Ten Reasons You Are Not Making Progress

I usually write about tai chi. This article certainly applies to tai chi practice, but it is much more general. We all take on creative projects or work of one kind or another. These projects may be our work, the things we do to earn a living. These projects may be our hobbies, the things we do because we enjoy them. These projects may be for our self-improvement, the things we do to make ourselves better people.

Sometimes it seems like everything works just great and we make immediate progress. Sometimes it seems like our enthusiasm fades away and we don't make any progress at all. Here are some thoughts on why that disconnect happens.

1. You are working on something that just doesn't excite you.

Sometimes we take on things out of a sense of obligation, or for money, or because we want to help someone else. None of those reasons lead to long-term success. The only truly sustainable activities we take on are those that we have a passion for. Are you doing your life's work? You should be. If you are not, you should be doing something else with your time.

2. You don't know why you are doing the project.

What is your vision for what you are doing? Why are you working so hard at this? If you don't know where you are going, any path gets you there. There is probably an easier path that the one you are on. Write down your purpose in two sentences or less describing why you are doing this project and what you expect for an outcome. Be specific.

3. You are working on something for personal gain instead of doing something useful for others.

Many studies have shown that the jobs that people enjoy the most are those that allow us to help other people. We need to earn a living, but how you do it matters. What are you doing to help other people? Are you creating marketing strategies for products that hurt people? The satisfaction of a paycheck disappears pretty quickly. How can you combine your employment or self-improvement activities with helping others? Perhaps you can't change your job right now, but you can change how you spend the rest of your hours.

4. You are working alone.

We are more likely to continue an activity when we are personally accountable to someone you care about. Who are you accountable to? Identify someone that you can work with. Practicing tai chi? Practice daily with a friend. Walking for exercise? Get a walking buddy. Writing a novel? Get someone to review your work. Don't be a loner.

5. You can't seem to find the time to get anything done.

Do you prefer watching TV or browsing the internet to working on your project? Your time is limited. It is your only resource, don't waste it. Of course, take a break now and then. But recognize that if you want to get things done, you have to work on them.

6. You listen to your critics.

Everyone has critics. Sometimes it is people close to you. Sometimes it is people you hardly know. Sometimes it is that little voice in your head. Sometimes critics are well meaning and trying to protect you from failure. It doesn't matter who you are, we all have critics. Have a discussion with yourself. Only you can decide that your work is worth doing. Only you can decide to continue on a certain path.

7. You are trying to do too many things.

We have limited time and resources. Every time you try to multitask, you delay things. You have to refresh and start over whenever you put something aside so you can work on something else. Ask yourself why you are working on so many things. Can you drop something to work on your passion? Can you delay something until a better time? You need to understand what's really going in your head.

8. You want to drop a project, but you feel you have too much invested in it to stop now.

We don't make progress if we don't work at it. However, we all need to change things up now and then. If it truly is time to change, then it doesn't matter what you have invested in a project. It's gone. Move on. However, be careful here. This is an awful lot like procrastination. Pause, think, and reflect on your reasons for wanting change.

9. You aren't organized enough keep track of the details.

Things keep slipping away from you. You keep starting over on your work because you can't find something. You get distracted and forget something important. You need to figure out better ways to do your work. You can find lots of advice, but only you can do this. For me, it really helps to start at the beginning of the week and draw up a rough plan for what I plan to do. At the beginning of each day, I draw up a detailed plan on what I want to get done that day. I work on multiple projects at a time, so I have to shift back and forth. I found that I need to keep detailed notes on what is happening with each project so I can keep track. If it's not working for you, you need to try something else. Don't procrastinate on this one.

10. You tell me.

I deliberately stopped at number 9. I have more I could put here, but I want to know what you think. What are your reasons for not getting things done? Leave a comment.

Here's a final thought:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice.

"That depends a good deal on where you want to go", said the Cat.

"I don't much care where I go," said Alice.

"Then it doesn't much matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"-- so long as I get somewhere," Alice explained.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

© 2012 Eric Borreson

Guest Blog Post - Allison Brooks

Tai Chi:

Kicks you into shape and cancer out of here

Tai Chi is an old martial art that is focused manipulating one’s chi through controlled movements or postures. Chi is an energy that is the core and basic foundation of all Chinese methods of healing. Not like its Bruce Lee’s predecessors, Tai Chi is more a peaceful movement art that is muscle toning, yet relaxing. Many have adopted this technique to relieve stress, build strength, or to assist with treatments for chronic illnesses or cancer.

