The M.A.P. Maker

Laughter yoga: Laugh your life better

Have you ever had one of those rolling-on-the-floor, I-think-I'm-going-to-pee-my-pants fits of laughter and come out the other side feeling much better than before you started? Maybe you felt some stress peel away, or you just felt lighter. If so, you know the power of laughter to change both your perspective and the way your body physically feels. 

As part of my workhelping people create careers and lives for themselves that energize and inspire them, I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve our experience of the here and now. One of my favorites (though I haven't participated in it myself) is laughter yoga. 

Laughter yoga sounds faintly ridiculous, but research has shown that tapping into laughter has very real benefits. I came across a short video clip this morning featuring John Cleese that takes a look at laughter yoga in India. It's worth watching. 

Even if there are no laughter yoga groups in your area, it's worth keeping the benefits of laughter in mind. If you don't have enough laughter in your life, what can you do to bring more of it into the picture? Who makes you laugh? What makes you laugh? Go to a funny movie. 

Read a funny book. Go to comedycentral.com and find something that makes you guffaw. Make a commitment to yourself to bring more laughter into your life. Conduct a 30-day laughter experiment. Commit to consciously seeking out something every day that makes you laugh and see what effect it has. At worst, you'll get a few chuckles. At best, it could shift your entire outlook. 

[Hat tip to Tim at 360 Degree Self for the video link]

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Choose your attitude with a morning crossroads

Some people wake up and automatically see the world painted with possibility. Each day dawns with a rosy glow, packed chock full of potential. I wish I could say that I'm one of those people...but I'm not. In fact, sometimes I wake up and my attitude is positively dismal. I have to make a conscious effort to bring it around to a more positive direction (that's how I started my morning reading habit). 

A couple mornings ago as I was lying in bed, pondering the day ahead of me, and it occurred to me that, when I make a conscious effort to choose my perspective, I'm really standing at the crossroads and choosing which road I want to take in my new day.

The various flavors of perspective I can choose are endless, but they all boil down to two options. I can either look at the day through the lens of possibility, or I can look at it through the lens of fear.

I decided to make that one question a standard part of my morning. "Do I choose to see this day through the lens of possibility, or through the lens of fear?" Before I get out of bed, I spend a couple minutes looking at the day to come, the goals I have, the challenges I'm encountering, etc. and ask myself, "What would these look like through the lens of possibility?"

It's a simple exercise, takes no more than a couple minutes, and it's a great way to consciously choose the tenor of my day's experience.

Try this: For the next week, try spending two minutes when you wake up consciously choosing which road to take in your day. Explore how the road you choose impacts your experience.

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

What stories will you tell about your life in 2010?

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

~ Anais Nin

Want to create a career and a life that energize and inspire you? Take this quote to heart. As I've written about many times here, the lens you look through determines the world you see. And the world you see determines your experience in life.

Part of that lens is made up of the stories you tell, positive or negative. As you look at the coming year, what stories are you telling about yourself, your life, and the world around you? How are they affecting the reality you create?

Over on the US News & World Report blog, I wrote a post exploring the question, What stories will you tell in 2010? As you look at what you want from the year to come, spend some time with that question. Examine which stories you are currently telling are setting the stage for happiness and success, and which ones are limiting you and dragging you down.

Ultimately, you are the storyteller in your own life. But in order to consciously weave that story, you have to be conscious of it. The first step is to ask, "What stories am I telling?" The second step is to ask, "What stories do I want to tell?"

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

What gift are you giving yourself?

Every year millions of people leave one incredibly important person off their gift-giving list...themselves. This holiday season, how about giving yourself a gift?

Don't worry, you don't have to go to the mall again. In fact, you don't even need to wrap it. And it won't cost you a dime.

What is it? Find a way to love yourself. Find a way to do something that honors and celebrates who you are and recognizes your life's potential.

Looking at the coming year, what one change could you make that would have a significant positive impact on your life? How can you show up more authentically? What ways could you show more love for yourself? What is missing in your life that you can commit to moving towards? What would feel really good to incorporate into your life?

As you're thinking about this gift to yourself, I want to encourage you to do it in the spirit of love and compassion, not in the spirit of "should." Make it a treat to yourself. Make it a way to support yourself, to acknowledge yourself, to love yourself. Find something you can feel pulled toward, rather than something you have to make yourself do.

As soon as it becomes a should, then it becomes yet another damned thing to feel guilty about when you don't do it. If it's coming from a place of love and compassion, there's no guilt, only warmth.

What gift would you like to give yourself this season? 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Say yes until it's REALLY time to say no

One of the things I've noticed over my years in my work is the amount of energy people invest in saying no. The form varies (No, I can't. No, that's not realistic. No, that's not likely. No, they'll never want to.), but at the heart of it all lies one central theme - a negative assessment of potential and possibility.

No as a default response

I'm not against saying no. Clearly, it has its place. But most people jump to it far too soon. Have you ever had a doctor test your reflexes by tapping your knee with a little rubber mallet, and your leg just jerks up of its own accord? For most people, saying no is a little like that. It's a default, reflex response.

