There’s a lot of “universal” advice out there.  The always-present everyone says don’t smoke, exercise more, eat your fruits and vegetables.

One piece of universal advice is to stop worrying, or at least reduce the level of worry in your life.  After all, we have plenty to worry about—Money, our children, our parents, our spouse’s happiness, a long list of problems at work, even the health of our pets.

Worrying, we are told, adds stress to our lives and focuses on the negative.  It keeps us awake at night, gives us ulcers and is bad for the economy.

I think that’s all a bunch of baloney.

Worrying is natural.  In moderation, worrying is good.  There’s something wrong with people who don’t worry enough!

In the big scheme of things, there are a few people who worry too much (some tiny percentage of the population).  They have intriguing phobias that become fodder for news stories.  This condition (worrying too much) is so rare that most people only learn about it from afternoon TV junk-talk shows.

There is much more of a problem with people who don’t worry enough. Think about this.  What’s your image of someone who doesn’t worry about what other people think, doesn’t worry about social norms, doesn’t worry about paying his bills or insuring his car, doesn’t worry about keeping himself clean or being responsible for his own actions?  The picture in my mind is a young person who is completely irresponsible, who has made a mess of his life and others and who has left it up to other people to fix his messes.

A handful of these people make it to adulthood without changing their ways.  Most, however, go through a long painful process of paying their debts, raising their children, having to work hard and becoming responsible adults.  At which point they find themselves worrying a normal amount—just like the rest of us.

Worrying is a fundamentally good behavior.                                                                                                                                         

As with any other behavior, there is a great benefit to be gained by:

1)      Examining the behavior

2)      Learning to control the behavior

3)      Focusing the behavior

4)      And integrating the behavior into our overall understanding of ourselves.

Thus, the behavior–worrying–becomes one more important piece of our success.

Let’s look at three aspects of worrying

–  What is worry?

–  How much worrying is right?

–  How can we focus our worry in order to reap its benefits?

By “worrying” we generally mean that we are thinking about something; the something is usually a problem that needs to be solved (e.g., “Where will be get the money to . . .”) or a concern about future events (e.g., the health of a loved one); our mind wanders back to the something whenever it has the opportunity; and we find ourselves thinking about the something when we don’t want to.

Thus we find ourselves worrying while we try to sleep or while we’re driving, but not when we’re engaged in a project that requires our full attention.  For example, work keeps our mind off our troubles.

Interestingly, most people “try not to worry.”  In practice this means we try to not think about our problems.  But our unconscious mind knows that the problem needs to be addressed.  So whenever our mind isn’t busy with something else, the thing we should be thinking about pops up to get its share of attention.

What are you trying to avoid addressing in your life?  Why is it that humans think some problems will go away if you ignore them?

Don’t think about the roof and it won’t leak.  Don’t think about your teenager’s risky behavior and it will stop.  Don’t think about your relationship problems and they’ll all smooth out.

Baloney!  You know it’s not true.

We have problems we want to avoid:  We know we should think about them but we don’t want to.  One way that we avoid thinking about problems we don’t want to think about “right now” is to spend time on a hobby or on busy work.

Have you ever noticed that our hobbies tend to be rather technical and detailed?  Whether it’s carving or needlework or gardening or making things or whatever.  Our hobbies fill our minds and are distractions.  This is good—in fact it’s extremely good for our mental health—unless we’re using it to avoid thinking about a problem that needs to be addressed.

Let’s face it, we have problems we embrace and we have problems we avoid.  Those we embrace are labeled “projects” and those we avoid are labeled “worry.”  The only substantive difference is whether we’re ready to address the problem.

Now we know what worry is.  How much worrying is the right amount?  That’s difficult to quantify.  I believe we need to think about the problems in our lives enough so that we understand them.  Notice I didn’t say that we need to “solve” the problems.  If a loved one is gravely sick, there’s little most of us can do to “fix the problem.”  We’re sad, perhaps depressed, maybe scared.  We have a flood of conflicting emotions that we “don’t have time for” or otherwise wish to avoid.

In such a circumstance, we need to force ourselves to sit down and think about what’s going on.  Let the emotions flood in; become overwhelmed; have a good cry; say a prayer; and then go back to our routine for awhile.

It may be necessary to do this every day for some time.  We need to let ourselves feel the feelings we’ve been trying to avoid.  We need to let all the aspects of this experience come out.  It’s difficult and physically draining.  But you need to let yourself experience what’s going on.

Some problems you can solve, but right now you don’t see the solution.  For example, financial problems.  Too many bills, or not enough income, or an unexpected expense.  It’s all too overwhelming, so we set it aside.  Intellectually, we know the problem will just get worse.  But it’s “just too much” to think about right now.

The answer, of course, is to consider all the pieces of this problem:  Your income, your regular bills, your credit, possible sources of loans or other income, payment plans, and so forth.  This is definitely a problem that can be solved.  It requires a lot of thought; it requires a plan of action; it requires some change in behavior; and it requires asking others for help.

These are just a few examples.  In each case the amount of “worry” (thinking about the problem) required is the same. You need to think about it enough to understand the problem.

Oddly enough, most of us spend more emotional energy avoiding our problems than we would spend understanding them if we tried.

Reducing Worry

You can reduce the amount of “worry” in your life by taking time to relax and simply reflect on what’s going on.  If you take time every day to sit down and relax and focus on yourself, you will find these problems a lot less overwhelming.

I try to sit down every day and reflect on four aspects of my life:

- Myself as an individual

- Myself as a father

- Myself as a friend

- Myself as a businessman.

I rarely make lists of what needs to be done or what problems need to be addressed.  I simply think about what’s going on and what I need to do today.  If there’s a problem in one of these areas, or with something else, I let my mind consider it.  I don’t look for solutions or answers.  I do try to consider all aspects of the problem.  The goal is to understand everything about the problem.  When I think I really understand the problem, then it becomes clearer what I need to do.

Worry brings benefits.  That sounds odd to us.  Let me rephrase it:  Spending time thinking about problems brings good things into our lives.

There are two types of “focusing” on problems.  The first is to open your mind and let the problems flood in.  Perhaps focus is the wrong term.  This is more like out-of-focus.  Sit down with a pencil and paper and relax.  Take a few deep breaths and try to clear your mind.  Think about nothing.  Focus on the way your breath feels moving in and out.

Relax.

If you have things to worry about, they will interrupt your relaxation.  As a “worry” presents itself, write down a brief note (not a long paragraph).  For example, you might write

-          College Savings

-          Business partner

-          Ad revenues

-          Etc.

Don’t pass judgment, don’t try to solve the problem, don’t get into details.  Just list your worries.  Set yourself a time a do this listing for ten or fifteen minutes each day for a week.  I guarantee that by day four you will be a lot less worried at night or when you’re concentrating on something else during the day.  Why?  Because your mind has been allowed to spend some time on the things it knows you should be thinking about!

The next step is to focus more clearly on your problems.  For the next several days spend your 10-15 minutes sitting comfortably and “organizing” your problems.  You may want to sort the list into categories such a family, finances, employees, etc.

Then spend a little time writing a bit of detail about each concern.  For example:

I’m worried about college savings for my kids because I’m starting late.  I wonder what college will really cost.  What’s my goal?  How do I get started?  Who can help me?  I need to talk to my spouse about this.

Set yourself a strict limit on this activity.  No more than 30 minutes a day!  You’ll be amazed!  It will give you energy.  Worry will stop draining your energy.  And as you focus on the problem you will naturally break it down into smaller pieces that are much more manageable.

This, in turn, will lead to taking actions that address the problem.  In other words, you’ll be working on a solution!  What you’ve done is to stop spending your energy trying not to worry.  Instead, you are spending a limited amount of energy focusing on issues that need some attention.

Instead of letting “worry” have an unscheduled, unlimited amount of your time, you have allowed a specific amount of time to be used improving your life!

Again, I guarantee that you will see a dramatic reduction in the amount of time spent on unscheduled worry during the day (and night).  Your mind knows that you need to spend time on these activities.  When you allot this time, your mind is more relaxed and it doesn’t need to force these thoughts upon you.

And, even better, when such thoughts pop into your mind now, they will be productive and bring solutions.  The process of focusing on a problem for a specific period and then setting it aside has tremendous power.  It organizes your unconscious mind, which works on possible solutions while you’re doing other things.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the solutions come forth into your conscious mind.

Problems never solve themselves:  You need to worry in a healthy way and you will find a solution.  Just as we have to focus on our happiness and our family and our health, we also need to focus on our problems.

You will never be without problems.  But you can be without excessive, unnecessary worry.  Allow yourself time to work on your problems and you’ll have a much more restful mind throughout the day.  Because you’re worrying enough—and not too much.

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.” – Benjamin Franklin

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In the Monty Python movie The Holy Grail, King Arthur’s men do not use the terms “charge” and “retreat.”  Instead they use “charge” and “Run away! Run away!”  So, when I tell my friends I’m going on my annual retreat, they always say “Run away! Run away!”

Part of me wants to say that I’m not running away.  But the truth is, I am.  As a part of modern society, a piece of me feels a little guilty about “abandoning” my family, friends and work and all the chores that need to be done around the house.  This is particularly acute since my retreat comes in the early part of December.  I’m also abandoning putting up lights, shopping for gifts and holiday parties. However,  perspective helps (as it always does).

Sometimes we need to “run away” from everything. To retreat is to withdraw, to enter seclusion.  Is the holiday season a bad time for a retreat?  Maybe.  But when is it a good time?  Maybe the holiday season is the perfect time to step back, take time for yourself and plan for the next year.

There are many benefits to be gained from a retreat.  The most obvious are Rest and Relaxation.  On the most recent retreat I attended, the leader asked people as they were gathering together whether they’d taken time for a nap.  “What’s the point of going on retreat,” he asked, “if you’re not going to take a nap?”

Many people find that it takes time–twelve hours or more–to quiet themselves and leave the world outside, and to focus on being away from it all.  And then the end comes too quickly.  We are a society completely deprived of quiet time and solitude.  Going on a retreat forces solitude upon you and then you become hungry for it.  With luck, you incorporate quiet time into your life.

Retreats are also a time for thinking and planning and goal-setting.  Who am I?  What’s my purpose here on Earth?  What do I want to do?  How do I get there from here?  Focusing is very difficult without time to relax.  On a retreat you will have time to think; time to straighten out problems; time to plan for the future; time to put thing in perspective.

And perhaps time to respond to a subtle call from God.

There are many kinds of retreats.  The first step in finding a retreat that’s right for you is to consider

What’s your goal? What kind of retreat are you looking for?

	Couple focused
	Educational
	Health/Fitness
	Meditation
	Men- or Women-focused
	Personal Development
	Re-energizing
	Relaxing
	Religious
	Renewal
	Yoga (spiritual or exercise)
	Other?

Once you begin considering what you want from a retreat, you can start looking for one that’s right for you.  How do you find one?  Most retreats have some religious or spiritual component, so the first place to look is at the office, at your church, synagogue, or temple.  There may be flyers or advertisements on a bulletin board, or someone may know who to call.

You can also search on the Internet.  If you put the words “retreat” and your city/county in a search engine, you’re likely to come up with something.  A few sites that can help you find retreats almost anywhere are:

	www.retreatfinder.com
	www.findthedevine.com
	www.passionist.org

Just remember that these are NOT comprehensive listings.  Almost every county in America has many retreat opportunities.  You just have to look.

Can you create your own personal retreat of one?  Of course.  As you might imagine, I encourage this.  But it is best to go on a guided retreat (especially a silent one) before you create your own personal retreat.  They will provide you with hints and tips, and probably some good readings, that will help you see the full benefits of a retreat.

Then you can “run away” whenever you need to.

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I’m sure you’ve read this quote before: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said at his trial for heresy. He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge  accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves. The sentence was death or  Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.   Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his “examined life” there was no point in living. So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death.  Luckily, we don’t have to choose between an examined life and death.   The sad thing is, most people avoid leading an examined life. It’s not that they don’t have time or make time. They actively avoid examining their lives.

