Build a Frame for Change

Vision + Skills + Incentive + Resources + Action Plan = The Type of Change You Want

Change happens all the time but many times we aren’t in control of that change. Blaming your problems on others won’t change your life much. It’s much easier to change yourself than someone else. It’s so easy to make yourself feel better in the short-term to blame someone else for your problems. If you want long-term happiness you have to take control of your life and shape your own good luck.

Vision: What is your Vision of your future? What do you really want?

Take the next 5 minutes to come up with 5 things that you really want in your life. Prioritize them in the order of what you want most. Scratch out the bottom 2. Now prioritize them to the ones that would make the biggest impact on your life if they happened. Scratch out the bottom idea. Now prioritize the 2 you have left into the 1 that could happen the soonest if you really put an all out effort into making it happen. You now have your Vision for the change you want.

Skills: What do you call an activity you are passionate about, but have no skill in? A hobby! Now that you have your vision you must find out what kind of skills you have toward your vision. More importantly what skills you need to learn in order to get your vision. This is ego check time. You might want to be Mr. Basketball star but you may be 5’4″ like me. Yeah, Spud Webb made it but who else.

Incentives: What pleasure will you get from this goal? What pain will you avoid if you get this goal? What pleasure have you gotten in the past from not getting this goal already? How much pain will you still be in if you don’t get this goal?

Resources: Who can mentor you through this change? Do you have friends that will morally support you through this change? What alliances can you build through networking that will help you get your goal? Do you have enough money to get your goal? Do you need to get certifications or have prerequesites for your goal to happen?

Action Plan: Tony Robbins calls it a Massive Action Plan. Tony asks 3 very important questions so your Action Plan can become Massive. Tony Robbins Massive Action Plan starts with a tangible purpose and is results based. The MAP you build to get you to destiny will involve chunking ideas into groups of no more than 4. The majority of people can only hold onto 4 ideas at a time. David Allen has a system he calls Getting Things Done that organizes these chunks into logical steps that will make you successful.

Dreams can become reality if you wake up and put your plan into action. Change happens either to us or because of us. Take control and be the change that you want.

YouTube Video: Inspirational life coach, Tony Robbins, is on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

The Power in the Belief of the Placebo

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/27plac.html?_r=4&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1211875302-l19WESxtejqgfMs0699Hzw&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Placebos are fake medicines designed to fool people involed in a clinical study. Many times the Placebo is almost or just as effective as the medicine being studied. Placebos are so effective they will now be sold as a dietary supplement and will be recommened for nagging children.

Placebo works so well that Nocebo is it’s opposite. Nocebo is something that people are convinced is the exact opposite of what it really is.

The biggest problem with it is it’s unpredictability. The effectivness depends largly on how susceptible the patient is to the suggestion. The more susceptible someone is to an outside solution the better the result will be.

Many watchdog organizations are worrying the drug companies are teaching kids to seek solutions from pills made by drug companies.

“Dr. Brody said parents did not need a pill to induce the placebo effect. Mothers have long promised to “kiss it and make it better” and it is that type of placebo children really yearn for, he said.”