I've seen that default no ultimately turn to yes far too many times to set much stock in its inherent validity. But when you accept it as the final answer, you cheat yourself of the potential and possibility that yes might bring with it. And odds are good you've done it without even realizing it. 

Let the possibility exist

Let's say there's something you really want to do, but your knee-jerk reaction is to shut down the idea. Make it something simple, like, "I want to take a glass-blowing class." Your default no might feel very reasonable. Something like, "I don't have enough time" or "it's too expensive."

But if you resist the urge to say no immediately, you can take stock of the things getting in your way. Let's say one of the big things is that it feels too expensive. One thing you might do in that case is sit down and make an assessment of where your money is going. You might realize that you can cut out some other expenses to make room for the class. Or you might figure out how much money you can regularly set aside and make a goal to start the class in a certain number of months.

Note that all I'm talking about here is not saying no. You don't have to say yes to taking action. You simply need to say yes to allowing the possibility to exist. When you allow a possibility to exist, you keep the door open to exploring ways to make it happen. When you say no prematurely, you slam that door shut.

Try making a habit of saying yes to allowing possibility to exist. Here are some steps to help you make it a habit.

Notice: Pay attention to when you default to saying no.

Step back from no: Just for the moment, step back from saying a decisive no.

Examine the reasons: Take a look at why you are saying no. Make a list.

Explore ways to make it yes: For each of those reasons you're saying no, explore ways you might make it yes. Depending on what it is you're looking at, that could be as simple as a quick brainstorm of ideas or as deeply involved as researching it, getting ideas from other people, etc. You might also take a close look at whether your reasons for saying no are really valid, or whether they are based on faulty assumptions.

Say yes or no to taking action: Finally, make a decision on whether or not to take action. At this point, you're prepared to make that choice based on a deep insight and understanding, rather than a knee-jerk reaction. 

You can use this approach for small things like the glass-blowing class I mentioned here, as well as big things, like a potential career path. You have nothing to lose by saying yes until it really is time to say no (or yes!). There is only upside.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Experiment: Do a news toxicity test

Much of how we experience the world comes from the lens through which we view it. If that lens is weighted towards a sense of hope and possibility, that's the frame of reference we'll use as we go through our lives. If it's weighted towards fear and negativity, we'll experience more of that.

That lens can have a profound impact on the life we create. Hope and possibility open doors to potential. Fear and negativity limit us.

One way we create our world view lens is through what we choose to reinforce on a regular basis.That's why the news can have such a toxic effect. Every day we're bombarded with so much violence, despair, helplessness and anger. It contributes little to our quality of life, and its cumulative effect is corrosive.

Instead of jumping up on my soapbox and trying to convince you not to watch the news, I want to encourage you to try an experiment.Think of it as a news toxicity test.

News toxicity test

Let's start with the premise that repeated exposure to a message - whether negative or positive - is likely to reinforce that perspective. If that repeated message is negative, especially if it is significantly negative, it can be highly toxic to your world view.

The purpose of this experiment is to explore the degree to which the news you watch reinforces that negative story.

Keep watching the news every day, and start really paying attention to what you're seeing. Keep a pad of paper handy. Rate each story you watch on a continuum. At one end of the continuum are the stories that feed a sense of fear and negativity, and on the other are the stories that feed a sense of hope and possibility. Something like this:

Once you have evaluated the news for a week, it's time to score it. See the numbers under the continuum? At the end of the week, go through and tally up the scores of all the news stories you have watched. (So, for example, if you have three news stories, one of which scored 1, one of which scored 0, and one of which scored -2, your final score would be -1.)

If the total score is negative, that means you are choosing to open up your head and pour a negative perspective into it. And when you do that day after day after day, it's a little like waves eroding the shore, bit-by-bit.

What is the energy impact?

Another way of looking at it is asking the question, "Does this energize me, or does it drain me? Does it move me towards a high energy state, or a low energy state?" Again, you can use a continuum to help you evaluate it.

Use the same process as above and add up the numbers at the end of the week. If your goal is to maximize the energy you have in any given day, and the the final score of the news you watch is negative, once again, you're choosing to invite something into your brain that is counter to your goal.

One final note on this. To make it as simple as possible, I gave each score an equal weight. But the reality is that the negative scores - the fear and anxiety inducing ones, like terrorism or a murderer on the loose - often have a far greater emotional impact than stories in the positive end of the spectrum. So when you tally them up, they may actually be larger negative numbers (like - 3 and - 4), because their impact is greater.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Just say no...to saying no

I'm always fascinated when I go to the doctor and they tap my knee to test my reflexes. The doc gives a tap with the little rubber mallet and up bounces my leg like it has a life of its own.

Some people's tendency to say no reminds me a little bit of that reflex reaction. They automatically shoot down their dreams, cut down ideas, and stonewall possibilities, all with those two little letters. No.

"No, that won't work. No, I can't because... No, no, no!"

Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to saying no. Saying no has it's place. A suggestion like, "Hey, lets walk across this busy eight-lane freeway instead of using the overpass," for example, is a prime candidate for a well-placed no. 

