Hal Stratton's (and Your) Personal Transformation
Certainly one of the most important decisions we make in life is how we will feel about ourselves. We don’t usually think about it as a decision. It’s a given, just the way it is. And yet, I want to suggest it is a decision and one with far reaching consequences. Self esteem is the filter through which all of our life experiences are interpreted. [Read more...]
I’ve been writing about the power of our beliefs these last several weeks. I want to go deeper this week. I’ve worked with lots of people, in both seminars and coaching, who have confronted limiting beliefs very much at the core of their identities. A common belief of masses of people is “I’m not enough,” or “if people really knew me they wouldn’t like me.” Such beliefs are usually formed pretty early in life, at a time when they were vulnerable and lacked the support or internal awareness and resources to make a better decision. Making such a decision can happen as the result of criticism, through comparisons to others, through neglect or abuse. The commonality is that the situation-specific conclusion (often repeated a number of times) sticks and becomes a core belief. [Read more...]
Most of us have grown up with beliefs that don’t serve us. We live in an imperfect world. We are nurtured by imperfect care-givers (some much worse than others). And, especially when children, it’s easy to misread cues in our environment and arrive at false conclusions about ourselves, life and relationships. Then we spend our adulthood acting out those beliefs. They become the paradigm, so to speak, from which we view the world. [Read more...]
I’ve been writing about the power of our beliefs these past few weeks. I want to continue this theme by introducing “The Belief Model” which illustrates how our beliefs determine our behavior and eventually our results. You’ll notice that the model is the key moment model only with a little different twist. It’s based on the idea that we interpret any given situation from the filter of our core beliefs about what is true and not true. These beliefs directly influence our inner experience (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations) which influence our behavior and eventually our results of the outcomes of our lives. [Read more...]
“The things that you keep silently telling yourself are your most important conversations. Whatever you habitually dwell on in your mind, you will become, express, or experience. Your subconscious mind will be your best friend or your worst enemy. Everything depends on the way you train it and the use you make of it. It is your individual share of the universal creative mind. It is the great cosmic playground of your freedom to think, choose, reason, and decide for yourself. It shapes your destiny and determines the attraction and repulsion of your life. Guard its portals well. It is your hope of heaven.” -Elinor MacDonald
A few weeks back I told the story, “You Get What You’re Looking For.” I’ve had so many people comment that they liked the story that I decided to pick up on this theme again and for a little longer. The point of the story is that we don’t necessarily see things as they are. We see life through a filter and that filter (not reality) determines how we experience life and, eventually, our destinies. [Read more...]
“The strongest oak in the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.” Napoleon Hill
I look around at people who have suffered incredible hardship and wonder how they do it. How is it that some people grow up in very challenging circumstances or experience great trauma or loss and yet survive? In many cases, not only survive but thrive. Like Charlie Plumb in my last post. Upon being captured, tortured and tossed in a small cell, Charlie wasn’t sure he’d make it or that he wanted to make it. Yet somehow he developed the “attitude,” as his doctor back home called it, to overcome his hellish circumstances. [Read more...]
In my newsletter last week I told the story, “You Get What You’re Looking For.” The point of the story is that we don’t see things as they are. We see life through a filter and that filter (not reality) determines how we experience life and, eventually, our destinies.
I want to share the story of a man I became acquainted with some years ago. This is a man who had to step up to a pretty significant challenge and radically change what he was looking for. His very survival depended on his ability to shift how he viewed his life and the choices he made about the harsh reality of spending six and a half years as a prisoner of war. [Read more...]
A number of years ago I moved my family from Denver to Spokane, Washington, where I had accepted a new job. I was not aware at the time of how difficult an adjustment the move would be to my children, who were then 14, 12 and 9 years of age. It was especially difficult for my 12 year-old son, Jonathan, who came home from school every day complaining about life in Spokane. Nothing was right. He hated the weather. The kids at his school weren’t nice. His teacher was boring. There was nothing to do at home at night. And on and on. [Read more...]
I’m passionate about understanding people like Eduardo. How is it that some human beings live in a place of such, joy, abundance, goodwill? Are they born that way? Were they fortunate to be born into incredible families? Are they of a stronger character or constitution than most of us? [Read more...]
I’ve wrestled with this topic for some time. On again, off again. Do I write about it or not? Obviously, I decided to go for it. My hesitancy was knowing that this is a complex topic. I studied developmental psychology in graduate school. In fact, it was the topic of my dissertation. So I’m aware of many theories related to childhood, moral, cognitive and ego development as well as extensive literature from the new sciences of emotional intelligence and positive psychology that describe the stages of human development and especially human healthiness. These subjects have been fascinating to me but I also realize that they are not easy to quantify and measure. [Read more...]