People who do examine their lives, who think about where they’ve been, how they got here, and where they’re going, are much happier people. No one has all the answers and no one’s life is free from trouble and strife. Yet their are those who have some sense of where they belong in the universe also have a context for understanding how all the elements of their life fit together.

If there are two people, one with a map and one without a map, who has the better chance of reaching their destination? The one with the map, of course.

When you set aside time to examine your life,

You get to choose your destination; You get to set the goals;

You get to determine the path; You get to decide how long it will take;

You get to decide whether you’re on the right path or the wrong path.

In other words, you begin to know your self and to take control of your life. You decide who you want to be and begin to become the person you want to be.

The hardest thing about examining your life is getting started. You have to sit your butt in a chair and get used to not doing anything. Just relax. Focus. Well, you understand . . ..

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Last week my daughter Victoria (age 17.9 years) embarked on an adventure. The plan was to spend three days in New York City just seeing the sights, then hop over to England and Scotland for a week. She has two weeks for Spring Break and this is her senior year.

We had plans for the first night and the last night in the UK, but nothing in between. We had Britrail passes and tube passes, so we were set to just go. Our plan was to wake up every day and figure out what to do that day.

In this modern era it is very easy to hop on the internet and find a hotel at a good price on short notice.

Note: This approach takes a certain willingness to believe that you will be okay and that things will work themselves out. I have been cultivating that spirit for some time.

Meditation helps, as does an actual commitment to being a low stress person.

I believe you can always choose how you will respond to your environment. Sometimes it’s easier than others. The more planning you have, the easier it is. But, as the saying goes, sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade.

So here’s what happened to our vacation plans.

After three fun days in New York City, we went to the airport to catch an all-night flight to England and arrive at 8:30 AM. But my daughter could not get on the airplane because of a problem with her passport.

Stop. Vacation gone. Plane departing in two hours. Fix it or forget it.

At this point some people would add: Panic.

I was a little panicky, of course. But I decided a long time ago that I’m not the kind of person who blows up, yells and screams, abuses the person behind the counter, etc. I tried to stay calm, gathered the information I could.

It quickly became clear that I could not solve this tonight and we were going to miss the plane. Period. Nothing we could do about that. We could contact the passport office in New York or Connecticut. Quick phone call. NY was a seven day wait. No good. Connecticut might get us in within 8 business hours in an emergency. And might get a new passport within 8 business hours. But that means 1-2 more days in NYC with 1-2 days sitting around a government office, just so we could spend a day flying to England to continue the vacation.

We decided to do England another time. The next question was: Do we go home or reboot the vacation?

Important factor: My daughter only gets one spring break her senior year in high school.

So where do you want to go? The entire East Coast is at your disposal. Or we could rent a car and drive home, seeing the sights. Or take trains and see America. Or whatever.

We decided to catch the next flight to Florida and spend time in the sun. Went online and booked one-way airfare. Cheap, even at the last minute. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Total elapsed time since vacation destroyed: about 60 minutes.

Was I happy about the situation? No. But I had decided to NOT panic, NOT make it a disaster, and NOT focus on what I can’t control.

Yes, it will cost a lot of money. But we can use those Britrail passes another time. And we had almost no other out of pocket expenses except airfare. Called the airline and cancelled. They’re rebating a good portion of what we paid.

And here’s the key: We can’t control what we can’t control!

The mindset of not wasting energy on things you can’t control is a mindset that you can practice. You can create that approach to life.

The mindset of creating lemonade when life gives you lemons is a mindset that you can practice.

You get to choose how you will respond to the world.

I hope that my daughter will love the new vacation we are creating and that she will always take the attitude of slowing down and looking on the positive side when things go wrong.

“Stuff” happens in life. You can make yourself miserable and dive into the well of dispair, or you can pick up the lemons and start making lemonade.

Daily quiet time, meditation, and prayer go a long way to making this possible.

Status Report: We just finished three days in Orlando. We’re working our way through the Disney parks. On Sunday we’re heading to Church (It’s Easter) and then off to Daytona Beach. We got a nice hotel ON the beach for $46/night. Thank goodness for the Internet.