But too often, people say no out of habit. They shut down the possibilities when, if they stop to really think about it, they just might be able to find a way to say yes. 

A few days ago, I wrote a post about the power of saying yes. But to consciously focus on saying yes, you first have to notice when you're saying no. And when no becomes a reflex, you often don't even notice it.

Try this: For the next week, try going on a "no fast." Pay attention to when you say no. You might even want to carry a little notebook along with you and jot a note down when you notice it.

Each time you find yourself reflexively saying no, stop and ask yourself, "How can I say yes? Is there a piece of this that makes sense for me? Is there part of this idea I can embrace? Is there an alternative approach I can take that will allow me to do this?"

If you try it, I would love to hear how it goes. 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Live into your potential with the Rule of Yes

Have you ever found yourself looking at something you would really like to do and responded with, "Yes but...?" Yes, that's a great idea but... I'd really love to but... The variations are endless, and every time you say it, you strangle your potential.

I want to encourage you to banish that combination of words from your vocabulary forever. 

In her brilliant book, Improv Wisdom, Patricia Ryan Madsen offers an alternative to, "yeah but." The alternative is "yes and."

The book takes a look at how the principles of theatrical improv can apply to our lives. One of those principles is the Rule of Yes. As she describes it:

The spirit of improvising is embodied in the notion of "yes and." Agreement begins the process; what comes next is to add something or develop the offer in a positive direction.

How often do we block our potential with yeah-buts? Yeah but is a dead end. It stops the show and brings things to a grinding halt.

When we say yes and to life, we open up to the possibilities. Rather than look for reasons to go no further, we look for ways to move things forward in a positive way. We actively try to find the potential of the moment, regardless of the circumstance. 

So for example instead of, "Yeah, it would be great to pursue a career I love, but I can't because...," you might say, "Yes, I have these obstacles, and these are some steps I might be able to take to explore a way around them."

Try this: Next time you hear yourself saying some variation on yeah but, stop and replace it with yes and. Ask yourself, how can I say yes? How can I stop blocking? What will move me forward?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Are you addicted to obstacles?

"That won't work because ______. I wish I could, but I can't because ______. That's not realistic because _____."

Do any of these sound familiar? Do you find phrases like this popping up automatically any time you look at pursuing your dreams? If so, you might just be addicted to obstacles. And paradoxically enough, that might just be your biggest obstacle.

That knee-jerk application of "I can't because" is one of the most common roadblocks I see in my work. Occasionally it's really true, but often it is simply fear speaking. Sometimes it's not even fear. It's just long-ingrained habit. 

If you want to, you will always be able to find at least a dozen really good, compelling reasons why you can't do something. Guaranteed.

But here's the thing so could every other person who successfully pursued a dream. Obstacles are part of the landscape. It's not whether or not you encounter roadblocks that determines your success. It's what you do with them.

When you focus exclusively on the things getting in your way, they swell up like those compressed sponge shapes that expand to many times their size when you drop them in water. They expand to take up your entire field of view.

On the other hand, if you use them as a point of departure for figuring out how to get around them, they shrink back down to their more appropriate size.

I'm not suggesting that all you have to do is wave a magic wand and shake a little positive thinking dust and all your obstacles will become magically manageable. Some obstacles really are big, and take hard work and creativity to find your way around. But that's a far cry from being impossible.

Try this: Think about a dream you would love to pursue. Now sit down and take inventory of the obstacles standing in your way. This is the chance for your inner pessimist to run wild. 

Once you have that list in hand, use it as a starting point. Pick one obstacle and say, "If I had to overcome this obstacle, how could I?"

Practice coming up with solutions. Get creative. Make it a habit to explore possible solutions any time a potential obstacle comes up. Start training your brain to leave that addiction to obstacles behind and discover the freedom of focusing on solutions.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Stop complaining and detox your brain

If you want a simple way to start feeling better about your life and the world around you, I have two words: Stop complaining!

Most complaining adds little or nothing to your life. Not only does it have little to offer, it also sucks the energy out of you and the people around you. For many people, complaining becomes a toxic habit, disempowering them and putting them in the unenviable role of the victim. And to make matters worse, it has a way of attracting still more reasons to complain.

In T. Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, he offers a great exercise to start freeing yourself from the tyranny of the ol' bitch-n-moan and stop attracting more of the negative to yourself (or as he describes it, "stop being a crap magnet"). Eker writes:

For the next seven days, I challenge you to not complain at all. Not just out loud, but in your head as well. But you have to do it for the full seven days. Why? Because for the first few days, you may still have some "residual crap" coming to you from before. Unfortunately, crap doesn't travel at the speed of light, you know, it travels at the speed of crap, so it might take a while to clear out.

What I love about this idea is a) it's short and do-able and b) it forces you to really notice the role that complaining has in your mindstream. For most of us, complaining is something we do almost absent-mindedly. When you really notice it happening, you have the opportunity to choose another option. 

Give it a shot. Seven days with no complaining.

Let me know how it goes.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst