When people are faced with the opportunity to make a life changing decision a whole raft of common self-limiting beliefs can take hold. You might believe it’s too late for you to start something new. You might believe there is no point starting something if success is not guaranteed (or at least highly likely). You might not believe you are up to the task: it is too challenging and will take too long to achieve.

But you don’t have to believe these things.

Believe that right now you can take one small step towards your dreams.

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All you really need do to start out on a path that may change your life is take a single step, then another and another.

Make one small change, then follow it with another. Tackle one problem at a time. Don’t worry about what might happen. Wait until it does. If you have many tasks in front of you, just do them one at a time. Look for the next thing that needs doing and do it. Repeat that again and again.

That’s it. Do one thing and see what happens. If you feel good, do another. Don’t try to go any faster. Don’t rush ahead in a burst of enthusiasm and crash into a wall of problems and exhaustion.

Extract from Slow Leadership

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Believe that when you take that first small step, with purpose and determination, you will make things happen.

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Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Believe that if you focus on just small steps, and if you have faith in the journey you have chosen, you will reach your destination.

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Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Rebecca is a freelance writer. She provides smart, fresh writing for blogs, websites, newsletters and corporate communications. Contact Rebecca for all your writing needs: rebecca[at]beyondibd[dot]com

Two decades of scientific research has demonstrated the physical and psychological benefits of writing about our troubles.

Patients with serious chronic illnesses such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, cystic fibrosis, cancer and HIV, when asked to write about their most stressful and emotional experiences, reported the following benefits:

• improved immune function;
• reduced blood pressure;
• improved lung and liver function;
• reduced pain;
• fewer days in hospital; and
• improved mood. (see note 1)

The idea of delving into your emotions, and exposing them on paper, may make you feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. Although a journal exploring your thoughts and feelings will give the greatest benefits, there are other types of diaries which can help you manage your Crohn’s or colitis.

Food and symptom diary

A common recommendation for those with inflammatory bowel disease (and many other illnesses) is to keep a food and symptom diary. As every IBD patient knows, and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) confirms, there is no specific eating plan which works for everyone. Keeping a detailed food and symptom diary helps you identify the foods that bother you, and is an important source of information for your doctor and nutritionist.

Maintaining a minute record may become tedious over time, but even if you keep the diary for only a few weeks you will become more aware of what you eat and may uncover patterns in your symptoms. Example food diary.

Wellness chart

A wellness chart is an easy way to track your disease and general well-being over extended periods of time.

A variety of indices, such as the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index (CDAI), are used to measure disease severity. These primarily record objective data such as blood analysis and weight; however, there is increasing interest in measuring the impact of IBD on the patient’s quality of life.

You can devise your own chart and rating system, customised for your common symptoms and triggers, which will only take a few minutes each day to complete.

Once again this will be a useful source of information for your doctor, and will help you take a more active role in your health management. Perhaps more importantly, it will encourage a broader, more realistic perspective of your health. We all have good and bad days – on the worst days it can be difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Your wellness chart will remind you that you’ve had better days and most likely will again. Example wellness chart.

Medical timeline

From your first diagnosis, keep a simple timeline of your treatment. At minimum include medications (with dosage), tests and results, and major events in your disease. If you can, also include names of doctors consulted and notes of your discussions.

Initially you will be able to recount all these details from memory, but as the years pass you will be surprised how quickly one test blends in with another, and you might forget the name of that particular medication you took for a month and then stopped because you had a bad reaction.

This information is particularly useful when you change doctors, or if you have to see a new doctor in an emergency situation. It will also be very helpful if you wish to assist with IBD research – I was disappointed that I could not remember more details concerning my initial diagnosis for a recent research survey.

Journaling or the one-sentence diary

Give yourself 15-20 minutes a day to write about how you are feeling and what has been happening in your life. Wake up 15 minutes early to make the time, or write just before bed. Grammar and spelling are not important; you don’t have to use sentences, or even words (you might draw a picture). If even this seems overwhelming start with a one-sentence diary.