We’ll head home when we had planned. It won’t be the vacation we planned, but it’s been a Great vacation and a great adventure so far.

:-)

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There are two primary ways of looking at your life. Actually, either you look at your life or you don’t look at your life. Everyone does each of these some time. A few people examine their lives all the time. A few people never examine their lives.

But almost all of us are in the middle. We spend most of our time only thinking about our lives a little bit. Then from time to time we go through a stage of thinking about our lives obsessively. In other words, 80% of the time we think about our lives 20% of the time. And 20% of the time we think about our lives 80% of the time.

I have had two incidents recently that brought this into focus for me.

First, I have a great life coach named Jenifer Landers (see Fully Expressed Coaching). One of her constant themes is to leave an opening for something to happen. Leave an opening for someone to enter your life. Leave an opening for good things to occur. Leave an opening, leave an opening, leave an opening.

Then I hired two people in my business who have the profiles of really great leaders. And it didn’t take long before they were volunteering to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I heard lines like “Well, I can do that tonight. I have time available between 11 o’clock and midnight.”

The first thought that pops into my mind is . . . If you don’t leave an opening in your life for a personal life to show up, then it never will.

There is an assumption among many people that your personal life is the time that is left over after all the business and commitments are taken care of. But if you really want to have a personal life, you need to set aside time for it to happen. Whether it’s playing a sport, collecting something, or going out into the woods to have a good time, you need to put it on your schedule!

There are certain things in this world that expand to take up all the space available. Work can be like that if you don’t set boundaries around it. I try to leave work at 5:00 PM every day. I’m rarely there at 5:30. There is enough work to do. I could stay until midnight every night, work seven days a week, and never catch up.

And what would be the point of that? What would I have at the end of every day except another day just like the one completed? When I hear people say “I have no personal life” all I can think of is how they put themselves in that position. If you don’t make time for a personal life it certainly won’t show up on it’s own. Even if you don’t know what to do with yourself, that’s okay. Set aside the time and see what you want to do!

Workaholism kills.

Besides, you’re a much more interesting person when you have more than one dimension.

:-)

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This Friday (today) I wander off to a retreat center for my annual silent retreat. This will be my ninth year.

If you’ve read Relax Focus Succeed, or many of my newsletters, than you know I’m a big fan of quiet time, prayer, and meditation. Sometimes our lives become just so “busy” that we forget to stop and take stock of our lives. My annual retreat gives me time to do that.

On one hand, the timing is terrible. First weekend in December? Yikes. Beginning of Christmas season. Lost a weekend to Thanksgiving. Christmas and end of year are rushing toward me like a freight train.

On the other hand, when is a good time?

Retreating from the busy-ness of the season is a great habit. And one I’m proud to be developing. Some say you need 37 repetitions to form a new habit. Some say 40 or 42. Whatever it is, this is only my ninth in a row. So I can’t really call it a habit yet. :-)

Sometimes they call this a three-day retreat, but it’s really two full days. I arrive Friday afternoon and leave Sunday afternoon.

The most common question I get is: How can you be silent for two days? My daughter once told me “You have to talk to stay alive.” Of course she was fourteen at the time and it may have been true for her. I would reply that you need to stop talking to bring meaning to your life.

To get the most out of my two days, I try to increase meditation in the weeks leading up to the retreat. This helps me get in the mood and set my attitude to be open to a higher level of self-analysis.

I don’t really go into the weekend with an “agenda” so much as an openness to self examination. The retreat leaders provide a theme and some guidance. But they also encourage folks to wander off, take a walk, take a nap, and spend time in contemplation.

I have faced a number of personal challenges recently and the retreat is coming at a perfect time for me this year.

If you haven’t been on a retreat of any kind, I highly recommend it. Just do an Internet search for “Retreat” and your city. You’ll be amazed at how many retreat centers are scattered all over the place. Some are religious. Some are just relaxing. Start with the one most appealing to you.

