Call with Michael Watson: How to Be Resourceful in Difficult Times

Michael Watson covered a lot of ground in our call on “How to Be Resourceful in Difficult Times” last night. You’ll find some powerful, yet simple ideas, like, “You have all the resources you need,” the idea of “core questions” and how those frame your experience of life, and a few quick and easy NLP techniques that you can use to change the way you’re feeling.

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We use the twitter hashtag #agilelife for my monthly free calls. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Twitter hashtags, you can “tag” a conversation stream by adding a hashtag to the end, and then people can search for that hashtag and they’ll find all the tweets relating to that conversation. It’s a great way to keep “group notes” on an event and see what other people are highlighting/ finding useful.

Our Twitter Notes

Here’s our Twitter stream from yesterday’s call with Michael (I’ve cleaned up the spelling and grammar a bit and left out most of the repeated tweets to make it easier to follow):

@cathduncan Are u resourceful? We all are! We all have all the resources we need.
@cathduncan It’s not a question of whether we have resources, but whether & how we’re using them.
@Robin_Dickinson FULL POWER: RT @cathduncan: successful people try to use/ express all their resources.
@cathduncan Real resourcefulness can be in a quiet, simple life.
@Imquevision RT @cathduncan: being resourceful is about being sovereign in your life
@cathduncan Don’t make important life-changing decisions when you’re in the middle of difficult stuff.
@Imquevision RT @cathduncan: You don’t *have* to feel awful during difficult times.
@cathduncan You have choices. You can change your feelings.
@Imquevision RT @cathduncan: It’s okay to change your feelings, or to not change your feelings. Realise it’s an option.
@cathduncan How we stay stuck: complaining & whining, mind movies of all the bad stuff, judging everything & each other.
@cathduncan When we’re judging, instead of appreciating, we get more stuck.
@tonyaleigh RT @cathduncanHow you feel about things in life is about how you judge those things in life #agilelife >>So, so true!
@cathduncan Be the judge who focuses on the stuff you can appreciate.
@cathduncan “Core questions” determine what information we sort for (and find) in the world.
@cathduncan Are you asking, “what’s great?” or “What’s not great?” ???
@cathduncan Core questions frame what you notice in life, which frames how you then feel about your life.
@cathduncan It’s probably not necessary to talk/ think about the pain of the past, in order to change your life
@cathduncan We don’t have to understand/ ask WHY. Empowered living comes from asking HOW can I change that?
@cathduncan We don’t relate to reality – we’re relating to our filtered view of reality, & this affects how we feel & respond.
@cathduncan Submodalities are the qualities of the pictures we make in our minds (how we represent reality.)
@cathduncan When you change the submodalities of the pictures you’re making in your mind, you can change the way you feel.
@cathduncan When you take yourself out of the pictures, make it black and white & far away, your feelings become less intense.
@cathduncan You can choose the change the pictures, to decrease the bad feelings, or increase the good feelings.
@cathduncan Notice your critical voice in your head! It gets you stuck by creating anxiety!
@cathduncan Your critical voice: notice the tone of voice you use when you speak to yourself & shift it to a different tone of voice.
@sandandsilk I like this lol – RT @cathduncan You can even use a cartoon character’s voice for your internal voice – it loses it’s power!
@livethchrmdlife You can even use a cartoon character’s voice for your internal voice – it loses it’s power! #agilelife (via @cathduncan)D~Love this idea!!
@cathduncan Quick fixes have their value, but to some people it can be valuable to grieve and take longer to change.
@cathduncan To some degree, quick fixes rob us of our humanity & make the assumption that we’re not supposed to feel those things.
@cathduncan NLP can offer quick fixes, but Grinder expressed concerned that we were trying to change sad robots into happy robots.
@livethchrmdlife We want to live life fully – even the “bad” feelings. That’s being resourceful #agilelife (via @cathduncan) D~&”bad” is what makes good good.
@cathduncan It’s not about how to avoid problems, but how to meet them.
