

The Productivity Coach

Extraordinary Results for Professional and Personal Freedom

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P:      0421 210444

Changing The Brain For Better Productivity

Why Is Change Hard To Achieve?

The latest research in neuroscience confirms what we have already learned, that is, our brains are hardwired to resist change.

That’s the bad news…

The good news is that this hardwiring can be changed and there are specific ways to do this.

The brain is very good at making connections, it does it by literally hardwiring itself. When repeated and reinforced over time, these connections become very strong. Most of them support us in living our daily lives in things like walking, talking, driving a car etc.

Limited Memory

Because we only have a very limited amount of working memory, these regular tasks are done by the subconscious. Who hasn’t driven home on occasion when tired and couldn’t remember the drive home?

It is built to detect changes and is constantly dividing, comparing, contrasting and differentiating everything it comes across. Again, most of it done under the surface, subconsciously.

We know that these automatic and programmed actions and thoughts serve us well in most cases but some do not and can cause common problems such as self sabotage, procrastination, relationship issues and many others.

What Can I Do About It?

That’s great to know, but what can you do about unhelpful programmed hardwiring?

Well, as I mentioned earlier the brain is constantly hardwiring everything it can, good or bad, and it usually sees change as a threat, especially as you get older. Trying to remove unhelpful habits, beliefs etc. can be extremely hard work and can take years to achieve.

Making new connections however, is relatively easy to do but it is not so easy by yourself. How many people (maybe even you) have read the books, attended the seminars, know the theory yet still resist taking real action?

Gaining new insights and developing your focus on where you are going rather than what is wrong is best done by working with someone else, like as an experienced coach who is familiar with these principles and has a proven methodology for effective behaviour change.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

The Productivity Coach

Extraordinary Results for Professional and Personal Freedom

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Congruence and Productivity

What is an Emotion?

This is the sixth post and last post on how success and productivity can be stymied by emotional reactiveness.

It is said that emotions are the body’s reaction to a thought. Fair enough.

It follows then to say that if there was no bodily reaction to an event or thought then there would not be an emotion.

In a sense, all you would be left with is an opinion, a viewpoint.

In her book Molecules of Emotion, Candace Pert puts forward a strong argument that not only do thoughts trigger feelings by the release of chemicals in the brain, but the opposite is also true. Feelings affect thoughts. Just think of a time you were sick. The chemicals communicate in both directions, from brain to body and body to brain.

Who is Driving The Bus?

She has the view (which I share) that the subconscious mind IS the body because that is where the emotional memories are stored.

Whether we like to admit it or not, our subconscious minds run the show.

If we consciously aim for a goal that subconsciously we believe we do not deserve or are not worthy of, then the subconscious will win. It wins because it uses feelings to get its own way.

You are not aware of the real reasons, all you know is you don’t feel good and that is enough to stop you. Of course, gut feelings can be and often are beneficial as well.

All I am suggesting is that you take a look. It may well change your life.

Get Congruent

People who learn to steer their subconscious mind so it is pointing in the same direction as their conscious mind are far more likely to achieve their goals than those who do not.

We call this congruence.

My job as a performance coach is to enable my clients to be as congruent as possible so that self sabotage and other self limiting behaviours are minimised.

Simple isn’t it?

It is okay to write or say this, but it is not so easy to stop the feelings coming up when things aren’t going so well.

Or is it? My job is to help you do that.

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Finding Fault With Others

This is the fifth post (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) on how success and productivity can be stymied by emotional reactiveness.

“When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears.” Goenka

All sorts of problems you have with other people and situations can be examined and with a little practice you can catch yourself while the incident is taking place or at least shortly after.

I was on my way to work one morning, walking along the footpath on a busy road in an industrial area, when I noticed a vehicle approaching with its left indicator on. The driver wanted to turn into the driveway that I was just about to walk over. I stopped and waved him through.

Well, that is exactly what he did but he drove straight past without even looking at me or putting his hand up to say thank you. My immediate reaction was one of anger at his apparent rudeness.

Almost immediately I asked myself what it was about his actions that I did not like.  After a few seconds’ reflection I realized that it was his apparent unwillingness to acknowledge me that got my blood boiling.

But wait a minute, isn’t that what I have been doing to myself all these years? And to others?

I have been more than willing to note everything that I’ve done wrong and beat myself up over it, reinforcing my inadequacies, but I have never acknowledged the good things I have done.

Wow!

That poor man was an unwitting accomplice in another act of self-healing.  He may not have seen me, maybe he did deliberately ignore me, he could have been under a lot of stress or there was some other reason entirely.

Whatever it was, it belonged to him, not me.

Sometime ago a young man called Bill came to see me because he was finding it hard to cope at work. He found himself getting really irritated at a female co-worker far too often and didn’t know why. He knew it was irrational but couldn’t stop it.

Bill and I sat down together and had a look at what it was he did not like about her behaviour. The trait she displayed that he recognized as his own was selfishness. He saw that that was exactly how he had been behaving at home, refusing to help around the house and generally being uncooperative with his parents, especially his mother.

Bringing that to the light of day caused him to take stock and start to consider others as he would consider himself.

While it is very obvious that someone who takes and does not give is very selfish the converse can also be true. That is, someone who will only give and refuses to receive is also selfish.

Why is that?

Simply put, they are not allowing others to give. Denying others the opportunity to do what you love to do is not a fair exchange – is it?

Anna found herself getting slightly irritated with her mother at a family barbecue one evening. She overheard her mother putting herself down with a throwaway comment similar to “I couldn’t do that, I am not smart enough”.

Through her previous work with me she had learned how to apply the mirror. On closer inspection she found that was exactly what she had been doing to herself for a large part of her life. Yet she had not been consciously aware of it.

Until now.

Andy was at a business meeting one evening and started talking to a woman with a Scottish accent. He took a dislike to her almost immediately and withdrew from the conversation and possibly some new business. When we looked at this incident together a week or two later he was able to understand the cause of his discomfort and deal with it.

She had came across to him as being a “know it all”. On reflection, he recognised that quality in himself at times. Also, her accent and looks reminded him of an aunt he had when he was young that he disliked intensely.

Fortunately, he was able to meet with her again soon after and discuss doing business together.

As a result of our work, she no longer bothered him as he had “made the darkness conscious” and learned to be more accepting of himself.

Do any of these examples ring a bell for you? If so and you would like to delve a little deeper into your own behaviour give me a call. Initial meeting is free and without obligation.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Self Esteem

This is the fourth post (part 1, part 2, part 3) on how success and productivity can be stymied by emotional reactiveness.

“When you become immobilized by what anybody else thinks of you, what you are saying is that someone else’s opinion of you is more important than your own opinion of yourself.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

I remember being at a function and being introduced to somebody who seemed to look down on me. I sensed sarcasm and that this person felt they were superior.

My feelings were a mixture of feeling inferior and being angry.

Looking Through the Mirror

Looking back on the incident using the mirror it is clear that again, I was seeing something in a person that I did not like about myself. That is, I sometimes behaved in the same way towards other people I considered inferior to me.

Dropping the need to judge others has been a wonderful release for me as I am learning to be more accepting of myself.

Because I have given up blaming people, which is a very destructive form of judgement, I no longer feel the need to forgive anybody for anything. That does not mean I cannot hold them accountable for their actions – I can.

What it does mean is that if I don’t assign blame, I accept that what is, IS. There is nothing and nobody TO forgive.

Looking through the eyes of the mirror I can see that their pain is my pain. They are stuck in their own stuff just as I was. If you are like most other people then you are probably much harder and more judgmental on yourself than you could ever be towards anybody else.

Lunacy

Imagine meeting somebody whom you instantly dislike because you consider them arrogant. The other person sees the same in you and an argument starts over something trivial.

Then you have the sight of two people having a go at each other when all they are really doing is having a go at themselves.

It is bizarre and funny looking at it from this angle but that is what happens.

Does something similar happen to you occasionally? If you feel like you need some help why not give me call on 0421 210 444 anytime. It won’t cost you a thing to find out if I can help.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Heal the Past

This is the third post (part 1, part 2) on how success and productivity can be stymied by emotional reactiveness.

“Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure”. Rainier Maria Rilke

I was playing for my local soccer team one Sunday morning some years ago.  During the game a few things had not gone our way, and I found myself blaming the referee for our shortcomings.  As we were leaving the field I went over to the referee (who was only doing it as a favour) and abused him. Among the words I threw at him were “useless”, “incompetent”, “weak” and well, you don’t really want to know the rest. But, I’m sure you get the idea.

My Fault

Almost immediately after this outburst I felt a great deal of guilt and apologized profusely to him and the other players, but it was some years later when I recalled the incident that I applied the mirror to it. No surprises here, but it is a good snapshot of how I viewed myself at the time.

My failure was to not accept responsibility and understand that the result of the game was really in my hands and those of my teammates, not in his.  My eagerness to pass judgment on him was really a way of blinding me to my own perceived faults.

One of the ways to heal the past is to follow this simple process:

• Locate or remember a time in your business, work or socially someone or something upset you

• Observe what it was about that person or situation that you did not like

• Write your thoughts down, i.e. he or she was selfish, arrogant, and ignorant and so on.

• Consider what it was about the situation that you were resisting.

• Go through each of the items you have written down one at a time, honestly look at yourself and see if any of them may apply to , now or in the past. You may see yourself as sometimes selfish for instance.