My retreat is religious in nature, although the greatest benefits come from my quiet time during the weekend and not from the actual theme. Early on (retreats one, two, three) the guidance and themes mattered a lot more. But when you bring your own intentions of openness to the retreat there is less need for “starter” activities.

There are no promises that I’ll be a better person on Monday. But I look forward to a quiet weekend unplugged from the frenzy.

:-)

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I agreed to contribute an article to a work on Workaholism some time back. And then I forgot about it.

Well, yesterday I had the pleasant surprise of receiving a copy of the final printed book, Workaholism Perspectives and Experiences from Icfai University Press.

The book is about 190 pages and filled with great essays on Workaholism — Facts, perspectives, and some great tips on making positive changes in your life. I haven’t read most of it yet, but there are some great statistics about the effects of workaholism around the world.

Of course this is a key topic for me (that’s why it’s the topic of the second chapter of my book).

Workaholism can consume your life, your relationships, and your business. Then it affects all the people you live and work with as well as your customers. At the same time, it’s not particularly difficult to overcome. The hardest part about changing a workaholic lifestyle is deciding you want to.

There’s a certain comfort level in working hard all the time: fooling yourself that another hour will make a different; fooling yourself that there are extra rewards; fooling yourself that you’re doing it for the family; fooling yourself that no one can do this but you. Working really hard makes you feel good about yourself.

But some day something dramatic will happen.

And when it does, you’ll be faced with the stark reality that effort above a certain point counts for nothing, that your family values quality time more than an extra box of money, and that lots of people can do the work you feel you have to do.

When that day comes you will be overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Just like losing a loved one, you will have lost a piece of what defines you as a person. You’ll spend time figuring out how “reality” could be so different from what you believed it was. And you’ll work through it.

But working really hard still feels good. So you might cure yourself for awhile, but that doesn’t mean you’re cured forever. Part of it is still baked into who you are. Part of it is pushed on you by society. Part is pushed on you by your job. Etc.

Workaholism is a lot more than a personal choice made by one person who can un-make that choice. It is part of a complex series of structures and relationships that have evolved in modern society.

This book is a great start to recognizing and addressing the issues of workaholism — personally and as an organization. It’s also a good resource for work place counselors and HR pros.

As your bookstore to order ISBN #978-81-314-2469-8.

(Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid for the chapter I contributed to this book and I make no money on sales whatsoever.)

:-)

Workaholism

My daughter is getting ready to apply for colleges. She just started her Senior Year.

Over the weekend, someone gave her some really good advice: Don’t worry that the colleges say that everyone should have an activity here and membership there. YOU don’t have to personally be responsible for balancing the student body. The school is responsible for having a few people like this and a few people like that.

So one student doesn’t have to be well rounded as long as the student body as a whole is well rounded.

That got me to thinking about something Perry Marshall once wrote in his newsletter: The most successful people are not very well rounded.

Think about that. Many people skyrocket to success in their 20’s and early 30’s, then things slow down as they get older. Does age have anything to do with it? Not really, except that age brings life experiences.

With age you get children, mortgages, car payments (non-sporting type), taxes, in-laws, neighbors, etc. And if you’re successful you probably have a little money to explore some hobbies – hobbies that take your focus off the work that made you successful.

In other words, you can’t age very well and not become a little well-rounded here and there.

So is it good or bad?

The truth is that it’s a mixed bag.

That absolute focus can bring amazing productivity. But the well-roundedness is the stuff of life. That’s where we live every day. That’s why we go work so hard.

If we could all be like little children, life would be grand. Kids throw themselves into the moment. For them, nothing exists except the thing they’re doing right now. There’s no thought about what’s for dinner or how we’re going to get to school in the morning.

If they’re eating, they’re eating. If they’re playing, they’re playing. If they’re sorting crayons, they’re sorting crayons.

And very quickly they stop doing one thing and do another. Again with total focus.

That process of focusing on only one thing at a time is extremely difficult when you grow up. And switching from task to task without losing focus is just as difficult.

Perhaps well-roundedness in an adult simply consists of having a series of different things we focus on. After that it’s a matter of how focused we are at each.