Tai Chi is another therapy that many patients have adopted while undergoing conventional cancer treatments. Just like in Road House, Tai chi is used to stimulate muscle function and relax the mind. Though everyone might not do it as well as Patrick Swayze, everyone will achieve the desired energy balancing effect. There have been many patients that swear by the use of Tai Chi, and actually teach sessions at local hospitals.

It is understood that the chi and body have to work in harmony for a healthy sense of well-being to be achieved. For example, a person that is sick or in pain, means the chi is interrupted or unbalanced. To re-energize the chi and return it to its normal flow, a series of precise movements must be performed. The movements and postures of Tai Chi are similar to dance, in that each movement is followed by counter-movement that perfectly coincides. These slow, precise movements combined with controlled breathing from the diaphragm produce the desired effect.

With the time and mastery, Tai Chi provides an increase in muscle mass and tone, flexibility, improved posture, and increased stamina. Cardiovascular benefits are another result from the carefully articulated and focused breathing throughout each movement of the body. Tai Chi is a perfect exercise and relaxing agent for just about everyone, and is also becoming a complementary therapy for cancer treatments. MarthaMcInnis, a breast cancer survivor, learned about using Tai chi as an integrative medicine when she was undergoing radiation, and hails that Tai chi made her live better and gather the strength to fight her cancer with full force.

Though it is not a direct cure for certain ailments and cancer, it helps ease the pain of treatments, relieve stress, and promotes immune system function. Many doctors agree with Martha, and recommend patients with aggressive cancer treatment plans to adopt Tai Chi or any complementary therapy. Patients diagnosed with cancers, like non-hodgkin’s lymphoma or mesothelioma face difficult road ahead. Since intense amounts of chemotherapy, surgery, and/or radiation are the main treatment options, a complementary therapy is a great way to help settle the mind and body. The increased wholeness and wellness of the whole body is what doctors and patients claim to be the benefit of using Tai Chi with conventional cancer treatments. 

My name is Allison Brooks and I am a recent graduate of the University of Mississippi. I earned my B.S. in Biomedical Anthropology and have continued my research to work towards a completed ethnography. I mainly focus on the effects of biomedicalization on different cultures, but I do branch off into other fields of anthropology. 

Get Control of Your Life

Do you ever feel that your life has gotten out of control? Are things happening to you that you have no control over? Things happen and you say, "Where did that come from? I've got enough going on right now!"

I have written several times in my blog about Nasrudin. Nasrudin is a character in many tales and parables. He lived in the Middle East many hundreds of years ago. Here is another story about Nasrudin.

One day, Nasrudin was riding his donkey through town. Something frightened the donkey and it bolted. The donkey started running down the street as fast as it could.

Some of his countrymen watched with amusement. They called out to him, “Nasrudin, where are you going in such a hurry?”

Nasrudin shouted back to them, "Don't ask me, ask my donkey!"Is a donkey running your life? Has it seemed like things were flying past and you were being carried along with the current? Or in Nasrudin’s case, carried along with the donkey.

Sometimes, things just happen for no reason. We need to deal with that as it happens. However, other times things happen because our lives have gotten out of balance. We may be trying to do too much. We may be trying to do the wrong things. We need to regain that control.

The first step in regaining control of your life is to step back and look at where your life has gotten out of balance. It all starts with taking time for reflection. Stop and think about what is really important. Make up a list of the top five or ten things that are important to you. Don't list things that you think other people think is important. What is important to you is certainly different that what is important to other people.

Take some time and talk about this list with the people who are important to you. Think about it for a few days. Make sure the list truly reflects your priorities. Then keep track of how you spend your time for a few weeks.

Compare your priority list with your log of how you spend your time. Do they match? If you are feeling that your life is spinning out of control, I would bet that your time is being spent on things that are not important to you.

Now it’s time to take action. What are you going to do about all the time wasters in your life? How important is Facebook? If your goal is to build a business, then Facebook may be an important way to reach customers. If not, perhaps it's not too important.

Is your life better because you know all the names of the contestants on that TV show? If your goal is to be a television writer, then watching TV may be an important way to learn how to write. If not, perhaps it's a waste of your time.

What are you going to do to learn how to spend your time on the important things in your life? This is your chance to differentiate between what you want and what other people want of you. Time is your only asset in your quest for meaning in your life. The parasites in your life will use up all your time if you let it happen. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do a favor for a friend, but the choice must be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.

