Who we are, or at least who we think we are, rests in large part upon the walls that we have built inside ourselves.  These walls are our self-defined limits, constraints on our own potential put that we inflict on ourselves.

We’re not really aware of that when we build them, though… we build them for other reasons, not even recognizing how much we are limiting ourselves.  Eventually we even forget that there is a wall that we built… we just perceive it as part of our natural environment, something that has always been there.

We build these walls to shelter our inner, vulnerable self.  We build them to provide safety, safety from pain, safety from risk.  We build them to keep others out, so that they can’t see our weaknesses.

Unfortunately, they don’t truly work the way we intend.  They block pain… but only from our conscious mind.  Our subconscious mind still feels it, and reacts to it… we just don’t know where that reaction originates.  Since we don’t know why we do something, we can’t control it… we can’t fix the cause if we don’t know what it is.

It does protect us from risk, but when building our walls we seldom consider the fact that reward is generally closely related to risk, meaning that if we experience no risk, we experience no reward.  If we did consider it, we might be less likely to build them… knowing that we are limiting our future potential.

Walls also keep others away… but they do so by walling your self off from the world.  As you build more walls, the part of the world that you can see keeps shrinking.  Eventually, if you build enough, you can’t see anything but your self… and that’s an awfully lonely place to be.

When people are in prison for a long time… they become “institutionalized”, used to walls around you all the time and strict limits on their potential.  When they get out, they are uncomfortable and disoriented.  The outside world is such a chaotic place, filled with so much activity.

Mental walls work the same way… you are, essentially, building your own prison.  As you spend more time in your prison, you become more comfortable with your limits, with your smaller version of the world, and the world outside your prison seems more and more scary.

That, in turn, makes you build your walls thicker and higher, to keep that world away.  Sometimes something comes along, or more to the point someone, that makes you open your walls a little bit.  You let them inside the outer walls of your prison, to continue our analogy, but you don’t let them past the visitor area.  This could be a spouse or child, or even a true friend.

If that person hurts you, which is essentially a given when you are around someone enough, that can reinforce your fear, and cause you to push them back outside your outer walls, which you then proceed to build yet higher.  This walls you in even further away from any opportunities in the outside world, in fear that they might turn out to bring pain.

Within your own prison, there is no parole, and you are serving a life sentence.  The only way out, long term, is to break down the walls that make up the prison.

This is a very uncomfortable thought for many, perhaps most, people.  That’s because they look at it as all or nothing… essentially you don’t change anything, or you have to let go of all your walls.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way.  In fact, if you attempt to do it that way, you’re very likely to fail to make your freedom permanent.  It’s like digging a tunnel to escape your prison… you may escape, but if they catch you, they’ll put you back inside, in a different cell, probably one that’s much harder to escape.

You can, however, break down your walls a little bit at a time.  You can make the conscious decision to tear down individual walls, releasing individual pains and fears.  When you release them, you’ll have to face them, but once you face them and accept them, they lose their power and depart.

As each wall crumbles, you grow stronger… less of your time and energy is spent maintaining your prison, which leaves more available for tearing down more walls, and reaching for outside opportunities.

That effect snowballs, too… as you break down each wall, it adds to the energy you have available to break down the next.  That makes it easier and easier to do… you build up momentum, and after a while you may find that some walls are falling apart on their own, without you even having to make a conscious effort.

The sense of openness and freedom that you experience as you do this can be both exhilarating and uncomfortable.  The strength of those feelings is directly related to how fast you’re moving in tearing down the walls… that’s why I recommend that you start slowly:  you can find a speed where the change is slow enough for you to handle.

Each wall that you break down is one less restriction on your self, one less limit to your potential.  Even very early in the process you can feel this, and it is often the motivation to continue.

There’s nothing like that first sight of the outside world, that moment when you can see just how much potential you really have.  It’s scary, exhilarating, and powerful, like the moment on a roller coaster when you’re just starting a free fall.

If it doesn’t scare you back inside your prison, though, the world is out there for you to conquer.

People are always looking for ways to get closer to their significant other, and there are a lot of ways available (see this article for example).  It’s a worthy goal… a close and loving relationship is one of the best things available in this life.

The funny thing is that one of the best, and most natural, ways to get closer is also one of the most easily forgotten: touching.  It’s amazing how much difference it makes… and how easy it is to let it slip away.

Touch, especially skin on skin, causes your body to release a hormone called oxytocin.  This hormone has been shown, in numerous studies, to be involved in bonding, trust, and possibly even generosity… all of which are, obviously, strong factors in how close your relationship is.

That’s the scientific explanation… but you don’t need the science to see the truth of it.  Simply looking back at the history of your own relationship can show you just how important touch is.

When you first start a new relationship, you touch all the time… holding hands, hugging, kissing, and more.  During this time, you are generally close and getting closer, to the point where you can’t imagine it any other way.

