How much does it take?

Amazing how much we put up with things just because we are used to it.
Let’s go to one extreme; a woman goes home every day from her high powered career terrified she will find her cat dead because the man in her life is holding it to ransom with a gun on the table ready to shoot it; she is terrified to say or do anything and although she is a strong woman has been made powerless to resist the constraints of this man. You may laugh but I know that to be true. Here is another one:
You have neighbours from hell and they not only make your life a misery, but they do the same for others who are close by. You accept the noise, their comments, their rudeness and sometimes their abuse and you put up with the banging and crashing which comes through the walls as they lose their temper with each other and throw things about.
You wince and get nervous at their activity but do nothing, just shrink quietly somewhere in your home, less impacted upon and hope it will go away.
So what does it take to trigger a response? How far does the discomfort have to travel before we say, enough?
These are extremes, but we respond to triggers all the time. Whilst writing the last page of this newsletter I went off to make a cup of tea because something inside me said, I have reached that point where I want a cup. Now it could be because I am thirsty, or it could be because I no longer smoke and use this as the new way of stopping for a few minutes and resting my brain. Which ever it is, there is a trigger being reached and when it goes ‘click’ I respond by making tea. How many times have you gone off and made tea or coffee only to let it go cold? Or, as Tim used to do, go in the kitchen, switch on the kettle and then walk away, only to think hours later, ‘hang on wasn’t I making a drink?’
So what is the difference between a habit and a trigger? Nothing really, the trigger is the part of the habit which sets it in motion, the starting point if you like which generates the habit to begin. Here’s a simple one, you smoke, you have a few minutes to yourself, you take that opportunity to light a cigarette. You drink, and are out with the lads/ladies; you have half an hour to kill before you go to the restaurant, the club, the show so you go into a pub and have a drink. What are the triggers? Well for some it could be time available, others it could be nervous necessity, and others it could be time spent prior not satisfying the craving/fix.
They say once a smoker, always a smoker: my mother and I were talking about something to do with school and we both had the same response—that would be the time to sit with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The trigger? By smoking we make ourselves unavailable to children for ten minutes, the trigger was the growing need to escape their noise, intense hormonal state and their potential behaviour.
So let’s turn this all on its head because all I have mentioned so far are the negative triggers; we have positive ones too and wouldn’t it be great to know how to set these off so we could experience them more frequency?

Try these questions and find some triggers for yourself.
What events/activities/sensations really makes you happy?
How do you know when you are feeling happy? What are the feelings you get inside your head, your body which translate into you saying, I’m really happy today?
What has to happen to make these feelings click on in your brain so you recognise them as feeling happy or successful or blissful what ever the word is you are using?
How much of this can you take? How much pleasure can you stand? (sounds an odd question but its interesting what comes back)
It is said, too much of a good thing is bad for you. Think about being happy/successful/in the zone all the time, how would that transform your life?
How much of it can you stand and if you had all of this , how would it transform your life?
How much of this can you create without doing anything except changing how you feel and behave on the inside, and what would be the trigger to set these great feelings in motion?

You can create a trigger which you operate manually, its called an anchor. I have one on my index finger which I press if I want to gain the feelings of confidence. I created it by noticing when I felt confident and pressing a specific point on my hand telling myself this was going to be the trigger for this great feeling. It worked and now when I need it, as soon as I go to press it, the sight of me going for the trigger acts like a trigger itself and sets the whole thing rolling.
Triggers are great when they are in our control, when they are not it can be tough trying to cope with the rowdy neighbours, or an abusing partner or a dictatorial boss.
To learn more about anchors, Google ‘anchoring in NLP’ and a series of articles will come down for you to read. If there are some by Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler or Michael Hall, then these are the best sources. They maybe old school but they are tried and tested masters and their methods work.