Be prepared for a long journey. It may take years of hard work to accomplish some of your goals. You may need to delay doing some things to give yourself time to finish other things. Remember this if nothing else: You are responsible for your own life.

Opportunity often shows up at your door dressed in work clothes. -Thomas Edison

© 2011 Eric Borreson

Tips for Improving Stress Management

Our modern lives are filled with stress. Stress is always there and it is not going to go away. Stress can cause us to behave impulsively in ways that we do not desire. We need to find ways to deal with stress in ways that that we can be happy with. The following is a summary of an article from YMAA Newsletter #82. (http://ymaa.com/newsletters/pdf)

Using Daoist WisdomAn excerpt from Aihan Kuhn’s book Tai Chi for Depression.
by Aihan Kuhn

People live different life styles; have different cultures, different occupations, and different personalities. We are all different, but we can also be happy with who we are, what we have, and with whom we deal.

1. Avoid flying off the handle.When a person is upset or angry, seeking temporary distance can give this person time to quiet their mind.

2. Take time to think over your situation.Before you speak out, or blame others, ask yourself “what can I do to change this situation?”

3. The art of communicationYou need to speak in a peaceful way. Sometimes it makes miracles.

4. Try to appreciate the fact that people are different.Different perspectives and ways of reacting do not necessarily mean that one person is right and another is wrong.

5. Avoid being over sensitive.If someone is unfriendly one day, it does not mean he or she doesn’t like you any more. It only means he or she has some problems at that time.

6. Do recognize each person is responsible for her or his own behavior.You cannot change people unless they are willing to change themselves.

7. Good things take time.Don’t get discouraged if you fail several times as you try to put theory into practice.

8. Don’t always expect a positive response. Be prepared for a negative answer.Being prepared for the worst situation is always wise.

9. Focus on the present.We have too many distractions in our lives. It seems like the more you have, the more stress you have too.

10. Appreciate a good night’s sleep.A good night’s sleep can restore your energy and help you to let go of the things that happened yesterday.

© 2011 Eric Borreson

The Four Addictions

I recently read an interesting article about planning your life and the obstacles we place in our path. Tom Perry, CEO of YourCoach and author of the book Life By Design, asked some interesting questions.

He asks questions about the direction we want our lives to go. Later in the article, he discusses the Four Addictions that keep us from reaching our goals. As he says, they are very difficult to answer. Give it a shot.

1. Why are you here -- what's your purpose?
2. How do you want to show up for others -- what are your values?
3. What are your God-given talents?
4. Five years from now, how is the world experiencing you?
5. Who would you already be if you were already there?

Spend some time thinking about these questions. These are not the type of question that you can answer immediately. They are questions that require deep reflection. They probably require meaningful discussions your loved ones. Don't let that stop you, though. Get five sheets of paper and start writing something about each one of these. Write until you run out of energy and then put the papers aside. Come back a week later and think some more. Keep at it. It may take years of on-again off-again work before you are happy with the results, but it's worth the effort.

In addition to these questions, he discussed what he calls The Four Addictions. Think how much happier we would be without these addictions.

The Four AddictionsI've discovered four addictions we all have that destroy more dreams, more hopes and more lives than alcohol, drugs, food, gambling or sex combined. When I refer to addictions, I am not focused on any of these. To me, those are habitual symptoms or effects brought on by four much larger causes that are the root cause of those symptoms They are:
1) The Addiction to opinions of other people. As a society, we're addicted to what others think about us and how others' views of the world affect us.
2) The Addiction to drama. Some people are drawn to and consumed by any event or situation that occupies their thoughts and fills their mind with negativity, which often brings attention to them in unproductive ways.
3) The Addiction to the past. These people have an unhealthy attachment to events or situations that have occurred in the past. They're stuck in how things used to be.
4) The Addiction to worry. This addiction is comprised of all the negative and self-defeating thoughts that make us anxious, disturbed, upset and stressed, that hold us back in life.

There is much more in the original article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-ferry/the-4-addictions-that-des_b_582556.html

© 2011 Eric Borreson

Concentration

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot. “There,” he said to the old man, “see if you can match that!”

Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit. “Now it is your turn,” he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground.

Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target.

“You have much skill with your bow,” the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, “but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot.”

There are many ways to look at this parable. This simplest way is to simply say that the Zen master removed the braggart from his comfort zone in order to defeat him.

