The SnowHow

Category: Habits

  • The Secret Power Of Tiny Gifts!

    I always dream of changing the world for the better. I really do. Long gone are my plans for Bond Villain type world domination. Now it is all about making the world a little bit better with each step I take on my path.

    So how do we change the world? Do we dream big dreams? That is what most people tell you, have grand plans. For many people that is absolutely right. Dream the big dream, fight the big fight.

    Many people are succeeding with this (Just go take a look at what the Gates Foundation is doing.)

    The thing is, for most of us it is hard to change anything other than our small corner of the world.

    So why not start with that! What can you do to make the world a tiny bit better?

    Well you can be a tiny bit generous for one! Generous with your time, generous with your energy for others, generous with your smile. Care that tiny bit more for your fellow traveler on the human path.

    Smiling is easy, give away at least five to ten smiles away. To whoever you want, friends, family or to an absolute stranger. The better you get at giving them the more you will get back (and who does not love a returned smile?).

    Ok now that we are warmed up to the idea of giving I want to address the “Elephant In The Room” Money.

    Is this the point where I tell you to give to charity and help those who are less fortunate than yourself?

    NO!

    (You can do it if you want, let your conscience be your guide.)

    Let me explain what I do in the form of a story, but before I do just so as you know while writing this  I just got a smile returned (winning).

    I was recently with a gathering of friends and I was telling my mate Benji about my condom pocket (you know the little pocket in a pair of jeans just above the right pocket at the front. Yep that is what that is for). In it I put every 50 pence piece I receive in the form of change.

    You never get that many of them maybe a couple a week. So it does not really weigh you down 🙂

    I keep them there for a very important reason. I keep them there to be easily reachable for when I want to give them away.

    I give them to buskers and other street performers. I give them to people carrying around charity buckets. I give them to people selling the big issue (charity magazine). Finally, I give to people who are homeless or begging on the street.

    I used to be really judgmental of the latter thinking thoughts like “why don’t they get a job”  or ideas to that effect. Then I realized that I don’t know them or their story, so why judge?

    The point of the matter is 50p is such a meaningless amount of money for most of us. So why not give it away? It is far more valuable to those who you are giving it to than yourself! For many of them it is meaningful.

    I’ll tell you why I use 50p, and not say 20p or a £1 coin. Giving 20p makes you feel cheap. You can look someone in the eye when you give them 50p and not feel embarrassed. You get too many £1 coins so it could become really costly if that was your coin of choice. You don’t get that many 50p pieces. Around a table of 8 we had 3 of them. So you are not going to break the bank.

    So 50p is a perfect coin for this idea. So save yours and give them away. Just imagine a world in which we all did this how many peoples lives would be helped.

    There is a payoff to all this. There is no such thing as a one-sided transaction. Remember Newton’s Third Law “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” well in the case of giving it is more like “Sow and Reap”. With your smiles, with your time and yes with your money. The more you give the more you will get back in happiness, in quality of life and of course money.

    In each of these actions we always make a positive return. There is a compounding effect in all the good things that we do. If we are abundant in our mind and our actions we will reap abundance in return.

    So that which we want we should give first. It does not have to be big at first. Think tiny gifts to start and eventually as time moves on your gifts will get bigger both from the giving and receiving side.

    So start giving tiny gifts today and start changing the world.

    Snowy

    P.s. If you think that his idea might be helpful, please feel to share it with your friends in any way you like. There are buttons to make it easy somewhere on this page.

  • The Villain Is The Hero Of His Own Story!

    It’s always someone else’s fault! No, it really is! It is definitely not your fault right?

    My boss is an asshole and he does not pay me enough, my partner just does not get me, the world is unfair, the little guy does not stand a chance, the rich/banks/government stops me at every turn, in fact everyone has got it in for me!

    Well, that sucks!

    You might be surprised how many people walk around each day with variations on that theme. The thing is they are right! All of those things are true. Let me explain.

    Your reality is based around the thoughts that you think each day. If you believe it, then it is true. Well, at least for you. You see as many people have stated we become our controlling thoughts. If we see the world as “out to get us” then more often than not you will find a way to make that true. As Robert Anton Wilson stated “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves!” actually quick tip go read his book Prometheus Rising it is one of the few life changing books, in fact read all his books.