Whatever form your diary or record-keeping takes, the key is to keep doing it! Set an achievable goal and don’t berate yourself if you miss a day – just be sure to do it the next. As you continue you will find it easier and once you have built a string of entries you will begin to see and feel the benefits.

Rebecca Leigh

References
1. Baikie & Wilhelm, “Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing”, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment vol. 11 (2005): 338-339

I did not ask, “Do you have self-limiting beliefs?” We all have self-limiting beliefs – unless you have attained “enduring, transcendental happiness” through enlightenment, in which case you probably don’t need to read this post.

For the rest of us… this three part series from Andrew Leigh at The Creative Instinct challenges us to: acknowledge that we have self-limiting beliefs; recognise how these beliefs shape our destiny; and work at identifying these beliefs. Whilst reading these articles I had a ‘light bulb’ moment (actually, it was more like a ‘fluorescent tube’ moment – the idea flickerd once weakly… it flickered again… and just when I was about to give up on it all together it buzzed to life).

I saw clearly how the numerous beliefs we hold about every aspect of our lives, including our health and inflammatory bowel disease, could easily limit our potential for success and happiness.

Why are self-limiting beliefs dangerous?

Andrew observes that whilst some self-limiting beliefs are obviously negative, others are more subtle:

Self-limiting beliefs can permit ‘success’ but will put unconscious boundaries on that success which we will find very difficult to cross.

An obvious negative self belief may be: As a sufferer of Crohn’s Disease I can never have a successful career.
A more subtle, but nonetheless damaging self belief may be: I have a good job, but because of my Crohn’s I won’t be able to progress up the corporate ladder.

The real killer, and the quote which got me thinking, is:

… we don’t experience our personal self beliefs as perceptions (which might or might not be accurate) – we experience them as granite hard truths. And so – being the truth, we accept them and live our lives within the limitations set by them…

… [but] they are not the truth of who you are – they are simply an unhelpful version of the truth that can be changed if you decide to.

There is no spoon

As I said, reading this wasn’t quite a light bulb moment. But the idea took root and I began to make a few connections.

In Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking? by Brian Clark:

…changing your perspective and seeing things differently than you currently do. People like to call this “thinking outside of the box,” which is the wrong way to look at it. Just like Neo needed to understand that “there is no spoon” in the film The Matrix, you need to realize “there is no box” to step outside of. You create your own imaginary boxes simply by … accepting certain things as “real” when they are just as illusory as the beliefs of a paranoid delusional.

Seth Godin is a highly influential and creative thinker and writer on marketing, change and work. From his blog and his book small is the new big:

On thinking big… and the difference between a meeting of high-powered executives and room local CPAs -

They [the execs] were starting with the same raw materials as the group in the second room [the CPAs]. The difference, I think, was that a long time ago, the people in the second room had made a decision about what they deserved, or what they were capable of, or what they were going to stick with. And it was a bad decision.

On Lies to protect the status quo (from the small is the new big printed version):

It fascinates me that we’re so gullible, that people will embrace patently false ideas if it helps them deal with their fear of change.

On the power (and the fear) of self determination and on success and work:

None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they’re not smarter than you either. They’re succeeding by doing hard work.

Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier.

What if?

What if the only difference between us and all the people we admire — all the people we think are ‘better’ than us in some way or another — is that they believe and they try, and we don’t?

If our perception, our self belief, shapes our reality, then what if we changed our perspective? Could we change our reality?

Of course, in life, there are always challenges and genuine limitations. And having a chronic illness is certainly one of them. But how many times have you heard a story about a person who has overcome great hardship or disability to achieve something remarkable? Have you assumed and accepted that you cannot do certain things because you have IBD, without really questioning the basis of those assumptions?

Do you believe that:

• if you have IBD you can’t be an athelete?
• if you have a chronic illness you can’t hold down a job?
• if you have Crohn’s you cannot travel extensively because you might get sick?

You may think some of these sound quite reasonable, even sensible, but rarely is truth so absolute. When we realize “there is no box”, we can start thinking more freely and creatively about our own lives.