That glorious month, September

The month I have been savouring for best part of six months and it has arrived!
I have sent off the last year’s batch of 11 plus pupils with their new found confidence and their understanding of what is expected of them and I am mentally packed ready to spend the majority of the month in a warm (both in terms of sun and friendship) part of Spain.
The smell when I arrive always welcomes me back to ‘home’ and as I step out of the airport building and head down toward the train station, I feel I can breathe for a few weeks.
Computer, case and euros, plus good company and three weeks of heaven awaits. I am always hopeful the weather will be kind and we wont be subjected to the storms we have had the past few years. But whatever happens, I know I will enjoy the break and be relaxed and restored ready to begin the cycle of taking the new pupils through the 11+ syllabus so they can sit their examinations come next September.
My tomatoes have been producing very good crops and I have enjoyed many meals off them, the courgettes, the beans and of course the peas. My cucumbers have not really taken this year, I suspect the weather has been far too dry and unpredictable for outdoor ones this year. Never mind, the rest of the crops have been good, so now its time to think of the winter.
A very wealthy businessman (Jim Rohn, pupil of Carnegie) always says when the weather in your business is enjoying the summer of bounty, start thinking about the winter of scarcity and set store for it.
I think that is true in all walks of life and I do live by it. When we have plenty make sure some of it is put to one side, for the winter will come and we will need that store to get us to the next stage, of spring and summer once more.
I was very surprised to wake up one morning and watch a man hammer a stake into the ground in the front garden next door and attach a For Sale board to it. Within a fortnight they had moved out (they were only renting) and peace reigned in the neighbourhood. I have had quite a few comments about the quiet, so lets hope the next set will one, take a pride in the place, and two, be more harmonious in their family life.
I have had the dubious pleasure (so much shifting, I never realised just how much) of re-arranging the work room and my office so all the paraphernalia to do with work is out of my living room. It’s made a tremendous difference because I can now sit in the room to work and then leave, close the door and effectively leave work behind.
It’s the one thing which self employed people forget I think, they allow the house to be taken over by their work and as a consequence never leave it; it is true, you do put in more hours when you are self employed if you don’t watch it.
I have been almost self-indulgent and taken two weeks off for myself. It has been wonderful and I have managed to get many of those irritating little jobs done which have just sat there taunting me for some time. One task which is always a pleasure is the blanching of the last of the vegetables and the stewing of the fruits. If there is one thing I really enjoy in the winter is to thaw out some plums and have them with a hot sponge pudding or even ice cream. This year I have been fortunate to be given not only plums, thank you Diane, but also pears and blueberries. All have been cooked down and are awaiting their placement in a bulging freezer. The potatoes are in dry sand and the American cress, and perpetual spinach are happily growing on to provide greens through the first part of the winter. My food bills have been lower and my eating healthier. If you haven’t started yet and have the garden to do it in, then what stops you? Its great fun and if you have children, educational as well.

A quiet cafe latte

With a café latte in one hand and my MP3 player in the other, I found a vacant two seater table and sat down. It was an open air MacDonald's and the day was pleasant. The young lady next to me glared, even though I was some three feet away from her; smiling back she turned her head away from my obvious happy disposition, ‘your sh*t’ I thought and ignored her. Plugging into my music another couple sat down the other side of me, they had rather a large order and I presumed two others were coming to join them. I was wrong. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the incredibly thin young gentleman devoured a chicken burger plus regular fries, followed by a Big Mac and then a Quarter Pounder with cheese, all washed down with a large Coke. He demolished all bar the quarter pounder in less time than in took me to drink half the coffee and it wasn’t until he reached half way through the final burger that he actually put the food down and sat back. I clenched my fist and looked at it, a very good rough guide to the size of our stomach (before we stretch it through over eating) and wondered not only what size his flaccid stomach had stretched to, but how well he had over-ridden his ‘full’ indicator by rushing through as he did.
I became aware of the young woman the other side of me, she was eating a portion of chips. Her foot tapping, and her friend ducking with verbal abuse coming his way, she pushed them away, sat back and finished the Coke.
“Don’t you want those?” he inquired.
“No! full,” and with that her foot tapped more rapidly and her tirade of swear words intersected with the occasional conjunction continued to pour out in his general direction.
She shoot me another look, but I wasn’t focused on her and continued listening to the music in my head. Comes to something when the lyrics of someone like Prodigy are paled into insignificance by someone sitting in Macdonald's.
The track, ‘Take me to the hospital’ began and I smiled, how apt it was. With one over-consuming and the other over-fuming they were both candidates for an ulcer sometime very soon.