    Moving on, you see most of us think we are the good guy that we are doing right and that we are good people. The thing is this works for virtually everyone. John Dillinger when asked why he robbed banks said “because that is where the money is” he didn’t believe he was a thief he believed he was a liberator of money from the evil banks/government.

    Hitler probably believed that bringing forth the master race was a noble pursuit no matter how he achieved this. Same goes for all empire builders in history Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon etc.

    You see pretty much no one sees themselves as the bad guy.

    So in human terms we have normally three categories of people The Good Guys, The Bad Guys who think they are good and The Victims.

    The Bad guys we have discussed, so lets get on with the other two.

    Before I discuss the Good Guys let’s talk about The Victims.

    The Victims as I have mentioned believe that everyone has got it in for them. They see no opportunity, they think everyone doesn’t seem to understand them. They believe life’s golden ticket has been stolen from them, and as I have mentioned for them this is true.

    Does this hold up under examination?

    Well do you know what if you live in the third world, a war zone or say sub-Saharan Africa, then do you know what you may be justified in your stance. For the rest of us well, I’m not so sure.

    I’ll tell you the reason why. Pretty much all of us are the product of each and every choice we have ever made. In fact if you are reading this every choice you have ever made led you to reading this at this moment in time.

    Each day we make a plethora of different choices that affect us in the moment and also our future.

    The more good choices we make on average the better our life turns out. The more bad choices we make then on average the worse our life turns out. Yes there are exceptions to every rule, but for most people that runs true.

    Victims tend to point fingers outwards and blame other people. They never point the finger back at themselves and take personal responsibility. They think their fate is set by the hand that they have been given. And so it is!

    The Good Guys, they have a different mindset to The Victims and The Bad Guys, you see the good guys often started out just like The Victims or could have taken a pathway that would have led them to becoming The Bad Guys. The thing is they didn’t they made better choices!

    Let me say that again, they made better choices.

    You see the good guys take a look at their lot in life and decide they will take a stand for themselves. (hey, for some the lucky ones this is almost inbuilt and requires very little in the way of effort. Good for them!) They make solid choices that lead them onwards and upwards.

    The Good Guys if they start in The Victim place, don’t accept that as their final outcome and ask themselves how they can go about improving their situation. They make a better choice for themselves.

    Maybe it is to study hard in school, maybe instead of going to the bar for a beer or sitting at home watching soaps and drinking wine, they go to the library and pick up a book. Maybe they go ask the advice of someone who has already lifted themselves up and out of a similar situation. Maybe they work doubly hard on themselves rather than complaining about the way life is hard.

    You see we all get to be who we are… The Good Guy, The Bad Guy and The Victim by our choices.

    Yes, I know sometimes bad things happen to good people, sometimes really horrendous and horrible things happen to good people but the person we become after that happens will also depend on how we choose to deal with it. We are our the accumulation of our choices over time.

    So for now make better choices! Choose one area of your life right now that is not working for you and choose to do something about it.

    Snowy

  • Don’t Be 10x Better Be 1% Better!

    If you are anything like me you are always looking for ways to improve yourself and make yourself that little bit better.

    It sounds like a good idea in theory and we would all like to do it but the thing is to make any meaningful progress we pretty much know that we would need to radically change ourselves. After all there is no point in doing things by halves!

    Even if we were 50% better than at the moment that really wouldn’t make a significant amount of difference in our lives. Hey it would help but it really wouldn’t make that much difference.

    I mean lets say I can run 4 miles would 6 really make that much of a difference.

    We earn $50,000 (£30,000) would $75,000 (£45,000) make that much difference? Hey I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice!

    What about a double up maybe that would make all the difference!

    Nah what we really need it a really big increase something significant we need 5X or 10X.

    Yeh, lets go with 10X now we are cooking with gas.

    The thing is how the hell do you go about making a ten times leap? How you improve by 10 times, seems like a really big ask. Especially as none of us has a genie in a lamp or magic wand! The reality of ten times just doesn’t sound real.