As your relationship matures, though, many things start to distract you from touching each other as much, especially if you have children (one parent running after them while the other cleans up behind them, or at least that’s the way it seems).  Then, as time goes by with less touch, you get used to it, and accept the greater distance as a natural part of your relationship.

Then, as yet more things come up, you start touching even less, sometimes even to the point where it feels funny when you do… sort of a “Wow, we’ve barely touched all day” feeling.  By this time, it’s easy to forget how much you used to touch, and to blame the distance on other things.

On the other hand, it’s really easy to turn that around, and get a clear reminder.  All you have to do to get closer is both choose to make it a priority to make sure that you touch a lot, all day.  It takes a few minutes, maybe even as much as an hour if it’s been long enough, but if you keep it up, you’ll feel yourself relaxing and opening up… which means that you can easily get closer.

Making the change long term is a bit harder, though… it takes constant conscious effort, at first, to make sure that you do, in fact, keep touching.  Without that constant attention and effort it is very easy to slip back into your old ways and lose the closeness that you are just starting to get back.  It can take a few weeks for you to adjust, and make touching a lot your normal way to be again.

Touching even has benefits in areas outside your relationship, including having less stress and even beginning to heal from old mental wounds.  Think about all the difficult and expensive ways people try to relieve stress, and then consider how easy it is to just touch your significant other.

So here’s the “secret” – if you want to get closer emotionally, get closer physically: go hold your sweetheart’s hand.

 

This is the first article of a new feature of A Miracle A Day… every Friday I’ll write an article to answer a reader’s question.  This first time, I’m answering a question that has been asked of me a few times, most recently the day after I asked for questions for this article.

Question:
I have been married for a few years, and we have children together.  During the time we’ve been married, my husband had an affair.  We were separated, but not divorced, and he called me to apologize and say he wanted to try again.  After we got back together, he cheated on me again.  Since then, he has admitted to it, and told me he wanted to save our marriage.  He’s been a good husband since then, and I really love him, but it’s very hard to trust him.  His cheating on me has also decimated my self-worth, so that even though he tells me he loves me and that I’m beautiful, I have a hard time believing him.  I want to save my marriage… what can I do?

Answer: 
Your spouse is the one person that you should be able to trust over all others, so when they hurt you badly, and then do so again, it’s more devastating than nearly any other pain.  That leaves you with a lot of internal hurt that you’re going to need to heal before your relationship can really be strong again, although there’s no reason you can’t startworking on it while still working through your pain.

The first thing that you need to do is to start working on making yourself stronger.  You can start this process by finding a way to have a little time to yourself (no kids and no husband… maybe at night after they all are asleep) where you can take a step back, let things go, and be able to start from a place of more peace.  Once you’ve done that, you really need to figure out who you are, and who you want to be… a good place to start would be this article.

This lets you start working toward a good relationship from a place of strength, knowing who you are and who you want to be, being more whole.  A stronger knowledge and sense of self will help you to see your self, your husband, your relationship, and how those three things work together more clearly, ensuring that you have a strong foundation.

Now that you have started working on your self, you are ready to start working on your relationship.  The first thing you need to do is make sure that both of you really want to save your marriage… building a relationship on only one end makes it unbalanced, and it will collapse.  Still, with that being said, someone has to go first… and since you’re obviously interested in saving your marriage enough to be reading this article, that probably means you.

The process starts with a serious, deep conversation.  In order to have such a conversation, you need to be relatively certain you won’t be interrupted, which generally means finding a babysitter for the children, but it can work after they all go to bed, too.  In this conversation, you need to let it all come out… how you feel, why you feel that way, what you want, what you’re scared of, and what you dream of.  This can’t be one-sided, though… you both have to participate, or little will come of it.

After you have this conversation, you should both have a better idea of where you stand.  All of the problems should be out in the open, and each person should have somewhat of an idea of the amount of effort it is going to take to move forward and rebuild your relationship.

If you are both ready and willing to do what it takes, what you have to do is essentially start a new relationship.  That means getting to know each other all over again, building trust slowly, dating, etc., just like you were meeting for the first time.

As you are rebuilding your relationship, you need to deal with issues as they come up.  You can’t put it off, or bury it, or tell yourself it doesn’t matter… both of you have to take the time to actually deal with each and every issue that comes up between you.

At the same time, you need to make sure that you’re not being petty, just looking for negative things to bring up.  Your focus should be on the things you have in common, the positive things, the things that you love about each other… that doesn’t mean ignore negative things, because you do need to deal with even small issues as they come up so that they don’t pile up, but don’t go hunting for them.

The above doesn’t just apply to the rebuilding phase of your relationship, either… if you want to save your marriage, and keep it strong over the long haul, you need to continue to deal with issues as they come up and focus on the shared and positive things for the rest of your lives.

