The Modern Psychology Journal

THE MODERN PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL

What’s Inside: # Learning How To Live # Your Next 7 Seconds Count #5 Steps To Master Anything Like A Pro

PLUS: # Special Offers

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Special promotion: Your Every Day Hero Journey. Click the image or ‘here’ to find out more. Or copy and paste this link: bit.ly/heros-journey-offer

Welcome!!

And thank you for checking out our magazine.

Inside you’ll find a selection of articles written to inspire you.

To excite you. And to get you thinking of practical ways you can live a more meaningful and purpose filled life.

Because in doing this, you’ll have the tools to reach your goals. Achieve your dreams. And be as successful as you wish to be in whatever endeavours you plan.

Thank you for letting me be your guide through this journey.

Barbara Grace. Director, School of Modern Psychology PS: If you haven’t already received your FREE daily checklist creative minds use to thrive. Click here. Or paste this link into your browser: bit.ly/ultimate-creative-checklist

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Learning How To Live: #1 With Freedom. #2 With Fearless Peace. #3 With Purpose. The Trilogy Of A Meaningful Life.

“You are learning how to live. Because you want to be freer, fear less, and achieve a state of peace.” — Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic.

That’s what learning is. Opening a door, one leading from an ordinary world to a journey unknown. They’re rarely smooth. I’ve taken them before. It will challenge me.

Sometimes drag me through fire. At other times I’ll feel as if drowning.

And every step of the way will open another opportunity.

Another view. One closed, if I hadn’t turned the handle.

Without seeking, nothing is found.

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The Free Flow Of Freedom “What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated — tranquility, fearlessness and freedom.” — Epictetus.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes ‘flow’. That perfectly balanced state where focus, energy and skills meet and merge. Sometimes for hours, a flow state can descend, ignorant of time while magic reveals itself. Magic producing art. Inspiring writing. Creative thoughts. Insights once locked.

That most exquisite peace Epictetus describes as ‘tranquility’. It’s a gift of being present. And it comes with knowing how to breathe into the moment and submerge into it.

It’s the ultimate antidote to boredom. To the restless spirit. To the attention-seeking junkie within.

Writing here, it’s as if a space within opens and softens. A warmth spreads along my arms and reaches fingertips resting on the keyboard. A voice of its own appears. A need to express a thought that’s landed as a gift right here, right now.

I am no more than a vehicle carrying it.

My gift is in the tranquility found by harvesting the knowledge.

In the moments of reflection. On a paragraph. A phrase. An article written with wisdom and insight into how to live more fully and more in this present moment.

Today I’m reading Ryan Holiday’s, The Daily Stoic, and challenging myself to dig deep into the wisdom of the Stoics. If you’re looking for a place to start. This is a good one.

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The Fearless Journey

Learning how to live gives me the courage to keep going. To continue growing. To avoid sinking into the swamp of a middle-aged softened “Education is what remains after one mind. To fight. Long and hard in the has forgotten what one has learned in battle. And to harvest the fruit while school.” — Albert Einstein. fearlessly fighting for freedom.

Our constant is change. And change calls for courage. And for a fearlessness that’s borne of knowledge. And the wisdom to apply it.

Because it asks us to take a stand. To know one’s values and honour them.

To test one’s beliefs against the breeze of change.

It calls for fearlessness. To either stick firm to what’s solid or flex and shift with the new knowledge. Change offers insights otherwise blinded to.

And in this, the gaining of wisdom asks us to keep moving. Through times that feel overpowering. Times where the relentless smashing of waves feels overwhelming. Yet we are never alone on this journey. Change is the norm. It is the wise ones offering insights to guide us along when …

The health of a loved one declines.

Through the decaying of mind and body.

The rotting leaves beneath the tree that once offered shade for others.

Because the freedom to fight for wisdom is won in the mind. The body merely its willing servant.

Room For Mental Clarity: PurposeFilled Living “Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.” — Jon KabatZinn.

So what is knowledge for? What is wisdom for? And does it really matter?

Knowledge and wisdom do not emerge for their own sake. All has purpose. To make meaning from moments. To gain insight otherwise missed. To gain clarity around one’s purpose in life. To bring fulfillment to the act of living.