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I’m a big fan of Quiet Time. That might be meditation, prayer, or just sitting in the back yard watching the birds as the sun comes up.

And I’ve written on several occasions about how I’ve solved problems through Quiet Time. But some people confuse these activities.

Meditation/Prayers/Quiet Time is not an active attempt to solve a problem. It is not intended as a time for you to sit down and think about your problems or attempt to come up with an answer.

Quiet Time is a process of training your mind to escape from the noise of everyday life. Stop the whirring engine that’s constantly juggling problems from work and home. Stop worrying about finances. Stop planning the next picnic. Stop analyzing the news.

Stop twittering and instant messaging and the “always on” communication.

Let me give you two relevant quotes:

“Accessing wisdom requires little more than the confidence in knowing that when you quiet your mind, your mind isn’t turned off.”
–Richard Carlson

“One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: You bear with them until they solve themselves.”
– Thomas Merton

We all get overwhelmed from time to time. I’ve been working through some problems in my personal life recently. And after years of spending time praying and meditating, I find it hard to do sometimes.

Problems beg to be solved. But at some point, your conscious mind has done all it can do.

It takes persistence and practice to sit down and NOT think about problems. The closer you can get to thinking about nothing, the more your mind has a chance to put all the puzzle pieces back together.

When you try really, really hard to solve a problem, you add force and tension to the issue. Relaxing and taking a step back will allow that tension to subside.

It seems to me that many problems exist because I have build a shell around myself. I have a public image, or a boss image, or a parent image. I want certain things to happen, even if I can’t articulate why.

And that shell is not ME. It is just outside of who I am. Many “problems” are really just a realization that there’s too much space between the real me and the shell I’ve built around myself.

As a result, problem solving doesn’t consist merely of action on my part, but of a realization that I need to relax and let that shell dissolve. What’s left is me. And I’ll build another shell. If I’m lucky it will be a lot closer to who I am than the last shell.

. . .

And all of this is a lot harder than you might think!

In other words, sitting in a chair doing nothing may be the hardest work you do all day!

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If you’re in business, you may have heard the advice that you should cultivate “multiple streams of income.” Of course your business has a primary stream. Let’s say you sell a specific product. Additional streams of income might be related products, “spin-off” products, or even an unrelated business.

In addition to simply giving you more money, multiple streams of income provide you with resilience as the economy goes up and down. In my book business, I have seminars and advertising revenues in addition to the books. So, when book sales are down, seminars might be up. And when a seminar is canceled, the web orders keep flowing in.

Let’s look at rewards other than money.

After all, your life is filled with all kinds of ups and downs. When your work is not rewarding, or your family life is not rewarding, you still deserve a boost!

Ideally, when your work is challenging, you’ll get good news from the home front.

Or church.

Or the community.

Or a note from a friend to boost your spirits.

Maybe you’ll reach a goal in your workout routine.

Or find a card someone gave you a few years ago.

There are two components to creating Multiple Streams of Reward.

First, you need to cultivate the various roles you play in your life. You need to participate in your church, in your community (online or offline), and in your family.

It sounds obvious, but too many people only do one or two things. It is very common for people to only work or only go to school. But if you do that, you can’t expect an unexpected phone call. You won’t be asked to sit on a committee or join a group.

We all play several roles in our lives. And, to be honest, they’re not all “up” at the same time very often. Each is rewarding at times and challenging at other times. And that’s fine and normal.

But what gets us through the hard times?

The answer is fairly clear: The rewards from all the other areas of our lives help us get through the challenges.

So the first component is to actively participate in the various roles you play.

The second piece of this puzzle is to tune into the rewards streaming into your life. Recognize positive things when they happen — even if you’re in a bad mood. Just because someone’s mad at you over here doesn’t mean you should ignore a kind word over there.

Tune in. Be open to the little rewards wherever you find them.

This includes all the little successes (like finishing a project) as well as simply being aware of what’s going on in all the roles you play.

It helps a lot if you use a “positive filter” for the messages and events in your life. Make it your habit to try to put a positive spin on everything.

Give it a try. What have you got to lose?

:-)

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