In addition to dealing with issues in the relationship as they come up, you need to help each other deal with issues that have nothing to do with your relationship, whatever mental wounds you have from your past, whether it’s before or after you got together.  Doing that helps to build trust, bring down walls, and get rid of background “pressure” that adds to the impact of small issues that arise day to day (like the straw that broke the camel’s back… if you have enough weight of “other” issues piled up on you, even small things can push you close to the breaking point).

Essentially, to save your marriage, you need to give up your old relationship, and the habits you formed in and around it, and build a new one.  That doesn’t mean forget about the old one, though… it means that you should learn from it, figure out what went wrong, and use that knowledge to make your new relationship stronger and more secure.

Saving your marriage, rebuilding your relationship… all of this starts with, and depends on, you working on yourself.  That doesn’t mean trying to become the perfect wife (or husband), it means figuring out who you are, what your passions are, and learning to trust yourself.  It also means freeing up your mental, spiritual, and emotional resources used up in avoiding pain from old mental wounds by facing them head-on.  Those resources then become available for more active pursuits, like, for instance, building a relationship.  A relationship requires commitment, energy, and attention from both sides… if all of your energy and attention is going to deal with your past issues, you’ll have none left to spend on your current relationships.

That’s the beginning… you’re now on your way.  You might also want to read some of the following articles, for more details on some of the things mentioned above:

https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2008/01/03/passions-hopes-and-dreams-making-the-impossible-possible
https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/17/change-your-framing-change-your-life
https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/10/building-your-relationship-one-piece-at-a-time-sharing-hopes-and-fears
https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/05/dont-let-your-mental-wounds-bleed-you-dry
https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/11/28/relationship-how-to-rebuilding-trust-in-your-marriage
https://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/11/19/internal-quiet-where-emotional-healing-starts

 

You have probably heard someone say before that you should give someone the benefit of the doubt, or as the title says, assume their good intentions.  Chances are pretty good that it was put in terms of helping them, giving them a second chance… just look at how the phrase starts:  “give someone”.

The truth is, however, that there are a lot of benefits to you when you assume the good intentions of others, too.  Some of it is internal, because you put up less walls (though that does leave you open to more emotional hurt, as well), and some of it is external… people remember when someone treats them well, and tend to return the favor.

What, specifically, are some of the benefits of assuming someone else’s good intentions?  I’m glad you asked… here is a list of a few of the many benefits of assuming good intentions:

Benefits Of Assuming The Good Intentions Of Others

1. More Friends

   When you assume the good intentions of others, they notice it, even if it’s mostly subconscious.  This results in them being more open towards you, as well, which can easily lead to more friends.

   And, of course, being suspicious of the motives of other people can cause them to react negatively and push you away… resulting in the loss of opportunities for friendship.

2. Better “Networking”

   Many of the same reasons for having more friends apply to this, as well, as does the actual fact of having more friends.  It also helps to make you the type of person that someone else would want to help, as well as the type that they would introduce to others and recommend to others.

3. Better Relationships

   Trust is one of the most important (if not THE most important) factors in the strength of a relationship.  Assuming the good intentions of your significant other go a long way toward establishing and strengthening that trust.

   It also reduces the chances of being hurt (emotionally) accidentally, because you assume that they didn’t intend to hurt you… which reduces the sting considerably.

4. Less Stress

   When you assume the good intentions of the people that you come into contact with, you avoid a lot of stress… you don’t worry about how to protect yourself from being hurt, you don’t worry as much about why they did this or that, and what it means about what they think about you, etc.  Basically you have less stress because you reduce your worry load considerably.

5. More Help When You Need It

   Assuming good intentions also tends to make you treat people better, since you don’t consider them potential sources of hurt.  Since you don’t consider them in that light, it makes you far more open to helping them, more open to giving of yourself.

   The people you are around will notice that you’re that type of person, and will tend to respond in kind, sometimes even including asking their friends and associates to help you.  That adds up to a lot larger available pool of help.

6. More Happiness

   This is pretty simple, and derives from many of the previous points: less stress, more friends, and better relationships all tend to bring more happiness into your life individually, let alone all taken together.  These three things also each strengthen the other, and being happier strengthens all three as well.

   It’s the opposite of a vicious cycle, a self-reinforcing positive loop.

7. People Tend To Live Up To Your Expectations

   One other thing to remember, one that focuses more on the other person, is that people tend to live up to your expectations.  If you expect people to be bad, and to do things for bad reason, you’ll find that there actually is more of that in your life, especially from the people you’re around the most, like family.

   On the other hand, if you expect people to be good, and to do things for good reasons, you’re likely to find that there is more of that.

   Which of those would you prefer?

There are plenty more benefits, as well, but this should be a strong enough list to get anyone to give serious thought toward changing their outlook to include being more open to assuming people have good intentions.  The benefits simply far outweigh the possibility of getting hurt a bit more often.