Learning for learning sake is uninspiring and the passion for it drops fast. Like goals based on process rather than outcome. At www.schoolofmodernpsychology.com.au

times the intention behind learning feels veiled. As if just out of reach.

You know time is fickle. Never enough when busy. Too much when bored.

And that is its intention. A test of resilience. Of perseverance.

You know the moment just passed can never be again. But do you care?

To lift the seeking of self-knowledge to an art form. One desirous of pursuit.

As one would a lover. A wayward child. An elusive dream vaporising upon your awareness of it.

Because in the end our days become journeys explored or pot-holes wellworn. Until the routine of routine and the will of an external world wins and your internal one sinks into a swamp.

A mindful moment connects learning If you choose to not take the journey to wisdom. As breathe slows and and move by the open door. presence is found. Time for pause.

To allow wisdom of the mind time to enter the body and be truly felt. Often words diminish the experience. As our language lacks the nuances to describe deep wisdom, deep emotions, deep purpose. It is for us to connect the moments.

“Serious thinkers are few, and the world is ruled by crude ideas.” — Carl Lotus Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers.

Easing Into Mindfulness: And The Wisdom Of Great Thinkers

And Always … The Distraction

“Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men.” — Giorgio de Chirico (Italian artist and writer).

We live in two worlds. An external one. And an internal one.

One filled with expectations and distractions. The other an internal focus on purpose and pleasure. Both intent on having their way.

We have but one option. And that is to think. Yet thinking, like creativity, doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

While mindfulness is a practical tool, my monkey-mind needs support to do it well. So I trick it into a calmer state with a pen or paintbrush, doodling in repetitive strokes and allowing the motion to move where it will.

At other times, it’s in reflection of wisdom from the ancients — the philosophers of old that settles my spirit. The knowing that all has gone before me. And through whatever

trials happen my way, answers will be found in the pause, the slowing of the breath, the present moment of reflection based on a philosophy around choice of perspective.

All is learning. All is knowledge. The gaining of wisdom is a choice.

Learning how to live begins with the mindset to embrace knowledge. The knowledge of creating habits and patterns of daily living.

Action-Step Get The Mindset Habits of Creative Thinkers And Successful People Here. Or copy and paste this link into your browser: bit.ly/ultimate-creative-checklist

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Your Next 7 Seconds Count. Starting Now. 7 Seconds To Control Or Let Go. Decision Time.

If Your Life Sucked Yesterday; It Will Again Today Unless …

“Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own …” — Epictetus.

No one ethically knows the outcome of a game. We cannot make someone love us. We cannot dictate the weather.

The only control any of us has is around 3 things: Whether you let yesterday influence today How you let your environment influence your beliefs and The choices you make. www.schoolofmodernpsychology.com.au

When Is A Fence Not A Fence?

straight-backed dignity didn’t want his hard-earned savings replacing a perfectly ‘good-enough’ boundary.

“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.

Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.” Henry Cloud

Two years later, Alfred was back commuting from his once semisuburban bliss to the drone of a city.

His heart crusted in vengeance.

Alfred Bone retired in 1972. A 65-year-old European living on the semi-rural edge of suburban Sydney.

He looked forward to a new way of living: away from daily commutes to city drudgery; away from rules and routines; and hopefully away from memories of repression that dominated his nights.

It was to be his time. Giving space to his creative loves: art and gardening.

All in his quarter acre block — his home-made haven.

Retirement funds donated to lawyers siding with the neighbour.

#1. The Choice To Choose You “The only real conflict you will ever have in your life won’t be with others, but with yourself.” ― Shannon L. Alder • One event can change your life — if you let it.

• A childhood of neglect can scar deeply — if you let it.

For the first 7 months he scratched at his canvases and into the dirt. His sun- • Infidelity can destroy trust — if you soaked skin shone, fading the grey of a let it. once cramped life.

• Shyness can keep you isolated — if Until … you let it.

His younger upwardly mobile neighbour leaned over the brokendown boundary between the two properties and said, “Time for a new fence, don’t you think Al?”

• A business failure can stop you from trying again — if you let it.