Use the The Creative Instinct tools and ask yourself, “what are my self-limiting beliefs?”. What perceptions have you have accepted as ‘truth’ which need further examination?

Rebecca

Why practise idleness?

Often I find myself being caught up in day-to-day practicalities, trudging through my list of tasks on autopilot. My view becomes limited and I only see what I have to do next, or today or this week. The future is a cloud of commitments and responsibilities, many undefined, which I avoid examining for fear of what I might find. Despite my efforts to ignore it, the cloud is menacing and suffocating. I am in a constant state of readiness, thinking about all the things I have to do, could do or might want to do. It becomes mental ‘white noise’.

It is very important to recognise this state and understand that it is both unhealthy and unproductive. Constant levels of stress and adrenalin weaken your body (wasting energy which would be better spent keeping you well!), and your clouded mind is an ineffective problem-solver and decision maker. At this point you may feel helpless and hopeless.
Idleness involves slowing down and restoring your reserves – physical, mental and emotional. After the right kind of idleness (more on this below), you will feel rested, be able to think more imaginatively about your life and any challenges you may be facing, and have a more optimistic view of your future.

‘Right’ kind of idleness

There are plenty of negative connotations associated with ‘idleness’. The Concise Oxford Dictionary mentions ineffective, worthless, useless and lazy.

In If you want to write (1938) Brenda Ueland offers many sound observations on the creative process. Her thoughts on idleness are excellent and not limited to artists – we all need imagination in our lives.

… nervous, empty, continually willing action is sterile and the faster you run and accomplish a lot of useless things, the more you are dead… do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude…

If your idleness is a complete slump, that is, indecision, fretting, worry, or due to over-feeding and physical mugginess, that is bad, terrible and utterly sterile. Or if it is that idleness which so many people substitute for creative idleness, such as gently feeding into their minds all sorts of printed bilge… that is too bad and utterly uncreative.

But if it is the dreamy idleness that children have, an idleness when you walk along for a long, long time, or take a long, dreamy time at dressing, or lie in bed at night and thoughts come and go, or dig in a garden, or drive a car for many hours alone, or play the piano, or sew, or paint alone… This quiet looking and thinking is the imagination; it is letting in ideas…

Paraphrased from If you want to write (1938)

You will know the right kind of idleness by how you feel. When I have been slumped in front of the television or hunched over my PC, aimlessly surfing channels or websites (which I am sure Ueland would categorise as bilge), I do not feel rejuvenated. I feel irritable, mind-numbed, dull and somewhat resentful, as though I have been used. Whereas, if I were to spend some time sitting in a park, going for a walk, watching my cats or having a slow and satisfying cup of tea, I feel much better.

Idleness may involve doing absolutely nothing, a kind of meditation. But it needn’t be like that all the time. To me, idleness is about intention, about being quietly in the moment without filling your mind with the next productive thing you could/should do, about having the cup of tea without thinking “I could pop a load of laundry on while I am sitting here”.

Idleness is about quieting the mental white noise – not by attempting to drown it out with more noise (TV, internet, gaming) but by being still (or simply unhurried), releasing yourself of the need to be constantly ‘productive’ and doing. When you try this at first the white noise may become louder – angrily buzzing all the important things you should be doing rather than wasting useful time. But you are not a slave to this noise, and you do not have to argue with it, simply turn your back and continue to be idle.

When you are idle

In the time, space and silence you create for yourself (for idleness is best practised alone) you will, at the very least, give your body the opportunity to restore itself. You may also find, without willing it so, that you gain greater clarity about why you choose to do what you do, and about what you really want to spend time doing in the future. With clarity comes calm and peace.

And so I hope you made time for idleness this holiday season and, if not, it’s not too late. Take an afternoon, or better a whole day, and forbid yourself from all ‘productive’ tasks. Daydream and dabble and wander and snooze and become very languid and soft. And practise this often, for no particular reason and with no particular end in mind, simply because it feels right.

Rebecca

Normal posting on beyondibd.com will resume in December but in the meantime here are two very useful reminders about how our choices can increase or decrease our stress levels.

