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Excerpts from

How to Eat an Elephant

      A Guide Book for Playing  the Game Called Life      ^®

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Section One   + 1

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   Self-observation

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Page Content

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Page Summary

This section will put us into the self observation mode.    It's about finding out where we are.   This is a primary step in getting to any goal.

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.buttons.          .buttons.  self-awareness exercise      ...

What Pushes Your Buttons?

In the observation portion of our approach, let's begin with something quite simple.   Let's start by noticing the experiences in our external environment that  trigger negative emotional responses within us.  (When we get upset as a result of what someone says or does, or as a result of your own behavior, we call that having our buttons pushed.° ) 

Essentially, I'm suggesting that we become more conscious of how we're feeling as we go through each day.   Notice each "warm fuzzy" (Ahh!  I feel good) and each "cold prickly" (OOh!  I feel bad).   If you're so inclined, make a list of each day's emotional events.   Why?   Because a list will be very helpful for the later parts of this exercise.   It's like taking inventory to see what's in our houses.

An Experiment:

Spend the next few days noticing your emotional responses to life and then come back and we'll take the next bite.

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What Did You Find?

Welcome back.   What did you find.   For those of you who took the time and effort to make a list of what pushed your buttons, look at the list and notice what buttons were repeatedly pushed.   For example, did several fellow drivers on the freeway irritate you?  Did a family member trigger the same response in you several times?  

Now ask yourself,  "Is this where I choose to use my life energy?  Is this what I choose to have more of in my future?  If not check the alternatives below.

If you would like to be one of our coaching clients,  together, we'll take this exercise to the next level.

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Setting Yourself Up For A Fall

Another aspect of behavior which we highly recommend that you look at involves how you participate in creating those things you say you don't want to experience.    How often do humans open ourselves up to potential  problems.   Here are a few examples:  Leaving a glass of liquid where it could easily get knocked over.   On the highway, following too closely the car in front.   Driving a car while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  

Have you ever left the fire burning on the stove under a pot when going out of the kitchen with the intent of returning immediately?   What happened when you get sidetracked and forget about the stove and the pot?

Have you noticed how one thing follows another.   Here's a nursery rhyme which demonstrates how things seemingly inconsequential in and of themselves, can have enormous consequences.   

All for the want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. 
For want of a shoe the horse was lost. 
For want of a horse the rider was lost. 
For want of a rider, the message was lost
For want of a message, the battle was lost
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. 
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. 

The author is unknown.  This rhyme probably
 originated somewhere in English  history.

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Spend the next few days noticing that by being consciously aware of the potential consequences of your actions, you can interrupt cycles that are moving in negative directions and change the end result.   Also look back at your life and find incidents where you could have avoided problems by a small change in your behavior.   Make a list of those incidents.   Also notice where, right now, you're setting yourself up for potential problems.   Make a list of these, too.   When you've done this, come back and we'll take the next bite.

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What Did You Find?

Welcome back.    For those of you who took the time and effort to do the exercise, what did you find.   Now ask yourself,  "Is this the way I want to live my life?"   

If you would like to be one of our coaching clients,  together, we'll take this exercise to the next level.

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Completions:   This is a very close relative of setting yourself up for a fall.   

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By completions, I'm referring to completing a task, job, chore, or whatever activity you are engaged in.   It's so easy, in the moment, to simply drop things and move on, but lack of completion often sets us up big-time, future problems.    This is best explained by a few examples.  

Example One:   When you come home,  do you have a special place for you house and car keys,  or do you just drop them somewhere and then an hour or a day later engage in a thirty minute search to find them.   Completion is placing your keys in their designate storage place.   Obviously this can't always happen.   When those pressing moments do arrive, simply tell yourself where you are placing the keys.   Do this by consciously and intentionally creating both  an auditory and a visual image of where the keys are.   Say to yourself, "The keys are on the kitchen counter." (or where ever they are)   Next, look at the keys sitting on the counter, and then go about you more pressing business.   

This same "I placed it there" technique is applicable to countless other items.  If you are working on a project, have a single place for tools or use this technique to assist you to remember where you put things. 

Example Two:   When a phone call comes in, and you make a note to call someone or do something, do you make a complete note?   Do you write down who called, the date of the call, why  they called, what you have agreed to do and by when?   And then what do you do with the note?   

How many times have you picked up a scrap of paper with a name and phone number and asked yourself,  "I wonder what this is?   The the next time you pick up one of these mysterious half notes, ask yourself,   "What valuable gift did I throw away, here?"   

Example Three:   Is your home or work place reasonably neat or do you have things strewn all over the place.    At home, do you hang up your clothes and put dirty clothes in the hamper or just drop them on the floor?.   At work, do you put file folders back in the appropriate file drawers?  Does the trash get thrown away?  Do left over items get properly put away?

Why Bother:

Completions may, in the moment seem burdensome,  but in the long run, they save countless otherwise wasted hours; they eliminate tons of of grief and misery; they significantly increase efficiency; and they enhance one's sense of well being.   Consider the opposite:   The psychology of living in trash and chaos is very depressing.

An Experiment:

As an exercise, pick one spot, one section, one room, or one whatever, and  make a contract with yourself to first clean it up and second to keep it clean and neat for the next twenty-one days.   Commit to that agreement, follow through, and note the results.   It's also very helpful if on the first days and regularly during the three weeks, that you make notes regarding your feelings (your attitudes)  about this exercise.   

What Did You Find?

Welcome back.    For those of you who took the time and effort to do the exercise, what did you find.   Re-read your notes.   Compare your before and after  feelings and attitudes.  Now ask yourself,  "Which way I want to live my life?"   

If you would like to be one of our coaching clients,  together, we'll take this exercise to the next level.

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The Pathways to Grief and Misery:

There are several wide and well worn pathways to grief and misery.    Here are the five easiest traps to fall into:

Negative Emotions:  We talked in the above section about emotions.  Now let's consider why avoiding them is to your advantage.   Each day we have a limited amount of energy, time, vitality to use to fulfill our lives.   Let's look at this as though it were a quantifiable number.   Suppose we say that every day, we each have a thousand units of energy/life force/time (or whatever name you choose to use).   If you spend five hundred units of energy being emotionally upset, if you run around feeling miserable because of what someone else did, what's left to use for your daily activities?   What's left for  fulfilling your life's dream?  

Self Judgments:  Self judgments and low self esteem go hand in hand.   If you spend your emotional energy beating up on yourself,  what's left to use for your daily activities?   What's left for  fulfilling your life's dream?  

Fixed expectations:  Another place where we set ourselves up is by expecting certain behavior from others and expecting thing to be a certain way, and then getting upset when our expectations are not fulfilled.

Judgments Others:   In it's destructive capacity, judging others is equal to judging self.  It's also very frequently simply a way to project one's own unwanted attributes out there where they can be justifiable hated.

Trying to Change someone else:   Trying to Change someone else is like whistling in the wind and expecting the hurricane to go away.   Save you energy.   As the old saying goes:   "Don't try to teach a pig to sing.   It wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

The Bottom Line:   All of the above factors, drain your life force and leave you in depleted and miserable.  Let's make love not war.   

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