One word of warning, though… you can’t take this to extremes, either.  If you see a stranger walking toward you with a knife or a gun in their hand, you might not want to assume their intentions are good.  The same may go for people that you know who consistently do show that they do things intentionally to hurt you (or others).  At some point you may want to take the energy that you’re investing in people who behave that way and spend it elsewhere… but don’t let those few people ruin your assumptions about others.

I’d love to read stories, if anyone has one, about how assuming the good intentions of others helped you… if you have one, please share it in comments.

Each relationship, like each person, is unique… it has its own patterns, memories, needs.  You could almost say it has its own personality.

Of course, with each relationship being unique, each has different needs, as well.  Some relationships need a lot of help with communication, some with insecurity issues, some with something else.

One thing almost any relationship can use, however, is a closer connection.  Emotional intimacy is the bond that determines the real strength, depth, and power of a relationship… the closer the bond, the stronger the relationship.

So, you want to be closer… now how do you go about doing it?  The answer, of course, varies somewhat, as with all things having to do with relationships.  I do, however, have a few easy suggestions that you can try.

7 Easy Ways To Be Closer And Have More Intimacy:

1. Create A New “Tradition”

   By tradition, in this case, I simply mean something that you do on a regularly scheduled basis.  It could be going to a certain restaurant, watching a movie on the first Saturday of every month, or anything else that involves spending time together, that you do at a certain time or date.

   By making it regularly scheduled, you make it something that you can count on and look forward to, as well as making it less likely that you’ll blow it off to do something else.

2. Have Slow Time

   Having slow time together is absolutely vital.  If you don’t take the time to have slow time together, even if you both like fast-paced lives, your relationship will have a hard time growing past a certain point… mostly due to the fact that slow time is when your intimacy grows and your relationship deepens.

   You can find a few suggestions on how to have slow time here.

3. Learn Something New Together

   Learning something new together, as long as you are relaxed about it, can be a great way to get closer.  As you learn, and help each other, it builds shared experiences, which are a cornerstone of intimacy.  It’s also simply more time together, when you’re really together, not just in the same place.

4. Have A Date

   People who have been together for a while, especially once they are married, tend to forget that they need special dates, despite the fact that they see each other every day.  Dates are different than your every day experiences together… they are going out of your way to dedicate your time and attention to your significant other, making that time special to the two of you.

   If you haven’t had a date with your spouse for a while, you might be amazed at how much difference it can make, especially if you’ve been struggling a bit.

5. Tell Each Other Something New

   Another good way to get closer is to tell your significant other something new about your self.  It could be a childhood memory, and dream that you had and gave up, something mildly embarrassing that you like… it doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as you’re opening yourself up more.

   The one exception is telling them something you really should have told them before but had kept from them, such as a previous marriage, etc., where the blow to their trust is far greater than the intimacy gained… however, every secret that you DO keep is one more thing keeping you further apart.

   Something else along the same lines that you can do is to ask open ended questions… there are a few creative questions here.

6. Make Something Yours
   

   Making something yours is a great way to be closer, too.  What does it mean to make something yours?  It means that you take something, even something very ordinary, and make it something special that you share with your partner.

   My wife and I, for example, watch the show Heroes together online… and only at night, after the kids are sleeping.  It’s our special time, our special thing, that we don’t share with anyone else.  Find something that you can make yours… it could be a song that has meaning for you, a special movie, or a particular restaurant.  Make it yours… don’t share it with anyone but your significant other, and it can become another special bond between you.

7. Do Something Very Personal

   Another great way to get closer is to do something very personal for each other on a regular basis, something like once per month.  By very personal, I mean something that comes from you… if you have a passion for drawing, it could be a picture.  If your love is cooking, it could be a new special dish.

   It doesn’t really matter what it is, just that it reflects who you are, and that you devoted enough of your time and attention to your significant other that you made something for them that contains a piece of you.

These are just a few suggestions… there are a lot of other ways to get closer.  Hopefully at least one of the ways listed above will work for you, and hopefully some of you will have some suggestions for me… you can leave them in the comments, or email them to me.

Let me know how it goes… if anything works particularly badly or surprisingly well!

 

If you read any books or websites about self improvement in general, and success in particular, you will notice one theme, one concept, that appears more often than nearly any other:  setting goals.  I even recommend it myself, from time to time.

Setting goals can help you to focus your energy and effort, making it far more likely that you will get something accomplished.  That, in general, is a good thing… I even set goals for myself (like hitting 1,000 subscribers by May 31, 2008 *hint hint*).

The peril lies in becoming so focused on the goal that you start becoming blind to where you are now, so focused on the destination that lose sight of the opportunities along the way.  This is a trap many people fall into, and one that it’s sometimes difficult to recognize even after you fall.

Let me give an example that you have probably seen (or even done) yourself:  the person who is always focused on how to make money.  Their goal is to have (or make) some amount of money, and they view every situation through this lens… and become so focused on it that they miss opportunities to make new friends, one of whom might even be their ticket to the money which holds their attention.

