I recently came across a post on Facebook that read..
“If you want to feed the homeless than feed the homeless. But the moment you post it on social media you’re also feeding the Ego.”
To be honest it’s one of several with similarly framed messages, that I’ve seen recently and judging by the comments it can easily be taken as a message of criticism towards individuals that broadcast their activities of goodness.
Let’s just check we’re on the same page of what is meant by the Ego. The Ego is the unobserved mind, it’s the illusion that our thoughts are who we are, they are us. I describe this as an illusion, because thoughts are just thoughts, they are not us. They are fearful, irrational and conditioned, they are based largely on assumptions and inferences and while they can be used as a very effective tool, they are very destructive masters, if we blindly follow them. For more about the Ego check out our spirituality guide.
Now back to the post, I prefer to believe it’s a reminder, a double check to make sure the Ego is not taking over the intentions of such individuals. It’s an opportunity to bring AWARENESS to the situation, rather that blindly feeding the Ego’s sense of self, which isn’t particularly healthy.
Spreading positive vibes is a good thing, I’d like to see more of it. We are bombarded through the media with negative events, after all we’re genetically wired to be interested in bad news to ensure our own survival if we ever find ourselves in similar circumstances in the future.
Also seeing people doing good deeds can act to inspire others to do the same, and that’s no bad thing. Goodwill can be contagious, it reminds us that giving, and helping are spiritually good for us.
Feeding the Ego, by doing good deeds, isn’t bad in itself either, we can use the Ego to provide motivation for us to do THE RIGHT THING. In such circumstances we can use the Ego as a motivational tool, rather than allowing it to inflate itself without us knowing that it’s actually doing so.
Bringing AWARENESS to the situation gives us space to observe the Ego inflating our sense of self. If you realise this is why you’re doing it, if it feels good and your sense of self feels better for it, you’re using the Ego, rather than being used by it, there’s a world of difference in that space between observer and intention. This becomes an opportunity for spiritual practice while at the same time helping others, and what can be bad about that. I say, long may it continue.
Have you ever felt you are not worthy of your position, you feel like a fraud, out of your depth maybe. Impostor syndrome as it’s known is a common complaint, with as much as 70% of the worlds population being affected by it at some point.
Cause
Impostor syndrome can occur because of the natural tendency for self doubt, a fear you lack enough competence, a lack of confidence in your own ability.
It can also come from the perception that experts in your field are looking down on you or are more masterful or knowledgeable than you.
Consequences
The consequences of these feelings can lead to procrastination, where you delay shipping until whatever you’re working on is as perfect as it can be. If it’s not perfect, everyone will know you are a fraud.
You might find yourself undermining your achievements, to prevent the fraud from being realised by others.
A deep seated fear of failure may cause stress and anxiety, after all you don’t want others to discover the fraud you are.
You might play-down praise, because you and your work are really not worth it.
Rectifying
So how do you reduce these feelings of being an impostor? Well meeting your fears head on and seeking out peer feedback can be the first step, although this can also be the scariest approach. Alternatively seek out a mentor to help you through the psychological mind field.
Give yourself a break, you’re doing your best, we all are. Try to make incremental improvements as you go. Try to get better each day.
Realise that luck and chance play a bigger role in your success as well as that of others than you give it credit for. Few masters have got where they are from deliberate planning alone. Practice does make perfect, in time, and there are no shortcuts, you’ve just got to put in the work. Opt for purposeful practice, find the best way it can be done, rather than the best way you can do it.
If you’re doing something worthy, something new, there is no blue print, you’re treading new ground, so don’t worry about being an impostor because at this point you have to be.
You’re unique, with unique experiences, traits and views so utilise these to give your work something nobody else can.
Seth Godin says “Time spent fretting about our status as impostors is time away from dancing with our fear, from leading and from doing work that matters.”
We’re all impostors! So what? It’s not so much about us anyway, as it is about the work we do, so focus your attention on that alone.
Strongly held BELIEFS and the OPINIONS that come from them, are often considered a good thing, but they are in fact the worst thing for the individual and for society at large, let me explain why..
It is amazing how people are able to convince themselves something is true or false, even in the face of contradictory evidence. They grab onto something, will often defend it with their very lives, and only pay attention to data that confirms their beliefs. Whether it be a religious, political, cultural belief or ideology, they have an unwavering conviction to their cause.
You can fool yourself into believing just about anything, if you set your mind to it, even without definitive proof or evidence to support your belief. Many beliefs and the opinions that come from them, are built on nothing more than assumptions and inferences rather than hard facts, and are ultimately motivated by fear.
History is littered with examples of opinions that have resulted in horrific consequences, such as Hitler’s conviction to rid the world of Jews, Bush and Blair’s conviction to fix Iraq to make the region and the world a safer place, both stem from beliefs built on assumption and inference driven by fear, and little to do with fact.
These are extreme examples, but we are all guilty of holding onto a belief far too tightly, and dismissing or ignoring anything that counters it, for recent examples of issues that have divided opinion think of Brexit here in the UK or Trump in the US.
In the case of Brexit, whether you’re a remainer or leaver, you hold onto a mentally constructed position with unwavering determination. Those that oppose your view, are considered ignorant, racists, cowards, undemocratic, or uneducated, depending on which side of the fence you find yourself on.
Have you ever wondered why you feel such affiliation to your position?
Eckhart Tolle is a revered spiritual teacher, his books talk about escaping the control of THE EGO. The Ego is the unobserved mind, it is identification with thought. It is the illusion that your thoughts are who you are. He recommends bringing awareness to the process of thinking, and by observing thought, you remove yourself from it. The moment you start to observe it, you remove yourself from within it, and from this perspective you can take control back.
His explanation for why people hold mental positions and the emotional responses they inevitable experience when challenged goes like this….
“Two or more people express their opinions and those opinions differ. Each person is so identified with the thoughts that make up their opinion, that those thoughts harden into mental positions that are invested with a sense of self. In other words, identity and thought merge. Once this has happened, when I defend my opinions, thoughts, I feel and act as if I were defending my very self. Unconsciously I feel and act as if I were fighting for my very survival, and so my emotions will reflect this unconscious belief, they become turbulent. I am upset, angry, defensive, aggressive, I need to win at all cost, lest I become annihilated, that’s the illusion. The Ego doesn’t know the mind and mental positions have nothing to do with WHO YOU ARE, because the Ego is the unobserved mind itself.”
So, if you do find yourself holding very rigid mental positions, bring awareness to them, observe them, question their underlying purpose. What are they doing for you? If you feel a negative emotion, next time you are challenged, step back from the emotion and observe it, and bring yourself out of the control of your Ego, step out of the emotion. You will feel better for it and mankind will only benefit in the long term. Emotional reactions don’t serve anyone.
Also question the accuracy of such beliefs and opinions, how much is built on assumption and inference driven by fear, compared to hard facts you know to be true, not from the testimony of authority figures and so called experts but from your own experience. After all, authority figures might be telling you only what they want you to believe, for their own gain, rather than in your best interests. Question everything you are being told, and be more flexible with regards to your beliefs. Science takes the approach of trying to disprove rather than prove hypotheses and this is a more effective approach to uncovering THE TRUTH.
by politicians pursuing their own career goals over that of their constituents,
by emotional and physical abuse,
by religious doctrine,
by greed,
by anger,
by selfishness,
when people are rude,
when people don’t acknowledge when you let them go first,
when people push in, or don’t wait their turn,
by people that get offended and try impose their values on others.
There are so many things you can be offended by, if you choose, far more than I’ve listed above and it is okay to feel offended. Yes really, if you choose to take offence about anything, you can. But understand that taking offence is a choice, it’s an internal process about an external situation, event or occurrence.
It stems from your EXPECTATIONS and/or PREFERENCES that aren’t being met by the situation, event or occurrence.
It also comes from your ATTACHMENTS to ideals, ideologies, ideas, causes, things, people and your thoughts about all these things.
And finally it comes from your PERCEPTIONS of situations, people things, ideas and the world, universe and of existence itself.
The question becomes where do your EXPECTATIONS, ATTACHMENTS and PERCEPTIONS come from? Are they self generated or influenced by the society and culture you have grown up in, or are surrounded by?
Do you have a right to EXPECT anything from anyone or anything? Okay you can be excused for preferring one thing, or outcome, over another, but you don’t have any right of expectation, and you can’t really complain if your preferences aren’t met, can you?
Is it healthy to form ATTACHMENTS to anything or anyone. After all nothing really belongs to you does it? Your partner, your kids, your family, your friends are not really yours are they. They are people you share time and space with, who you love, of course, but when you mentally add a “my”, “mine” to them, you are more than identifying something in a descriptive manner, you are investing a sense of yourself in them. This is attachment. Your mind does this to make itself bigger, better, more. In our consumer focused culture, we are conditioned by society to seek more.
Society’s call to consumption works very well because it plays to our self preservation instinct and our fear of being nothing, because deep down in our psyche, we believe we are a fleeting, temporary particle in time and space and as such vulnerable and insignificant. Society benefits from telling us the more we have (the more we attach to), the more we will BE, because modern society is built on economic growth, it wants us to keep consuming products and services.
With regards to PERCEPTIONS, there is extensive research showing our perceptions to be deeply flawed and influenced by our inner belief systems and values. We see, hear, feel, taste, smell what we think we should see, hear, feel, taste and smell, what we’re primed to, and what we expect to. We run a story over our sense perceptions that works to join the dots, but rather than drawing a direct line, embellishes and exaggerates with story-telling imagination.
For instance, a number of years ago, I went out for a drink with a good male friend of mine. I genuinely forgot to take my phone out with me, this was the days before phones became an extension of our hands. When I got back after 2-3 hours I noticed 15 missed calls from my then, casual girlfriend. Listening to the messages in turn, the content went from a casual, “just giving you a call to see what you’re up to, give me a call back when you get this message”, becoming increasingly agitated with each subsequent message to the last one saying “I know you’re with someone else, why are you treating me this way? CALL ME NOW!!!” Let me just say, I wasn’t cheating on her, I had no intention of doing so, but she was unable to rationally explain the fact that I wasn’t calling her back, which I would normally do straight away, and began to let her imagination run riot, believing I must be cheating on her. I later found out she had been cheated on by an ex boyfriend and as a result had trust issues, but I must admit I was rather freaked out at the time.
Hopefully this makes the point that perceptions are interpreted by internal mental processes, which give all meaning to them. First the event or situation occurs, then the mind tries to find an explanation, which is based on individual beliefs and values, which in turn are built from our own personal past experiences, learned thoughts and behaviour patterns and habits.
I’ve highlighted above some of the reasons we might feel OFFENDED, and if you’ve spent any time on social media, you’ll have noticed the outrage and offence that people seem to feel these days about all sorts of issues, some major some minor. Offence is taken rather than given much of the time. I might offend you by something I say or do, but with no intention from my perspective to do so, but you take offence all the same. You will be offended if what I say or do, doesn’t match an EXPECTATION or PREFERENCE of yours, or if it involves something you have some ATTACHMENT to, or if your PERCEPTION tells you some story about it that isn’t in alignment with your EXPECTATION/PREFERENCE.
It’s okay to be offended, it’s impossible not to be at some point in life if EXPECTATIONS/PREFERENCES, ATTACHMENTS and PERCEPTIONS are at work, but OFFENCE has to be taken to be felt. Remember this, because often AWARENESS is the biggest weapon we have at our disposal to battle internal processing of external events, situations or occurrences and how we feel about them.
Did you know we wear masks, and hide behind the social roles we play; we might be a parent, a brother/sister, a son/daughter, we might be a boss, an employee, a friend. We might be Bill the marketing guy, or Jenny the supplies manager. You might be a son, a dad, a brother, a boss to some, a subordinate to others, and Bill the marketing guy within a single day.
We play roles and wear masks because we’re conditioned by society to, after all, everyone is doing the same.
We might even get some comfort from this fact, we feel less vulnerable hiding behind a persona.
As a result, we don’t connect genuinely with others. We interact Ego to Ego, rather than soul to soul. My mask is communicating with your mask, and we’re not getting close to the real people below the surface.
Relationships are fearful, fraught, fragile, self serving and dysfunctional, because when we act from within our roles, from behind our masks, we know intuitively we are not being true to ourselves, we are pretending and we know this deep down, even if we don’t want to admit it.