A deeper look at this parable can also tell us that it is as important to have a strong mind as it is to have a strong body. The point is not to hit the target. The point is to master your mind so that your mind is in control of your body.

There is saying, “The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance. —Saint Augustine (354-430) ” In addition, tai chi teaches us that “Yi leads Li”, or “intent leads external strength”. Both of these sayings talk about developing the mind and will.


© 2010 Eric Borreson

Destiny

During a momentous battle, a Japanese general decided to attack even though his army was greatly outnumbered. He was confident they would win, but his men were filled with doubt. On the way to the battle, they stopped at a religious shrine. After praying with the men, the general took out a coin and said, "I shall now toss this coin. If it is heads, we shall win. If tails, we shall lose. Destiny will now reveal itself."

He threw the coin into the air and all watched intently as it landed. It was heads. The soldiers were so overjoyed and filled with confidence that they vigorously attacked the enemy and were victorious. After the battle, a lieutenant remarked to the general, "No one can change destiny."

"Quite right," the general replied as he showed the lieutenant the coin, which had heads on both sides.

The Theory of Provided Conditions
“If you want to create a certain result, you must first create the conditions that will absolutely force that result to occur.”
Kazuma Tateisi
CEO, Omron Tateisi Electronics

© 2010 Eric Borreson

Thinking about Priorities

The following is from YMAA News, Issue 54, June 15, 2000 (available at www.ymaa.com):

One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget.

As he stood in front of this group of high-powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” He pulled out a large wide-mouthed jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more would fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?”

Everyone in the class agreed, “Yes!”

“Really?” he teased. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing the gravel to work itself down into the space between the rocks.

Then he asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?”

“Probably not,” one brave student ventured.

“Good!” he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it filled the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.

Once more he asked, “Is the jar full?”

Now the whole class was on to him. No!” they shouted.

Once again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed a pitcher and began to pour water in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager student raised his hand and said, “The point is: no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in!”

“No!” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all.”

Friends, what are the “big rocks” in your life? Your priorities, the most important things in your life, which only you can decide? You must put these “big rocks” in first or you’ll never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff, then you’ll fill your life with worry over little things that don’t really matter; and you’ll never have the real quality time you need to spend on the big, important stuff.

© 2010 Eric Borreson

The Frog and the Scorpion

There are many variations on this story. Here is one I like.

Once upon a time, there was a scorpion that wanted to cross a river. Since scorpions do not swim, he needed help. There was a frog nearby so the scorpion asked the frog to carry him across the river on its back. The frog refused and said, “If I carry you on my back, you will sting me and I will die. That is what scorpions do.”

The scorpion replied, “If I were to sting you, I would drown in the river. That would be suicide.”

The frog considered this. Being a trusting soul, the frog accepted and carried the scorpion on its back out into the river. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog. As the frog was dying, it asked the scorpion, “Why did you do this? Now we both will die.”

As the scorpion was sinking into the water along with the dying frog, it replied, “That is what scorpions do. It is my nature.”

Of course, the story isn’t really about frogs and scorpions. It is about human nature.

Do you know someone that drives you crazy? My boss is that one for me. He refuses to allow anyone to make any meaningful decisions without his prior approval. He micromanages the tiniest details of every project, but I can’t get him to take care of the important things that I need him to do.

There is a good description of a micromanager at
http://www.careerknowhow.com/guidance/micromanager.htm

When someone believes he is the only one competent to make decisions, he creates suffering (stress) for others. His leadership is not trustworthy. His mind is telling him that what he does is coming from his greater knowledge. It is actually a delusion of the ego. However, my boss is not going to change. He is acting out of his true nature. He believes that his actions are correct. His lack of leadership and management skill is affecting everyone around him. It’s not because he is acting wrongly. He simply does not trust anyone else to do a job as well as he thinks he can do that job.

I have worked for many years to reduce the stress in my life. He has been working just as hard at putting the stress back into my life. Being angry with him for acting according to his nature gets me nowhere. I cannot easily walk away from this job. I need the income.

We have beliefs about who we are. We act in accordance to our beliefs, even if it hurts us. As humans, we have the ability to choose how we act. Bruce Lee once said, “As you think, so shall you become.” It’s up to me to think that I can find positive ways to use this situation. I need to find a way to choose actions that allow me to take care of my family.

As Shantideva says in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life,

There is no evil like hatred,
And no fortitude like patience.
Thus I should strive in various ways
To meditate on patience.
© 2010 Eric Borreson