Christine McKee, a registered psychologist, is director of BE Institute, a psychology consulting and training organisation in Brisbane, Australia. She uses a combination of eastern philosophy and modern psychological techniques with her clients in the corporate, private practice, mining, government, and not-for-profit arenas. The 4-phase BE by Design process results in personal empowerment for individuals, maximising potential of leaders and their teams to achieve business excellence and conscious parenting (pre and post conception). Christine is published author of BE by Design: How I BE Is Up to Me, an empowering “owner’s manual for the brain” which will guide you to understand your most precious asset and how, through simple and practical strategies, you can be the best you can BE. Christine also writes regularly for several online journals.
Ever been curious about why you think and do what you do? Hold the attitudes, values and beliefs that you do? Have you ever questioned why you believe that certain things are good versus bad or right versus wrong? You’ll remember from my last post on ‘Your Brain and You’ that your brain is keen to create lots of habits and shortcuts for energy conservation.
Well, you learnt the basis of all that you do and believe in your early years (approximately 0 – 7 years) and you were heavily influenced by the fabulous, well-meaning others who were present in your life during those years. I liken it to being handed a unique, invisible book of how life is, or ‘should be’, courtesy of what other people’s lives have been like, and based on what they were handed. You’ll be doing the same with your kids, nieces, nephews and grand kids. Let’s call it the Manual of Life.
Your Manual of Life will have information in it that has been consistent through the generations of those who handed it to you, whether it is parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, religious folk, media, authority figures and so on. They all made their contributions based on what they knew, with the best of intentions.
When you were a kid it was useful to be given these handy hints about how life ‘is’ or ‘should be’, as there is so much to learn and so many new skills to grasp. However, as adults, if you are going to live in the moment and create success in all situations and interactions, there is a chance that some of the ‘hand-me-down’ ideas may not be as healthy, helpful, positive, nourishing and self-loving as is possible. So time to shake it up, befriend your Manual of Life and have a peek inside to see if there are a few pages or chapters that you may choose to re-write, while also keeping all of the awesome stuff. You will have pages and chapters on all sorts of things. Examples include:
Why is it of benefit to explore your current Manual of Life? So you have the moment-by-moment option of dropping any of the labels you give yourself and others that are not going to lead to awesome results.
How do you create the most empowered edition of your Manual of Life?
To rewrite them simply follow the example below:
Current belief that does not get me brilliant results: It’s easier to stay with what I know than to move forward.
Rewrite so the belief is healthy for me: Moving forward offers lots of exciting opportunities and all it takes is to invest a little energy in the moment. I choose to do that.
What is one belief or ‘should’ in your Manual of Life that you will rewrite? Please leave your comment below to discuss.