So, be authentic, drop the mask, come from behind your social roles, and let your inner light shine through. If you fear rejection or the feeling of vulnerability, realise this is only the Ego (the part of you that mistakes your thoughts to be who you are) struggling to hold on to power. When you genuinely let yourself go, you can’t be hurt, particular if you fear you will fall, because outside the Ego there is no floor to hit, metaphorically speaking.
Many of us have fallen victim to PROCRASTINATION. It’s a real productivity killer, but have you ever dissected why you procrastinate?
I recently came across an interesting equation that provides some useful insight into the components that make up procrastination, and hopefully by looking at each of these components we can begin to analyse how each of us are falling victim to procrastination.
Motivation = (expectancy x value)/(impulsiveness x delay)
Lets look at each of these components…
Expectancy
If you feel confident of successfully completing a task, your expectancy will be higher and that will increase your motivation to get the work done.
If the task looks really difficult, expectancy will be low and you’ll be more likely to procrastinate.
Value
Value includes the rewards you get for completing the task, as well as how pleasant or unpleasant the experience of actually doing it is.
Impulsiveness
This is about how susceptible you are to falling foul of distractions and impulses to do other things, and this is directly correlated with procrastination.
The less able you are to resist the sudden desire to check Facebook, the more you’re going to put off working on that should do task.
If you can resist such an impulse, you’ll actually be strengthening your brain’s ability to focus. This is definitely a case of practice makes perfect.
Delay
This is the amount of time between now and when you’ll get any reward for completing the task.
The more you delay doing a task, the less likely you are to do it, because people naturally place far more value on short-term rewards over long-term rewards, even if the long term rewards are objectively greater.
So having identified the components that cause procrastination, the question is how to overcome them…
Increase EXPECTANCY
Break tasks into smaller sub-tasks. This reduces the psychological burden and possible anxiety, which can be experienced when taking on a particularly difficult task. The thought of taking on a particularly hard task can often be enough to prevent you from starting.
Don’t be scared to ask for help. If you can enlist the help of someone who genuinely knows what they are talking about, they can help you over the inevitable difficult bumps in the road.
Improve task VALUE
Improve the actual rewards for completing the task, such as visualising a more fulfilled life or enjoying the fruits of your labour.
Improve the experience of doing the work itself, such as doing the work in a nicer location/environment.
Add additional rewards for completing sub-tasks, such as can be found with gamification, or letting yourself watch a movie, or spend time on social media, when you complete something.
Prevent IMPULSIVENESS
Prevent distractions and temptations by removing yourself from them. If you’re needing to exercise, go to the gym where you’ll be immersed in a fitness focused environment. If you need to get an article written, work on a computer that has no internet access, so you aren’t distracted by social media.
Willpower get used up during the day, like a tank of fuel, so do hard things first when your willpower is fully charged.
Overcome DELAY paralysis
To make use of our natural tendency to put more value on short-term rewards over long-term rewards, break long term goals into shorter term ones, and give yourself a treat when completing them. This way you are making use of your natural tendencies, rather than trying to fight them.
The Pomodoro technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980’s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. This timer acts as an external motivator, and makes a bigger task more digestible.
So there you have it, work your way through the components of procrastination and figure out how best to hack each, and at the end of it, do what you want to get done.
If you’re guilty of saying the following statements, you need to sign up to my email list
I’m not getting quality leads anymore from [X]
[X] is not delivering[ Y], and that’s why my business is failing
People just aren’t buying anymore
People don’t want to pay for [Y] anymore
Everyone wants something for nothing these days
Too much competition, charging ridiculous prices, I can’t compete, they
won’t be around long, but long enough to hurt my business
There’s downwards pressure on prices
It’s a dying industry, technology is disrupting my business model
It’s much harder to make money in this industry now
All of these statements are excuses; they are examples of you complaining and blaming other people, organisations, circumstances, situations, and/or events for your predicament. They are COPING STRATEGIES designed to deflect responsibility from yourself onto others. This may seem like a good strategy, after all, if someone else is at fault for the position you find yourself in, then you don’t have to deal with the feeling of guilt for messing things up.
But in fact by blaming others, by complaining about how life has conspired against you, you are not just passing on blame, you are also passing power, the very power you need to get yourself out of the mess you find yourself in.