It’s not too difficult to think about other examples, from the person who is so obsessed with someone that they miss a chance with someone who would have made them happy for the rest of their lives, to the person who is so focused on getting promoted that they forget to look around and see other opportunities, whether at another company or in another field.

That’s why I, personally, recommend choosing a path more than a goal.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a goal in mind… again, I have a goal of 1,000 subscribers.  Your focus, however, should be on choosing your path… your attention should be on where you are now, and what the next step might be.

Focusing on the path, and choosing your next step, keeps you more aware of your current surroundings, and oppotunities that might arise that either move you toward your original goal faster, or even change your goals… there is no need to stick to your original goal if it’s no longer somewhere you want to be.

Focusing on the path also tends to reduce the amount of stress in your life as you notice the things around you, the things you already have, and the things within your reach, while thinking less about the things that you don’t have.  In the picture above, the person focused on the goal would just be worrying about how much further they had to go, where the person focused on the path might stop to take the time to notice the beauty around them… and perhaps meet others who also stop to appreciate it.

Goals are wonderful things to have… as long as they are not set in concrete, and you don’t lose sight of the beauty and wonder of the path you are taking to get to them.

One step at a time down the path, and you won’t get overwhelmed.  One step at a time and you give opportunity a chance to catch your attention.

One step at a time, and you are far more likely to be somewhere that you want to be.

Would you like to live an extraordinary life?  A life beyond the normal, tame world where the vast majority of people dwell, a life where what seemed impossible before suddenly seems imminent?

Who wouldn’t like to live that kind of life?  The funny thing is, it’s a lot more achievable than most people think… which is why they sit there and ignore it, not reaching out to take hold of something that is within their reach.

I have fallen into that trap myself, and in fact, am just now climbing out of it.  I went into computers, and programming specifically, because it pays well and I have a talent in that area… but it’s never been what I really wanted to do, what brings out the passion inside of me.

Most people are the same way… they settle for a job that they are good at, and hopefully pays well, or at least pays enough to get by.  They have an average life, even if they seem successful by the world’s standards (ie nice car, nice house, etc.).

Some people, on the other hand, lead extraordinary lives.  It seems like they have a magical touch, churning out success after success, overflowing with energy, and apparently just blessed.

In reality, though, they are just ordinary people, who do something unusual… they hold on to their dreams, embrace their passions, and never give up hope.

I read a book while going through my recent plumbing problems about the importance of doing so, a book which reminded me to let my passions, which had been suppressed for so long that they were a shadow of a memory, out to breathe and grow stronger.  I’ve felt a difference in myself already, with more mental peace and less feeling of being stuck in place.

The book was written by a man who has lived a life by those principles… he built a school in the inner city Pittsburgh that teaches gourmet cooking, advanced photography, ceramics, and other things you wouldn’t expect to find in poor neighborhoods… and the school provides all of those things without charge.

That man is Bill Strickland, and the book he wrote, that I read, loved, and recommended to many people amongst friends and family, is called Making The Impossible Possible.  It’s all about living an extraordinary life by following your dreams and not letting go, by embracing and encouraging your passions, and by never, ever letting go of hope.

It doesn’t matter what your dreams and passions are, or whether they are “respected”… it doesn’t have to contribute to your outward signs of success, and you don’t have to do it for a living.  Your passion might be cooking, and you may simply whip up new recipes for your family and friends.  It may be writing, and you may start a blog with only 32 people coming to it in the entire first month.

It doesn’t matter how big or small you start off (or stay, for that matter).  It doesn’t matter if you are good or bad.  The mere fact that you are, in fact, embracing your passions will make your life seem brighter, happier, and more fulfilling.

The funny thing about embracing your passions, though, is that even if you don’t intend for it to happen, other, more worldly signs of success often follow.  Your friend that you cook a new recipe for may rave about it to his friend, who happens to be in a position to recommend it to others, and the word may spread until you end up hiring others to make enough of whatever it is to keep up with demand.  Or, in the case of the blog, you may end up 7 months later with 60,000 visitors in one month.

Tomorrow I’m going to write another article that is inspired by the same book… mentioned in passing was one of my beliefs about self improvement that differs considerably from what most people will tell you.

For those of you who are interested, this is the book:

Amazon

We all like to have things happen on our own schedule.  We want this now, the other thing tomorrow, and the thing after that next week.

Unfortunately, life has its own pace, and it doesn’t always match our own.  Sometimes things happen faster than you’d like, and sometimes you are forced to slow down.

In the last two weeks or so, I’ve gotten a sample of the second type of scheduling conflict.  Life decided that I needed to slow down, and as always happens when your schedule is in conflict with life’s schedule, life won out.

In my case, I got some enforced time off when a pipe in my home completely broke, flooding the downstairs bathroom and hallway.  We hoped to put in a temporary patch to let it hold until after the holidays, but the break was in a bad place, and it was impossible to patch it.