The fence tilted in places, was patched in others. But Alfred, a man of

Yet the future is still to be written. It starts in this moment. A chance to do

The past is just that. Past. A time capsule sealed. Set in time, past.

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with it what you will. A literal blank slate.

If you had 7 seconds to do the one thing that would make a difference in your life — what would you do?

And here’s the problem. The blank slate can be a scary place.

#2: What Fearing The ‘Blank Slate’ Says About You “I like geography best, he said, because your mountains & rivers know the secret. Pay no attention to boundaries.” — Brian Andreas For many artists and writers — the blank slate can be fearsome to face.

And so tick … tick … tick … another 7 seconds slips away. Another opportunity missed.

A subconscious marker with the power to hold us in suspended animation. If we let it.

It can feel as if caught between two opposing and powerful forces. A magnetised field attracting, compelling us with its allure. Yet when close — we reject the union. Self sabotage. It’s the resistance. The fear of failing. The fear of falling. And not being caught.

And its inscription may already be shadowing you. Unless you choose to make your mark. And stand by it.

#3: You’re Creating Your Mark — Even When You Don’t

Why? Because it means leaving a mark, one that may determine the asyet uncharted vision. Worse: it may be “When the world becomes a massive impossible to erase. To go back. Regret mess with nobody at the helm, it’s time is expensive. for artists to make their mark.” — Joni Mitchell In creating a mark, our mind plays tricks on us. Linking our mark-making Each word, gesture or expression you to memories best left alone. Of a failed do today leaves your ‘mark’. The literal venture. A lost love. A not-forgotten canvas is merely a representation of it. pain. A regrettable recurring pattern Whether you choose to do anything that feels trap-like. (or not) — you’ve already left your If one commits. To making the mark. mark.

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Hesitation and doubt are noticeable calling cards. The tentative touch transmits fear. Denies your inner boldness. And there’s that 7 second pause of momentum stalling again.

Tick … tick … tick ...

Renee Magritte’s famous painting titled: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe) shows that a representation of a thing is not the thing. A postcard is not the place described. A fence is not a fence.

What Alfred failed to see was the boundary he fought so personally was fixed within. Inflexibility has a price. And some boundaries need updating — to defend them becomes folly.

#4. The Struggle of Perception — “One Day Is As All Days” “If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting an unwinnable battle.” — Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic.

different to yesterday. “One day is as all days.”

They simply come in different guises.

Different tests measuring the same issue. Of how we turn up. Of which roundabout we choose to stay on. Of which idea you won’t let go of.

The boundaries one sets in life define one’s flexibility. Boundaries change as body shapes do, as weather fronts shift, as hair turns grey. Keeping one’s boundaries inflexible means holding old perceptions of the way things ‘should’ be.

Things are as they are — not as they ‘should’ be. Choosing to battle immovable boundaries is a struggle with perception. Acceptance of what ‘is’ means directing energy towards those things you can control. And releasing control of what ‘is’.

#5. The Power Of The Present Moment: “Get Back To Breath” Amy Winehouse sang of ‘back to black’. A dark place to retreat after lost love … lost anything. A place to lick wounds. And perhaps keep them alive.

Epictetus describes one power we each have to create our future: ‘reasoned The antithesis? ‘Back to breath’ — a choice’. Challenges faced today are no soul sensing presence of the place

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you’ve found yourself in. Because this is your power to influence. How you turn up. Aware of sensory experiences.

Curious of emotions emerging in full expression. Aware that your next action may dictate whether your history repeats itself or whether you flex with the moment. Accepting love lost. Accepting that which you cannot control.

Sheldon Kopp, psychotherapist, in his book, Back To One, describes it as breathing with slow suredness: the recounting breath.

Choosing to choose ‘you’. Choosing to choose ‘now’. Choosing to live in this present moment.

7 seconds before it’s too late.

Tick … tick … tick … time to choose ‘back to breath’.

#6: What Can You Change?

your ego.

Perception based on a faulty lens causes most problems. From wars to relationship breakdowns, the perception of loss and its negative interpretation can be a smoking gun. If you choose it to be.

A fence is not a fence, as Albert discovered. It was a statement of his boundaries. An expression of his beliefs. It was his Achilles heel.

And if it wasn’t the fence, it would have been something else.