NLP isn’t about avoiding the unpleasant emotions. Grieving is a useful process in itself – a natural process
@cathduncan Fear can be used resourcefully. Anything is a resource if it helps you get what you want.
@sleveo RT Fear motivation is less effective as you get closer to your goal.
@cathduncan Fear/ pain works to kickstart the engine, but keep yourself going with a positive vision.
@cathduncan Use a swish pattern (NLP) to get motivated again when you feel stuck.
@cathduncan If you’re feeling miserable, give yourself permission to feel full-out miserable. It’s a way to take control.
@cathduncan If you struggle in the river, you’ll hit the rocks. Flow with the river & it’ll carry you around the rocks.
@cathduncan Life your life totally – allow the full-ness of all your emotions
we get stuck when we’re not letting ourselves have a full experience.
@cathduncan In life, we have out ideas of what’s going on, but we don’t really know for sure what’s going on!
@cathduncan NLP makes the assumption: people have all the resources they need and nobody is wrong and broken.
@cathduncan Often the qualities/ resources are already in some area of your life, you just need to access it.
@cathduncan There’s a positive intention behind everything we do.
@cathduncan The assumption/ belief that everything is “right”/ perfect in life & to look for that evidence is resourceful.
@cathduncan We have the capacity to change how we feel & behave.
@GotPassport Love this! RT @cathduncan Commit yourself to the results you want in life
@PresentDayNomad RT @cathduncanCommit yourself to the results you want in life
@IsabellesTravel RT @GotPassport Love this! RT @cathduncan Commit yourself to the results you want in life
@cathduncan If you commit yourself to getting satisfaction & look for evidence of what’s satisfying, you’ll get satisfaction.
@cathduncan Beliefs are just opinions, and we can always change them. Be willing to try on other/ new beliefs & see what results u get.
@JeffreyPBrown @cathduncan RT unfortunately, since how one thinks determines happiness and most think poorly this is a sad reality of life
@PresentDayNomad RT @cathduncan Wouldn’t it be a shame to be miserable just because of your faulty beliefs?
@mindmapdrawer RT @cathduncan: Wouldn’t it be a shame to be miserable just because of your faulty beliefs? BRILLIANT point unchallenged thoughts
@GotPassport RT @cathduncan Wouldn’t it be a shame to be miserable just because of your faulty beliefs?
@cathduncan You can weaken beliefs by changing your submodalities of them.
@cathduncan Take the pressure off! You haven’t GOTTA do anything!
@cathduncan Being perfect is tedious! So aim not to be perfect.
@cathduncan Choose artistry instead of perfectionism.
@Sandandsilk And this. – RT @cathduncan Choose artistry instead of perfectionism
@TomYHowe @cathduncan No problem there. Perfection was never one of my aims. Good is hard enough for me.
@cathduncan Perfectionism is about observing & judging, & then we’re not in our life.
@cathduncan Perfectionists: stop judging yourself & giving yourself a bad time!
working on your life isn’t nearly as fulfilling as living your life.
@kpdurand RT @cathduncan: working on your life isn’t nearly as fulfilling as living your life (AMEN!)
@BusinessBeware RT @kpdurand: RT @cathduncan: working on your life isn’t nearly as fulfilling as living your life (AMEN!)
@sandandsilk Yes. Just, omg, YES. – RT @cathduncan working on your life isn’t nearly as fulfilling as living your life.
@cathduncan Clinical diagnoses: medication can often suppress that beautiful creature from it’s expression.
@cathduncan Clinical diagnoses: rather than trying to banish symptoms, ask how you can channel/ express it.
@GotPassport Good stuff! RT @cathduncan lighten up and relax into your life. Do great things because you can, rather than because u have to.
live as if your life depends on it – Michael Watson
@GotPassport powerful stuff at #agilelife RT @cathduncan Start here, where you are right now.
@mindmapdrawerFaulty beliefs plus unchallenged thoughts strengthens faulty beliefs

Thanks to everyone who joined the call, sent in questions and tweeted along!

Learn more from Michael

You can find details for Michael’s private therapeutic services and his training programs at www.phoenix-services.org, and Michael is a big contributer to the learning resources at Jamie Smart’s online NLP learning community, www.mynlpresources.com.

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