Some of these seem like common sense, others are a little more surprising (so I am allowed to do nothing and not feel guilty about it?!?). I find it useful to refer back to these sorts of checklists from time to time, and notice where my thinking may be working against me (be your own best friend, not your worse enemy!).

Ten commandments for reducing stress:

1. Thou shalt not be perfect, nor even try to be
2. Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people
3. Thou shalt leave things undone that ought to be done
4. Thou shalt not spread thyself too thinly
5. Thou shalt learn to say ‘no’
6. Thou shalt schedule time for thyself, and thy supportive network
7. Thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly
8. Thou shalt be boring, untidy, inelegant and unattractive… at times
9. Thou shalt not feel guilty
10. Especially, thou shalt not be thine own worse enemy but be thy own best friend

From The Now Habit by Neil Fiore

“Grant me the stubbornness to struggle against things I cannot change; the inertia to avoid work on my own behaviours and attitudes which I can change; and the foolishness to ignore the difference between external events beyond my control and my own controllable reactions. But most of all, grant me a contempt for my own human imperfections and the limits of human control.”

I don’t know if I will reach my goal of 50,000 words by midnight 30 November 2007. I do know that whatever I produce in this intensive month of creation will not be ‘the world’s greatest novel’. So why do it? I do it because writing, in any form, gives me a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment. NaNoWriMo gives writers the opportunity to come together and celebrate the simple good fun they have when writing freely and without judgment.

This is the purpose of NaNoWriMo, not to write great, but just to write. From the founder:

Embrace exuberant imperfection. Give yourself permission to make mistakes, then go ahead and make them. Lower the bar from “best-seller” to “would not make someone vomit”. Write in draft form, write uncritically, experiment, break all the so-called rules of writing. Stay loose and flexible, and keep your expectations very, very low.

Paraphrased from No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

Why not?

Exuberant imperfection is not reserved for writers. Is there something you love to do, or have always wanted to do, which you are not doing because:

• lots of other people already do it better than you ever could
• your friends and/or family will think you were crazy and/or self-indulgent and/or presumptuous to try
• you are (or will be) no good at it so what’s the point
• it’s a waste of time, there are more ‘productive’ things you should to be doing (like cleaning the windows)

These are terrible, terrible reasons not to do something you enjoy, or something that you have always wanted to try. Life really is too short.

One of the exercises I have come across, which is intended to help you clarify your life priorities, is to visualise yourself at age 70 or 80 or 90, looking back over your life. Take a few moments to imagine yourself at that age, sitting in a garden perhaps, watching the clouds go by. Think back over what you have done in your life. What do you remember most vividly? What made you happiest? What fills you with satisfaction, even now? What do you wish you had done more of?

The answers to these questions rarely include ‘cleaning windows’ or ‘paid more attention to what others thought of me’ or ’spent more time at the office getting on top of my filing’.

The Positivity Blog has a wonderful article The Eleanor Roosevelt Guide to Living a Bolder Life which begins with an awesome Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

The article is full of great advice from Eleanor about why we should face our fears, ignore our detractors and go boldly through life. This will not only give you greater personal satisfaction but will also, ultimately, make you better able to achieve positive goals and help others.

Don’t buy into the obsession with perfection

In his article Doing stuff instead of watching stuff, Colin Beavan offers an explanation for our lack of creative bravery:

The obsession with perfection that comes with the consumer culture has made many of us ashamed of our creative efforts. Few of us sing—especially not in front of each other—because we know of so many who can do it better. Few of us show our paintings for the same reason. But why is the best always so important? Besides, why waste our time making admittedly mediocre music or art when we can just plop on the couch, watch TV and eat potato chips?

So do something new, or do something you haven’t done since you were a kid, not because you have to but because it makes you happy!

What about:

• building a model aeroplane
• pottery or sculpting
• knitting
• scrapbooking
• dancing
• singing
• gardening
• painting
• drawing
• photography
• roller blading
• climbing a tree
• abseiling

Leave a comment and tell me what you would like to do!

Rebecca