Whether you choose ‘back to black’ or ‘back to breath’ is a present moment decision. One influenced by the lens chosen.

#7: What Can’t Be Changed?

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.” — Epictetus.

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

You can’t change the weather. Your parents. The children you’ve born. Your past.

The greatest thing you have power over is your perception. Of the moment.

And your interpretation of it.

How you interpret your relationship with them though, is your choice.

As the Norwegians famously say: It’s a choice to dredge up memories that “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only offer a cramped pseudo-support to only bad clothes”.

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You’re 7 Seconds Away … Just As Long As You Stay …

• Seven seconds to choose a better attitude.

“The only true borders lie between day and night, between life and death, between hope and loss.” ― Erin Hunter

• Seven seconds to forgive.

In football, most plays last about 7 seconds.

The song ‘7 Seconds’, written by Neneh Cherry, was recorded as a duet with Youssou N’Dour.

It’s a song about birth. Innocence.

Choices. Destinations. It could be your life-marker: • Seven seconds to see the past as past.

• Seven seconds to spend energy influencing what you can: your mind, the actions you take in this present moment.

• Seven seconds to change what you can, forget what you can’t.

• Seven seconds to still your mind.

• Seven seconds to breathe-in the present moment.

• Seven seconds to walk away from the unwinnable battle.

• Seven seconds to be your own greatest influence …

What will your next 7 seconds say about you?

Start your next 7 seconds by getting this checklist and choose how you perceive today. Its starts with an open and creative mind.

Action-Step

Get The Mindset Habits of Creative Thinkers And Successful People Here.

Or copy and paste this link into your browser: bit.ly/ultimate-creativechecklist

Here’s To Your Success: #5 Steps To Master Anything. Like A Pro. Being top of the class used to be a predictor of success. Along with your IQ — a they offered a passport to … anything you wanted.

That was then.

These days your school record and IQ score are as good a predictor of success as your hair colour is.

In fact, having a high IQ slows many down. Keeping the ‘must-learnmore’ loop of academia alive. Not so smart.

It’s what you do with what you have that makes the difference. And while the outward signs of successful lives can be found in many people’s daily habits, that’s not the full story.

Here’s why.

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“We’ve greatly exaggerated the risk of sinking, without celebrating the value of swimming.” — Seth Godin Habits can be slippery suckers to maintain. If they were easy to grasp and hold onto, it’s likely you’d be in the top 1% of successful people on the planet.

Reality check. I’m imagining you’re not where you want to be … yet.

Most aren’t. Even those you may consider successful. Because success is an intoxicating liquor. A little is never enough. And to those on a journey of self-improvement, the quest for higher standards is always on the rise.

Yet without having the meaning behind what success brings, it’s … meaningless. Achieving a goal isn’t always followed by euphoria, more of a ‘oh, so this is it’ reaction.

Take for example Tim Ferris, author of the Four Hour Work Week. He’s made an art of being successful in any area he chooses to focus on.

Yet, as I look at his success — I’m distracted. Becoming a champion in boxing, ball-room dancing and publishing best sellers says a lot about a person.

He’s a human guinea pig for what’s possible.

And a super successful person practicing ‘what-next’ syndrome.

Without a purpose for the goal, learning new skills are the end result. They’re rarely the reason to succeed. It’s just another tick off the bucket list or a step towards a bigger title.

What I do love about Ferris and his work is that he uses an old art form to master modern day goals in a fraction of the time. Skills that some spend an entire lifetime working towards.

How To Prime Your Mind For Success Using An Old Master’s Technique “The only way to know the truth in a movement is to do it with your own body.” Twyla Tharp Art students in the 19th century learned to paint by ‘copying’ old masters. They’d sit in galleries standing in the same way as the artist would. Holding a brush at a certain angle. And in emulating a master’s work, the students learnt more than a teacher could ever describe.

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In seeing discrete elements of the paintings students could deconstruct the whole. It was a time to investigate composition, light, technique, perspective, balance and colour palette. All the myriad of micro-skills the master had gathered over decades.

These studies taught them how to learn. How to think.

How to get into the mind of a master.