    So what are the other alternatives? Well there is small incremental gains, but they hardly seem worth while. No we need the big radical stuff. Small and simple that’s just no good.

    Or is it?

    Let’s take a look and examine the reality of it.

    Can small gains make big improvements?

    It is at this point I want to tell you a story I heard when I was watching the Olympics in 2012. The British Cycle Team had just pulled in a record haul of medals. The mastermind of this triumph was a man by the name of David Brailsford.

    Elsewhere Brailsford was in charge of team Sky and had helped Bradley Wiggins become the first Britain to win the Tour De France the worlds most prestigious cycle race.

    So what was his secret to getting such amazing results. Well the people around him tell of his philosophy and it was this, Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.”

    Let me point out the important part again it was “The aggregation of marginal gains.” It wasn’t a 10X strategy. It was small incremental improvements. That 1% when added together with other 1% made all the difference and brought in a flurry of golds and other medals.

    Before we go any further I want to make you two offers

    Offer a) within 1 year you get to be 10 X better than you are today!
    Offer b) each day for a year you get to improve 1% from the day before!

    Which one would you choose?

    Without examination offer A looks infinitely more appealing doesn’t it?

    The thing is if you took that option you would be massively robbing yourself. Really?

    Well yes it does! It all comes down to a wonderful thing called compounding! Allegedly Albert Einstein called compounding “the 8th wonder of the world.”

    The funny thing is that 1% compounded everyday gives you a 38 X improvement over a year. Don’t believe me go check it out on your calculator. (just do this put in the number 1 then press the X twice followed by 1.01 to represent 1% now press = 365 times for days of the year you will get just over 38)

    Ok great so now we know about the power of compounding and we know that we really can make a radical difference to the quality of our lives if we just keep making small improvements.

    So the next question is in what areas of your life should you start making these improvements. Well I will be writing articles on the ten main areas of life improvement in future articles. For now I think there are two areas you should concentrate on.

    To start your physical body. (I will be talking much more about this as I have mentioned but for now, think about exercise, nutrition and sleep.)

    Ask questions like what one thing can I do today to improve my physical performance?

    Maybe you will say well I could think of my food as fuel rather than just something I use to satisfy a need. Maybe instead of sitting down in front of a TV for half an hour you could go for a walk or do one pushup. Maybe you make your bedroom that little bit darker to help aid sleep.
    Mental Health. Avoid negative people and look for ways to reduce/eliminate stress from your life.

    Ask Questions like who or what causes me the most stress in my life?

    Maybe you have a specific person or persons who always come to you with their problems and dump them on you. Maybe you begin to reduce the time you expose yourself to these persons. Maybe there is a thought that always causes you to worry about things, so maybe you reach for a better thought, at least for a couple of moments.

    If you just do that then you will start to get marginal improvements in your life and as we have seen that it is the sum total of all these little improvements that in the long run make all the difference.

    The secret to both success and failure is small things repeated over and over for extended periods. So make sure the things that you do serve you, not steal from you.

    Each day strive for your 1%.

    Until next time I hope you become at least 1% better.

    Snowy

  • Don’t Change Yourself, Upgrade Yourself!

    So from time to time we want to change a habit or adopt a new one. The thing is the process of change can be really hard, especially if you have to make a big change.

    When we are trying to make a change there is so much to get in the way of us succeeding.

    First of all we have an inbuilt system within our brain to regulate change and stop us from doing it. The homeostatic part of our brain literally stops us from making changes.

    If you are not familiar with homeostasis it is a self regulating system within the brain that tries to maintain a stable environment and to be wary of change.

    Why would your brain have such an inbuilt system? Well it is for a very important reason. It is designed to keep you alive. How does that work? Well your brain “knows” that if you do anything out of the ordinary it increases the “Risks” you are taking. The more risks you take the higher chances of you dying.

    Or at least that’s the way your brain thinks.

    There is a really big problem with that. Let’s say that we know exercising is a good idea as it will improve our overall health. The thing is all your homeostatic brain sees that as not a good idea it says to itself RISK so it will do everything in its power to stop you from making that change. It will literally throw thoughts into your mind about why it is not a good idea and why you should avoid making the change.