That means is had to be completely re-piped… all the incoming water plumbing had to be replaced (at least it’s copper now).  That meant that I had to take the time off work to be there while the plumbers were working, as I’m not willing to allow strangers into my home without my presence.  At the same time, I couldn’t really do much of the stuff I would normally do when taking time off of work.

So, as mentioned earlier, I got to slow down.  Any of you who have been subscribers for some time will notice that I suddenly stopped posting new articles… I don’t have a laptop, and my computers at home are near one of the main places the plumbers were working, plus all kinds of things had to suddenly be moved out of their normal spots, blocking much access to a lot of my home.

So I sat back and took the time away from the computer… I’ve barely looked at a computer for two weeks now (though I did play video games on my PS2… my son got Guitar Hero III for Christmas, and I’ve been playing too!).  I read a new book, which was actually good enough that I’m likely to do something I’ve never done on this site before and post a review of it (and no, I’m not getting paid to do so, for any who are curious).

I spent more time with my wife and kids (some of which included playing video games with my son), which is a practice I mean to keep up.  I thought about what I really want to do, and how I want to do it.  That also is a practice I mean to keep up.

In other words, life grabbed me by the collar and sat me down to have a little talk about how I was letting the important things get lost amongst all the day to day junk.  I am grateful that it did so, as I wasn’t paying enough attention to the little reminders that I was starting to let my priorities slip.   Even the most aware people (not that I’m claiming that status for myself) stumble sometimes, and sometimes you need a wakeup call.

Life’s pace always triumphs… so when it throws a rapid change in pace at you, learn the lesson, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

 

Photography is, at its best, an art that captures a moment of life, preserving it for the ages.  A photograph, when framed and focused properly, can make something very ordinary into something of exquisite beauty.

The primary key, in photography, to take something from being ordinary into something extraordinary is the framing.  Essentially, you set up the photograph so that it highlights the things you want it to highlight, rather than being in the context that people expect.

When you understand the power of framing, you can take mesemerizing pictures of anything.  You can make people notice a single blade of grass… or put a looming skyscraper in context by showing it against the backdrop of a mountain.

This power of framing in photography makes for an excellent analogy with life.  The power and impact of any given event in your life depends on the framing that you have given it.

For example, if your paycheck this week was $1000 (after taxes), this could have a powerful negative impact if you were expecting $5000, no impact if it’s exactly what you were expecting, or make you happy for a week (or a month) if you were expecting $100.  The framing of what you were expecting determines the impact of the event… not the contents of the event itself.

This same effect holds true throughout life… if you frame your relationship in a negative way, then you will find that negative events happen in your relationship.  If you frame it in a positive way, you can see those same events in a positive way.

For instance, an event that virtually always carries a powerful impact is learning that you and your significant other are going to have a baby.  If you have laid out grand plans for your life, none of which involve babies, this event can be devestating.  If, on the other hand, you have been trying for years to have a baby, your framing, and how you perceive the event, will be extremely different.

It’s not just in relationships, either… you can apply the same thing to job instability.  It can be horrible to one person, while to another it provides the opportunity to finally make that move they’ve been waiting on for years.

Any event in your life works the same way.  Births, deaths, relationships beginning and ending, job, hobbies… they all go through our framing that we apply to our life, and that, not the event itself, determines how we perceive them.

That leads to a simple, yet profound, concept:  If you want to change your life, if you want to be happier and more at peace, what you really need to do is change your framing.  This might involve pulling back, to include more of the big picture of your life, or zooming in, so that you notice the details that were fuzzy.

You can even go back and look at events in your past with new framing, and have their impact on your life change.  Take, for example, the birth of a child, mentioned above… many people have had the first reaction, only to find out once the child has arrived that they look back, with their new framing, and can’t imagine that they wished it any other way than it is now.

Changing the framing that you habitually apply to life can have an incredible impact on every aspect of your life… relationships (not just the romantic kind), your personal happiness, and even other people’s perceptions of your success in life.

It can also easily lead to greater financial success, as you start framing events in the light of opportunity, rather than the light of risk.  Of course, that same change, framing in the context of opportunities, rather than risk, can lead to other kinds of success, as well, including the romantic kind.

So, that’s all well and good, but how do you actually go about changing your framing?

There is no all-encompassing answer, but here are a few suggestions to help you get started:

1. Slow Down

   Even if you feel like you don’t have any time, that you have too many things you have to do (or maybe especially then)… slow down.  If you have too many things to do, prioritize, and drop the lowest priority items.

   Rushing from one task to the next wears the body, and the mind, down.  It also tends to lower the quality of all of the tasks you are rushing between.  If you have too much to do, pick just a few to do today, things that you can get done without rushing… and leave everything else for another day.