“It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.” — Tim Ferris When Ferris wants something, he doesn’t do ‘dabbling’. He’s in it for the kill. And he uses an approach that most successful people intuitively do.

To see what he saw.

And in executing the process, they make it look elegantly simple.

To sense a place captured through its Seamless. Sophisticated. Soooo easy. cultural lens.

So that others look and say, “A fourhour work week? Hallelujah!!”

And to echo the scent of humanity through a solitary gaze.

The story starts with ‘modelling’.

Writers do something similar. Often writing out paragraphs, pages and even entire novels to gain the sense of rhythm and a feel for the unsaid hovering between phrases.

It’s how Ferris does what he does. Moving between art forms, mastering the seeming impossible.

#5 Steps To Mastering Anything

… And ends with ‘modelling’.

Success leaves clues.

Here they are:

How To Start: “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” — Napoleon Hill A. Choose what you want to master.

B. Write down what about this is important for you. What will you do with it in your life?

C. Find someone already excelling in this area.

John Grinder and Richard Bandler studied excellence around personal transformation. They looked to professional clinicians achieving consistent success with their clients.

Namely family therapist, Virginia Satir, and renown psychologist and hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson.

Grinder and Bandler modeled everything Erickson did — including the wheel chair Erickson used for mobility along with his love of wearing purple suits (Erickson was colour blind). In the process, Grinder and Bandler mapped Erickson’s language patterns, what he noticed and how he noticed it.

In finding the essence and essential techniques Erickson used, Grinder and Bandler began removing elements — at a time. Along the way, making sure they could replicate Erickson’s results. It turned out the wheel chair and purple suits weren’t necessary for creating lasting change in people.

The technique is known as modelling. It’s one of the core backbones of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) that Grinder

and Bandler created as a result of their research.

‘Model’ by ASK-ing Yourself These #5 Questions “We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.” — Seth Godin #1: ASK: What is this person doing to get results?

Think in high-level chunks. What will look effortless won’t be. Look with a critical eye.

What environment are they creating for themselves to do what they do?

(Myla Twarp, choreographer and dancer, said of her 2-hour 5am daily gym workout: “Once I’m in the taxi, I’m done.”

How does this person self-identify?

Step into their shoes. Imagine being them. Stand like them. What do they say about themselves?

What are their specific behaviours that get results? (Think daily routines) #2: ASK: What micro-skills are involved in their art, their business growth, or their leadership processes? www.schoolofmodernpsychology.com.au

Bring down your thinking from big chunks to tiny ones — the micro-skills that need mastery.

What is their attitude towards their ‘art’: what they do and how they do it?

What’s the mindset they bring to their work?

What do they ask others to bring? #3: ASK: What are the most important skills that will nudge the needle for you?

Break the list of skills you’ve created into 2 piles, one for must-have, the other for nice-to-have.

Which are the most important ones and the least important ones?

Focus on the ones that will create a difference. #4: ASK: If my ‘mentor’ was teaching me, what 5-Step formula would he/she teach me?

Think of existing sequences you know.

Even simple routines such as brushing your teeth has a sequence. Making coffee has a sequence. Everything you do has a sequence you follow.

It’s in breaking the sequence into chunks and creating a system around it that you’ll maximise your results. #5: ASK: What will be your motivation strategy?

The most powerful motivation strategy is an away-from strategy.

That’s why people like Ferris say ‘get accountable’. Telling others about your goal means you can’t kid yourself or give yourself a break. Failure doesn’t feel good when it’s public. So having someone raise their eyebrow at you is similar to your mother tapping her toe and pointing a finger in your direction as an eight-year-old.

Your Take-Away: Choices are at the root of every one of your results. Each choice starts a behavior that over time becomes a habit. Darren Hardy Learning requires action. It is never passive. That’s called day dreaming.

One of the keys to success is in setting up your day so you can take action on what you’ve learnt.

Habits remove the problem of ‘winding yourself into the day’. They take care of the details. And set you up for success.

For creating your own sequence of success. And this requires a creative and proactive view.

Discover a checklist of daily actions that will help you ‘model’ success in your life.

Get The Mindset Habits of Creative Thinkers And Successful People Here. Or copy and paste this link into your browser:

bit.ly/ultimate-creative-checklist