    It kind of sucks doesn’t it.

    This doesn’t just happen for physical things, let’s say we want to start a business, get a new job, end a bad relationship, start eating healthy food? All these are subject to the same scrutiny.

    So every time you are looking to make a change you have to fight that part of your brain.

    So what can you do about this well most people try and use will power to get past this. The thing is what most people don’t know is that will power is in limited supply within us all. And to be honest if you are a regular person you really don’t get that much of it.

    Certainly not enough in most people to make big changes. That is why virtually all New Years resolutions go out of the window within a couple of days from the start of the year.

    Well if you have not got enough will power to get you through it what have we got left. Well we have a few things. One is the BIG DECISION.

    If you make a decision in your mind, one that is absolute, and without question, somehow your mind knows it. This can’t be a wishy washy decision or a hope or an i’d like to decision this is an absolute deciding. Somehow this cuts through the homeostatic gatekeeper and gets taken on board.

    Most of the time these come from rock bottom. They come in the form of a sort of Never Again moment.

    They can come from a good place but that involves building so much positive emotion around the idea that it literally gouges a new neural pathway in your brain. Most of us don’t have the inclination for such practice.

    So unless you are in the depths of despair the big decision may be out of your reach.

    So what else is left? Well we have auto suggestion, affirmation and incantation. Which deal with repetition of chosen words or phrases that slowly change your thinking over time. The latter can be especially effective as it adds the emotional component to it, which your brain takes special attention to, as it (your brain) operates in an emotional capacity. Also we tend to become what we think about most of the time. So hey don’t dismiss this approach it can work for you.

    That said most of us don’t have the discipline to start such a committed routine.

    So what have we got left. Well I will tell you….. Tiny changes and trickery.

    So like i say when you try and make a big change your brain says to itself “forget that” or words to that effect, and does what it can to throw a spanner in the works.

    Aha so if we have the intention to make big changes but don’t want to scare our brain what can we do. Well we can go all psychological stealth ninja on our brain that’s what.

    So how do we do that. Well we take the big change and we break it down to it’s smallest component.

    Let’s say that you decided to get healthy and you thought that the best way to do that was to join a gym and commit to going 4 times a week first thing in the morning. Your brain panics, throws up a million ideas why that is not a good idea, and that is not the person you, are after all we’ve never even done any exercise in years. The plan is scuppered before it begins.

    So what can we do? Well we just do something small to start. Let’s say that you there is something that you do consistently each day. It could be anything taking a shower, brushing your teeth or putting the kettle on for your morning coffee. We will use the latter as an example.

    Here is what you do. You put the kettle on and as it is starting to boil you drop to the floor and do just one push up. No more, just the one! You get up and give yourself a fist pump. (The fist pump is important, new habits love positive rewards/reinforcement) Actually it does not have to be a fist pump it can be any reward (maybe chocolate) but you must reward yourself in some way.

    That’s it your done! Do this for a couple of days and then if you like, start adding one more push up each day. If you like after a while do this every time you put on the kettle. Then maybe add one extra exercise a squat maybe or a jumping jack (star jump). Do this slowly.

    Then before you know it your mind starts to get the message that you are a person who exercises. Then maybe you decide to go to the gym once a week not 4 times just once (your brain thinks, “ok, I do some exercise the gym is not that big a stretch!”) Do that for a couple of weeks. Your mind then thinks to itself and says to it’s self “I really am a person who goes to the gym.” Add one more session each week over a period of time. Your brain will readily accept this.

    This is how you sneak up on your brain to make lasting change.

    This works for virtually any area of your life. Just think of the change you want to make break it down to its smallest component. Attach that to an existing habit. Reward yourself. Add small increments. Simples!

    I also like to use this sentence as I’m making changes, it is amusing to me and it makes the thought of change easier in my mind. Give it a try here it is.

    “I’m ready for an upgrade!”

    For some reason we associate upgrades as a reward and not a change, so your mind let’s it slip through.

    So that’s how you can easily make a big change without the hardship and failure. I hope you try this.

    Snowy