2. Write A Description Of The 5 Best Things That Have Happened To You

   This is just like it sounds… write a description of the five best things that have ever happened to you, like you were telling someone else about them.  There’s no set amount to write, just keep it in the style of telling someone else about it… that will force you to write more than one or two sentences, which wouldn’t have much effect.

   The idea is to make you remember that good things happen to you, too, even if it seems like the bad things outweight and outnumber them (They don’t… you just framed more things in a bad way, which, admittedly can be easy to do, sometimes).

3. Write Down Your Best Memory Of The 5 People You Care About Most

   Much like the one above, you write down the best memory you have of the five people that you care about most, as if you were telling someone else.  There are no minimum (or maximum) lengths, and spelling and grammar don’t really matter… just be descriptive.

   Try to paint a picture, with words, so that someone else could get an idea for how you felt when the memory was being made.

4. Write The Most Disgustingly Positive Description Of Your Life That You Can

   Write a description of your life, or the last little period of your life (day, week, month), in the most absolutely ridiculously positive way that you can.  Use words like wonderful, breath-taking, spectacular, or whatever else you can think of, but describe the actual events.

   This may require you to focus on one aspect of a situation, rather than the whole thing (or in other words, framing).  For example, if you got in a car wreck, and your car was totaled, but you were unhurt, you might write about how you were miraculously unharmed, while downplaying the wreckage.

   The point here is to show how framing works, and how even the worst events can be seen in a positive light.  It also can provide a sense of balance to a normally negative framing, by making you look at the same events again with a different framing.

5. Do Something Small For The People You Care For

   This could involve something like doing a household chore they normally do, writing them a letter, buying them something small, or generally any other way of showing your appreciation.  This serves two purposes… it reminds you that there are people that you care about in your life (something that sometimes fades when your framing is negative enough… you tend to zoom into just you), and it reminds them that you care about them, which likely will bring similar actions from them.

6. Eat And Sleep Right

   It really is amazing how much of an impact your eating and sleeping have on your life.  Too much or too little of either tends to move your framing more and more in a negative direction.

   I can see this personally with eating… if I don’t eat lunch by about 1:00 PM, my attitude and outlook deteriorate rapidly.  When I do eat, they go right back to normal.  It’s really weird to observe in myself, but it is definitely there.

7. Start A Hobby

   Virtually anyone who has a generally negative framing in life has a “hobby” they want to do, but never take action to do so.  It might be playing guitar, it might be woodworking (one of mine), or photography (another of mine), writing, painting, knitting, or whatever else strikes your fancy.

   Whatever it is, start doing it… acquire the necessary supplies, pick up an instructional book or video, and get started.  It can help you to feel like you can tell the rest of the world to take a hike, at least for a little while, and can also result in you feeling like you are getting something done (very helpful in having a generally positive framing).

8. Say “Thank You” Sincerely

   This requires more action on your part than you might think… in order to say thank you sincerely, you actually have to be thankful.  That means looking at the situation from outside your own point of view, and realizing that someone is spending their time and energy helping you with something.

   It doesn’t even matter if they are being paid… if they are being helpful, that is worthy of you sincerely appreciating it and saying so.

   You might even be the only positive thing they remember from that day.

9. Two Positives For Every Negative

   I’ve mentioned this one a time or two before.  It’s very simple… for each negative thing you say, or better yet even think, come up with two positive things to say about the same thing to the same person.

   In other words, if you say something bad about your spouse to your friend, immediately find two good things to say about your spouse to that same friend.  If you think something bad about your coworker, immediately find two positive things about them in your mind.

   This keeps you from focusing solely on the negative, and makes you think consistently about the good parts of the things most present in your life… it can’t force your framing to be completely positive, but it makes it much harder for it to be relentlessly negative.

10. Compliment A Stranger

    Complimenting a stranger is a great way to bring a momentary bit of good into their life… and it makes you look around you for the good things at the same time.  After all, you don’t “compliment” someone on a negative attribute, at least not a genuine compliment.

    And, as a bonus, one I enjoy:

11. Get A Great Dinner… And Enjoy Every Bite

    Sometimes it can make a big impact on your outlook when you just do something for yourself… a relatively easy one, that I personally enjoy, is to go get a great dinner, something that you really enjoy.  Then, instead of talking or thinking about your day, just let everything else take a back seat and enjoy each bite.

    Let the world around you fade away, and just enjoy your meal one bite at a time… it’s amazing how much difference it can make.

All of these things essentially boil down to one of two things:  being good to others (zooming out in your framing), or letting the rest of the world fade (zooming in).  A good photographer includes both, depending on circumstances:  close shots for things like butterflies or portraits, while zooming out for landscapes and sunsets.

Your life needs the same thing… sometimes you need to let the rest of the world go, and have time for yourself.  Other times, you need to let go of your self and pay attention to the rest of the world.  If you get out of balance either way, your framing is distorted, and you start to perceive more events in a negative light than is necessary.