Until you TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for your situation, you will not be able to access your RESOURCEFULNESS. You need to have the right mindset to be able to make a sustained effort to make things right, and resourcefulness is required to find the innovative approach you’re going to need to succeed.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for yours and other people’s actions and the consequences of those actions on you and your business. You might think it’s harsh to have to take responsibility for what other people do, but at the end of the day, it’s you and your business that will have to pick up the pieces if things head south. So make sure you vet those that you invite into your life/business, either as friends, partners, investors, employees, suppliers or customers. Don’t rely blindly on others’, do your due diligence and have the necessary checks, controls and plan B contingencies in place to make sure you are living up to your responsibilities, for youself,
Open up your mind to the possibilities, enabling you to access your RESOURCEFULNESS to find that innovative approach which is going to turn your fortunes around and allow you to achieve success.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell who lived between 18 May 1872 and 2 February 1970, was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, he was a prominent anti-war activist and a Nobel laureate.
In the video below, filmed doing an interview with John Freeman for the BBC’s Face to Face programme in 1959, Russell is asked by Freeman what advice would he give to future generations, based on his own life lessons.
Russell splits his answer into 2 parts, first intellectual advice and secondly moral advice.
The INTELLECTUAL advice
When studying anything, ask yourself what are the facts and what is the truth the facts bare out. Don’t get diverted by what you wish to believe or by what would have beneficial social effects if it were to be believed, only look at the facts
The MORAL advice
Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In an ever more interconnected world, we have to learn to tolerate each other and the learn to live with the fact that some people will say things we don’t like. This is the only way forwards, if we are to live together and not die together.
Is it possible that western cultural values which imply that we should always be happy to be considered a success and that depression and sadness are signs of failure, are actually what are making us more depressed?
According to research, cited in an article on the conversation website, and which can be found here, it would seem that this could well be the case.
Feeling we should be living up to such cultural standards, and perceiving ourselves as falling short of them, is a great example of the Equation of emotion (EOE) in action. Remember that the EOE compares our expectations and preferences (EP) to our reality as perceived (RP) and throws out a negative emotion if the RP falls short of the EP.
Expectations, even culturally led ones, that aren’t being met by our perceived reality, cause negative emotions, and because we are the source of the perceived devaluation, we feel the emotion of SADNESS.
The equation of emotion is said to be responsible for all the emotions we feel, and well worth checking out. Here is an article I wrote about it.
We might not even realise we’ve internalised these particular cultural values, which could have been done on a subconscious level, through things like subliminal advertising imagery and symbolism, and as a result we may not even be aware that such subconscious expectations even exist within us.
When you’re on a journey of self-discover and self-awareness, subconscious influences can be difficult to uncover. Often working backwards helps in the discovery process.
What is the emotion, you’re feeling?
What’s the relevant attachment?
And what’s the expectation/preference you have about that attachment?
Does your perception of reality fall short of this expectation/preference?
I hope this article will aid your journey of self discovery and self awareness. Check out more articles about self awareness here.
I recently saw this question “What is a sad fact of life in 10 words or less?” on Quora.com and a number of answers quickly came to mind, but a few others also occurred to me that I couldn’t fit into 10 words or less, so I thought I’d write a post and put them all in one place. Feel free to add your own, in the comments.
#1. People are spiritually disconnected, and don’t see the WONDERFULNESS of life
#2 People worry about the small stuff, it’s all small stuff.
#3 People focus on their EXPECTATIONS, instead of their APPRECIATIONS.
#4 People spend way too much time in their heads, and not enough in the real world.
#5 All pain and suffering is caused by FEAR, even greed is.
#6 People fear CHANGE, because they focus on UNCERTAINTY and RISK, rather than the OPPORTUNITIES..
#7 Mankind’s behaviour is driven by BELIEFS based largely on nothing more than ASSUMPTIONS.
#8 FEAR drives GREED, which leads to the pursuit for POWER. This means those at the top are the most fearful in society, and we still expect them to worry about the rest of us. What a crazy system we have.
#9 Mankind wastes millions of hours/lives/dollars/expertise fighting over scarce resources, instead of focusing on creating new resources for all.
#10 People worry endlessly about if there is a life after death, make the most of the life you have now, you don’t know and can’t change what happens after death.
