3dmindsolutions.com

For the last couple of years, I have to admit that I’ve been bumbling around a bit, trying to figure out exactly what I want to be doing.  To be honest, I consider myself a failure in that I’ve achieved some of the goals I’ve set for myself, but they’ve only been small, average goals and I haven’t really set BIG goals.  Now, setting big goals in itself is not the important part.  People who tell you that big goals are what you need to really be successful tend to be stuck in an overly-positive delusional mode of thinking that is destined for failure.  I didn’t have that problem.

What I did have were fears of stepping out of my comfort zone and stepping up to the challenge of living up to my potential.  Having the ability to change your own mind is a lot of power… and a lot of responsibility.  It’s pretty comfortable to be just a regular guy, and much less intimidating.  I didn’t step up and do the things I knew I needed to do to get my ideas out there and make this site worth reading.  I pretty much kept my ideas–and my doubts–to myself.  The thing, though, is that I didn’t consciously dodge all this.  I didn’t intend to be lazy.  What happened–and this happens to everybody–was that I ran into a few emotional obstacles I had trouble tackling, and when I couldn’t seem to do anything about them I ignored them and lived my life around them.

That’s how the mind works, after all.  We build invisible walls around ourselves, all within our own mind.  We tend to avoid the things that make us uncomfortable or afraid, and that includes avoiding thinking about them.  Pretty soon, we’re thinking about anything BUT the things we’re avoiding and they tend to seem less important.

To get back on track, you have to start to look for those invisible walls.  That’s what I’ve been doing.  This post isn’t about me admitting to being a failure, however.  I don’t feel any shame for getting off track.  I realized shame is one of those things that gets in the way of getting back on track because if I can never admit that I screwed up, I can’t start honestly examining myself and where I’m at so I can make improvements.  I’m not obligated to feel bad for not being perfect.

I’m writing this post to make an announcement.  It is time to change this site.  While I am probably going to re-do the look of the web site, what I really want to change is the content and some of the ideas.  You see, quite a bit of what I have up here was written several years ago.  At this point, many of my ideas have changed and matured along with my understanding.

I’m going to take everything down and start from scratch. I’ve struggled with making some important personal changes, and because I’ve struggled I’ve had to put a lot of work into understanding what really does and doesn’t work.  Working with other people can be rather easy since it’s easy to see someone else’s problems.  Being able to see through your own problems is a really tough one… but I find it’s a skill that can be learned if you know what to un-learn.

In the next month, I’m going to un-do this website.  Then I’m going to start doing things a better way.  I like you to join me.

I realize that I’ve been out of touch for a while. Things have been very busy! I’m sure that there are lots of people who run into this. I have a good friend who’s in the same boat, rushing around, trying to get things done, and I’ve been thinking about the topic.

It would be nice sometimes to sit down and have all the time in the world to get something done. Does it happen often? Not really. Does that mean nothing gets done? Sometimes… If you let it.

I have to admit. I don’t really feel like an expert on procrastination yet. There’s talking the talk, and there’s walking the walk after all. Sometimes, though, it only seems like nothing gets done because we feel so out of control. One thing gets planned, and another comes up. When it comes to life, though, flexibility is the name of the game. Something will ALWAYS come up. Because that’s not something you can control, if you wait for things to be perfect, nothing gets done.

So you have to steal the moment.

Right now, I’m at work. I’m the manager on duty, and the only salesperson at a furniture store. I had to come in early to take down the sale tags that ended yesterday and put up the new ones. In between tagging, I can be interrupted at any time by customers and literally get pulled from one thing to the next. In fact, this has described the last couple weeks in general.

As of late, that makes it much harder to sit down and write, and I’ve been letting it slide. I’ve been thinking about it, constantly though. It’s too easy to get into the mindset of “I HAVE to get things done” and feel overwhelmed with MORE responsibility than I already feel. Instead, I’ve been focusing on how I WANT to get this done. That’s the thing about motivation, after all. If you focus on avoiding feeling bad you get nowhere, but if you focus on getting what you want you’re going to make progress.

So in a perfect world, I’d be able to sit down at my desk at home, have a cup of coffee and… Aww hell. While we’re talking about fantasies, why not have a good glass of scotch and a cigar while sitting in an old-style study filled with leather-bound books in a chair by a cozy fireplace. I could sit there pondering, idly running my fingers through my beard, finding inspiration in the musings of great authors before me…

Which is all total BS ’cause I’m really not anywhere close to being that kind of guy. And if I hold myself to that kind of standard, I’ll never, ever get anything done.

In reality, I’m a guy who spends his days running in 10 different directions at once and just wants to relax at night. I also happen to have a handy little blackberry, so what am I to do? Simple. I’ll write a few minutes at a time as I get a break. At this point, it’s not about squeezing as much productivity into my day as possible. It’s about taking control of my day in as many little chunks as possible. Again, adaptability is key.

So here’s my challenge to you. You may feel overwhelmed by all the things you have to do. Some things may not get done in their entirety. But you can take control of things by getting the little things done. So my question to you is, as you go through your busy day not getting enough done, how can you steal the moment?

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my job.

That way is, apparently, to NOT walk on a ski trail, but how was I supposed to know that? It all started when my buddy Casey and I went hiking in the snow on some hiking trails someone told Casey about. It was a beautiful day, with snow crusted on every tree branch like some sort of winter fantasy land, and it was even fairly warm (for winter, of course).

We set out on some trails that had been packed down by some sort of plow and was criss-crossed by ski trails. It was a pretty vigorous trail even so, and we were getting a pretty good workout. Every once in a while, we’d meet someone cross-country sking going the opposite way and being in a good mood on such a beautiful day, we’d greet them heartily. They weren’t generally quite so friendly, but I put that down to the fact that most people are just cowards when it comes to strangers (very true in my experience).

Then, an hour in and halfway down the trail, someone FINALLY says something. Apparently, and neither Casey or I know cross-country skiing ettiquette because neither of us cross-country ski, hikers are generally not allowed on ski trails.

Oops! Unfortunately, there was no way to know since there were no signs saying “No hiking during ski season”. In fact, the signs said “Hiking and Skiing Trails.” Let’s see. How did it go…

Older male skier: “You know you’re not supposed to be hiking on ski trails.”
Casey: “Yeah. We just found that out.”

That was a pretty funny response, I think. The other guy, however, didn’t take it so well. Oh well. That would be his choice.

When the guy’s wife said something along the same lines to me, my response was, “Yeah, we didn’t know. On the upside, though, we’re on our way out now.” No guilt, no bad feelings. To me it was no big deal at all, even if I was the only one to think so. I didn’t do anything intentionally wrong, so I had a clean conscience, and that’s what matters to me. I can remember several years ago when it would have bothered me a lot and I’d have been terribly embarrassed and guilt-stricken.

Also, while footsteps on a ski path might be an inconvenience, inconvenience doesn’t harm people. And even on the remote chance that a footstep causes someone to turn a ski, then that makes a pretty good object lesson that you should always pay attention to where you’re going, which will only help them in the long run.

The funny part, though, was my buddy’s reaction after they moved on. He claimed that he didn’t care what they thought of him, but he was visibly agitated, and wouldn’t let it go, talking about what a jerk that guy was. I pointed out that if it really didn’t bother him, he wouldn’t be going on and on about it.

The next reason he gave was that he just doesn’t like people telling him what to do. That may or not be true-I have waaaaay better things to do than analyze my friends-but it still serves as a good example of what it REALLY means to not care what people think. If you can’t stop thinking about it, and you’re getting agitated, you DO care. If, on the other hand you don’t feel anything-no embarassment, no anxiety, no guilt, no anger, no desire to laugh it off-then you’re really not bothered by it.

It’s pretty rare, though, to feel that way when people confront us. Even I might usually be bothered by many kinds of confrontation, so when I have an experience that’s so completely counter to what I’m used to, I like to take note.

It’s like that old buddhist story where two monks meet a cranky old woman at a stream who demands that they help her across. One puts her on his shoulders and wades across, but she spends the entire time complaining how uncomfortable it is. When they reach the other side, he puts her down and the two monks continue on their way.

After a while, the second monk asks the first, “Why did you help such a shrew?”

The second replies, “I put her down on the river bank. Why are you still carrying her?”

As far as I’m concerned, though, the best part of the story is that after the one couple said something to us when we were just past the halfway point, every other group we passed on the way out said something too! That drove Casey nuts.

But I thought it was hilarious!

So what are you carrying that you don’t need to?

Last month, I had my 10 year high school reunion. A lot of people look forward to something like that with trepidation, going so far as to make excuses for not going. But not me.

I was really, really curious. 10 years is a long time, and people change. I know this for a fact, after all.

I think what I wanted to know most, though, was if I had really changed. Over time, small changes add up, but unless you have something to compare it to, it seems like you haven’t gone anywhere.

It WAS very different, and so was I.
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When I was in college, I was really into eastern philosophy and meditation. I was on a quest for inner peace, for finding my center.  It seemed like the better way to live.

There’s a rub, however. I never found it because I wanted it so that I didn’t have to feel all the anxieties and insecurities I had. That never works: covering up a tangled mess of emotional garbage by focusing on quieting your mind or contemplating your navel only works while you’re doing it. All the emotional mess is still there, but you’re just distracting yourself from it by focusing on not thinking.

So that whole enlightenment kick never worked out. But then again I didn’t stick around to become a meditation master because I found something MUCH better: 3D Mind. After all, what’s the point of meditating for 20 years to suppress all the mental junk before getting to a day-to-day state of not being quite so anxious, insecure and emotionally garbled when I can get started making progress bit by bit every day?

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