So step back, become aware of your framing, and watch as your life slowly becomes more beautiful.

You’re not in a relationship, and you see someone to whom you are attracted, but who you don’t really know.  You want to approach them, but you don’t really know how, and you really want to make a good first impression.

It might be someone who is a complete stranger, like someone you see while you’re at a party (or a conference, if that’s more your style), or it might be someone with whom you have some sort of connection, like a coworker or the friend of a friend.  It doesn’t really matter, the steps remain essentially the same, though you’ll already have one or two of the steps covered if you have some sort of connection.

So, let’s dive right in:

How To Make A Great First Impression

1. Know, And Be, Who You Are

   Most people, to be honest, don’t even know who they really are, and can’t really follow the old advice of “be yourself”.  The majority of people are a swirling mass of conflicts, trying to appear to be what they think other people think they should be.

   Buck the trend, be different… build yourself up, and people will notice… it will strengthen the impression that you leave.  It also takes away much of the fear of rejection that step #2 brings up.

2. The First Introduction

   The best way to avoid instant rejection (being rejected before you even get a chance) is through social proof.  Social proof is showing that someone else likes something (in this case you) in order to get others to give it more of a chance.

   Your best social proof, for an introduction, is a mutual friend… if you can show that someone they like, and at least partially trust, thinks you’re okay, then you have a huge advantage.

   Your second best chance is to have a woman who is your friend with you… and this is true regardless of whether the person you are approaching is a man or a woman.  If you are a man approachign a woman, she will be less suspicious of another woman.  If you are a woman approaching a man, that man won’t have his guard up from the natural competition between men.

   With that being said, you are still better off approaching with a male friend (though not a group) than you are alone… it’s still social proof, showing that you’re less likely to be some creepy weirdo, and more likely to be a normal (in the good sense) person.

3. Break The Ice

   Now that you’ve introduced yourself (or had a friend introduce you), you’re ready for step 3, breaking the ice.  Breaking the ice means getting past those initial walls people throw up when dealing with total strangers.  Once you’ve gotten past that point, you really have a chance to make, and leave, a good impression.

   So, how do you break the ice?  The easiest way is to ask open, not particularly private questions.  There are some very well known, generic questions that you can use (think “What do you do for a living?”), but if you really want to be effective, you need to ask creative, unusual questions.

   You can find some ideas for creative questions here.

4. Find Shared Experiences And Interests

   This is where you go from establishing that you’re not a threat to really making an impression that lasts.  As you talk (see step #3), look for things that you have in common… shared experiences (moving a lot as a kid, watching the same shows, etc.), shared interests (musical taste, hobbies, pets… can be almost anything), shared beliefs (generally political or religious… somewhat dangerous territory here, though, not necessarily something you want to talk about when first meeting someone), and best of all, shared passions (you’re both avid photographers, etc.).

   Sometimes the shared interest may be hidden behind something else… you may be talking about what you’re each doing for Christmas and notice that you both are strong family people… that’s a shared interest.  Or you may both have the same Christmas tradition… that would be a shared experience.  Remember, be looking for these… but not so much that you’re not paying attention to what they actually say.

5. Emphasize Your Shared Interests

   Once you find shared interests and experiences, focus on them, talk about them more.  Don’t “force” the conversation that way, just let it move that way naturally… otherwise you may come off in a creepy way, like you’re trying too hard.

   The more shared areas you find, and the more you talk about them, the more “connected” you are… it may even end up one of those things where you feel like you’ve known someone forever, even though you just met them the day before.  You can’t ask for a better first impression than that.

   One word of warning, here… shared passions can be great for that “connected” feeling, but people usually have very strong feelings about their passions, so if you happen to share a passion but not the same focus within that passion, you may want to ease up on that area.

6. Mention The Future

   When it’s time for one of you to leave, after you’ve had a great conversation, make sure that you mention the future.  How you should mention it depends on just how well you hit it off… if it went reasonably well, but not great, then you can simply mention something about something you’re going to be doing in the near future that has to do with one of your shared interests.

   If it did go great, then you can do the same thing… but invite them to come along.  Alternatively, you can plan something new to do together… either way has its advantages.  Inviting to an already established plan means that you are trusting them enough to invite them into your existing life, where planning something together can make your connection a little bit stronger by building something new, together.

   Either way, though in the second case this is obvious, make sure that at some point you have mentioned at least one means of contacting you, and preferably have written it down for them somewhere… depending on how well it went, this might range from an email address right up to your cell phone number.  How personal the means of contact is tells the person how interested you are… so make sure you keep that in mind.

There you have it, step by step instructions on how to leave someone with clear memories of time with someone new that shares their interests.  They may even remember you (and you remember them) as someone with whom they “just clicked”.

A good first impression, of course, is just the first piece in building a relationship… but it’s a critically important piece, as without it, you’ll never get a chance to get to the next piece of the puzzle.