• As soon as you realise that the part of him or her you don’t like is exactly what you don’t like about that part of yourself, take another look. Do you still feel the same way? The simple act of acknowledging something you were not consciously aware of is part of the healing process.

Different Point of View

Looking at it now, this does not mean that I just changed the point of blame on to me so I could be even harder on myself.

It became an opportunity to understand myself better.  After all, if my feelings towards him could suddenly disappear due to this realization, then maybe I could do the same for the feelings I had for myself.

It gave me hope.

If you see yourself in any of this and would like some help, give me a call on 0421 210 444 to arrange a Free, No Obligation 30 minute chat to see how we can work together.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Negative Beliefs

Following on from my previous post, “Lightbulb Moment”, examining how success and productivity can be stymied by emotional reactivity.

“The highest form of maturity is self inquiry”. Martin Luther King Jr.

As I continued observing myself during and after times of stress and upset, it reconfirmed what I had learned already.  All upsets were an opportunity to learn the truth about me.
Many people won’t look at themselves, maybe because they’re scared of what they may find out.

Angry Man

I worked with a man some years ago who was very angry – he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder. His whole world view was based on the belief that nobody can be trusted; it’s every man for himself and that people will cheat you if they get a chance.  As a result of this belief he attracted the sort of people who lived up to that expectation – very much a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The trouble was that he didn’t realise that when he used the words “nobody can be trusted” that that clearly included himself.  He flatly
refused to consider that maybe his beliefs were the cause of his misery.

Blaming others was and probably still is an easy way out for him.

Most of our problems arise from a resistance to “what is”. No amount of moaning and groaning is going to change what has happened, yet we persist.

“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.” Thomas Szasz

Baseless Fear

The really sad part about stories like this is that the fear of what you might find out about yourself is greater can be greater than the pain you are actually in.

Ultimately this fear is baseless. What is scary is the fear itself.

These types of reactionary upsets can really stop you succeeding and reduce your productivity whether you are at work or not. But in another sense they are like gold and something to be grateful for because they present wonderful opportunities to gain self-acceptance and bring you more into the present.

I’ll cover a simple way of doing that in my next post.

If this resonates with you why not call me on 0421 210 444 for a short chat? You never know, it may change your life.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Lightbulb Moment

“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison then waiting for it to kill your enemy” Nelson Mandela

I took an instant dislike to a young man I had never seen before. It was quite unreasonable, and at first I never tried to understand it. I was refereeing indoor soccer, and as soon as he took to the court to play with his new team I started to give him a hard time. I couldn’t stand him, right from the start.

I picked on him mercilessly. I penalised him every opportunity I could for the slightest indiscretion and sent him off regularly. What I saw was a cocky, arrogant boy who cared for no one but himself. He was a good player who enjoyed being the centre of attention and who treated the opposition with contempt.

Every time I blew the whistle for some perceived violation I could actually see he was wondering, “What did I do wrong? What have I done to make him hate me like this? What is going on here? I’ve just come here to enjoy myself and I am being picked on.”
I could see that, and yet I kept up my unreasonable prejudice against him. I didn’t like myself much for it, but I felt powerless to stop it.

And then, one day, it hit me – right in the heart.

When I looked at him, I was seeing myself at his age.

I had not realised it, but his mannerisms, facial features, attitude and style of play were very similar to my own.

And I did not like what I saw. From that moment on I was never bothered by him again. In fact, I felt sorry for him.

That realisation started me thinking about my attitude and other upsets in my life. I began to reflect on other situations that may have reflected my own behaviour.  I can now see that most upsets of a reactive or knee-jerk nature that I have are not about what I think they are.

They are about me.

Have you ever experienced this? Want to know how I overcame it and am a happier person because I did??

Click on the link below for more information or call me on 0421 210 444

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444

Why have a Coach?

Why do I Need One?

Well, the answer is very simple. All we need to do to is look at any top flight sportsperson, they do not get to that level without having outside help, simply because a coach can help develop their fundamental skills, observe them in action, provide appropriate input, support, and accountability in what they are doing and encourage them to do the best that they possibly can with what they have.

In business it’s absolutely no different. In my own case, I know that I certainly went through most of my business career not achieving anywhere near what I could have done.

The common denominator in all this was me. And I suspect that this is a familiar story for many people, maybe even you.

The thing is, I knew there was a problem, but I didn’t know what it was. My level of thinking at the time did not allow me to see other possibilities and opportunities. Had I had a coach who could ask the right questions and help me get insights into the way I was behaving and to develop new ways of thinking and acting, I would probably have achieved far more than I did.

With the clients I have been working with so far, what they have achieved has been nothing short of amazing, and all this from just having somebody provide them with the right nutrients help to them to blossom, and the environment for them to grow to their full potential.   So it really is very simple – Why wouldn’t you ask for help?