Frustration naturally arises when you’re trying to picture yourself in the future, but you feel stuck in the now.
This often leads to not wanting to do anything to achieve your goal, because the objective is too far off – or you encounter feelings that you can’t do it, so there’s no use trying.
“Let’s slow this train down, shall we?” I once told a client who was driving himself nuts. “You’re already talking about what you’re going to do when you’re 60 and you’re not even 40 years of age. Let’s start taking care of today. Better yet, let’s take care of your next breath.”
“What will focusing on my breath do for me?” he asked.
“For starters, it’ll help you eliminate fear, worry, frustration, self-doubt and feelings of failure,” I replied. “Beyond that, it will help you begin creating results that you can take pride in… today. But if you’d rather feel uptight most of the time, stick with what you’re doing. It works.”
He took what I told him seriously and began to focus and visualize the way I taught him.
After a year, he texted me to proclaim, “I can’t believe it. I was just doing my taxes and I doubled my income. I was in shock, so I double-checked the numbers, and sure enough, I was correct the first time. I’m stunned.”
“And how many years did you get the same-old results using the other methods?” I asked.
“Too many to think of at this time,” he answered.
“That’s a reply I enjoy hearing. One breath at a time, eh?”
“Yes. One breath at a time.”
Matt Furey
P.S. Want to get Psycho-Cybernetics coaching and take your game to the next level? Then click the link in the preceding sentence. This is the opportunity of your lifetime. Seize the day.
Goal Setting Frustration
Someone once asked me, “Where do you want to be in 20 years?”
“20 years?” I replied. “Are you serious? How about asking me where I see myself at the end of today?”
There’s a fundamental disconnect in goal setting that leads to deep frustration, fear and self-doubt. This disconnect unwittingly teaches you to be miserable until you reach a certain milestone.
Once you reach that milestone, THEN you can be happy.
Sorry, but happiness doesn’t work that way.
Happiness is something you practice on the way to your goal. There is no goal that, once achieved, will install happiness as a habit.
Setting a bunch of long-range targets is a waste of time for almost everyone who does it. After a year or two, when you notice that none of your targets are being reached, you not only lose interest in the goals you set, but you begin to think that you’re a failure when it comes to goal setting.
If this scenario looks and feels familiar, it’s not your fault. You failed because you were playing in a rigged game with the wrong system.
The game sounds great, but it’s rigged because your chances of having the same goals for 20 years are about as slim as Minnesota Fats.
Yes, there is a much better way to set and achieve goals. There’s a much easier arena for you to play in – and WIN.
And it has nothing to do with imposing a new set of beliefs upon yourself.
It has nothing to do with figuring out what your negative thoughts are, or devising a strategy to make all of them positive.
It has nothing to do with thinking big, or setting goals that scare you.
It has nothing to do with the ridiculous maxim of getting out of your comfort zone. Do you really think that a star athlete who is “in the zone” is uncomfortable? Hell no. He’s in the comfort zone – and that’s why he’s playing so well.
Additionally, this way of setting and achieving goals has nothing to do with the concept of taking MASSIVE ACTION.
Yes, I am serious.
I’ll go so far as to say there is no such thing as massive action. It’s a myth.
Look at reality.
You only get one breath at a time. You only get to take one step at a time. You only get to live one second at a time.
Color reality massive all you want – but this only causes more fast-twitch anxiety, nervousness and frustration.
Here’s something you may not have realized, even if you’ve read Dr. Maxwell Maltz classic best-seller, Psycho-Cybernetics, numerous times. None of the concepts I blasted above, were favorably mentioned in his book.
If you think that Dr. Maltz wrote about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone or taking massive action, then please send me the passage so I can make a correction. But the fact is you aren’t going to find those passages.
Nor will you find Dr. Maltz telling you to think big or to set goals that scare you.
This explains why, when I begin coaching new clients, I usually have to help them rewind their minds, to go back to the time before they began swallowing the gobbledegook. I help them go back to a time when they were succeeding without thinking too much about it.
I’m currently in the process of interviewing prospective coaching clients – people who want to get the real goods on successful living – and go to the NEXT LEVEL.
If you are one of those people who wants to go beyond where you currently are without having to fabricate 20 years of your future, if you want to follow a simple approach to successful living that gives you results you can look at and examine on a daily basis, then go to my coaching page and fill out an application. If it turns out that we are a fit, then I will get back with you.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Best,
Matt Furey
About that Big, Scary Goal You’ve Set
This morning a guy in the sauna started rapping with me about the power of big goals; especially the ones that scare you and force you out of your comfort zone as you supposedly take “massive action.”
I was laughing inside as he spoke because I’m aware that he hasn’t achieved a single one of his big goals, and I’ve been watching and waiting for well over ten years.
The guy insists on big goals, the big dream, the grand hurrah. But it never comes.
Meanwhile, he would be far better off focusing on what he can control in the here and now. What goal can he accomplish TODAY?
It’s wonderful thinking you can control what is going to happen in your life ten or twenty years from now. But the truth is that most people will NOT be the same as they are today, a year from now, much less five or more years down the road. This means, chances are excellent that the one who is writing the 20-year blueprint for his or her life today won’t even exist when that day comes around.
“Where you going to be in five years?” I was asked.
“Five years?” I replied. “You want to know where I’m going to be in five years? How about you ask me what I’m going to get done today, or this week, or this month, or at the furthest, by the end of this year?”
There’s a reason that Dr. Maltz recommended daily goals in Zero Resistance Living – and that is the advanced course on Psycho-Cybernetics.
In short, if you’re not able to focus on and achieve a daily goal, you’re not ready for a bigger, scarier goal with a longer time frame.
Prove to yourself that you can focus on something today – and make it happen. Achieve one new goal everyday for a year, and I bet you will have run a hundred laps around those with the big, scary goals who can’t get themselves off the sofa; or those who go into each day frightened and worried that they might fail.
On a daily basis, give yourself the experience that you are WINNING.
When winning becomes a daily habit, it becomes a long-term reality.
Same can be said about losing.
In order to establish momentum in a positive direction, you need daily feedback that shows you that you’re making something good happen in your life. This isn’t happening with the long-term goals.
Focus on the achievements in the NOW and you’ll make people look up and say WOW.
See it. Feel it. Live it.
Matt Furey
You, are the Director
Think of your life as a major motion feature, and in this movie, you’re more than an actor. You’re also the director, the producer, the editor, as well as the audience.
When you begin to see yourself from this vantage point, you gain an advantage, a sense of well being and control, over every aspect of your life.
Instead of doubting whether or not you can change the way you think, feel and act, you realize you CAN.
The director within says, “cut,” and has you to perform the scene again. You continue to make adjustments until the director within is pleased with the improvements.
Viewing your life from a broader perspective isn’t a one-time exercise that sticks with you forever. All improvements in life are in accord with the Law of Practice.
Visualization practice is similar to a daily shower. If you practice showering once a week, you will look, smell and feel better for one day. If you shower daily, you are better off each and every day.
Practice, or the lack of it, makes you or breaks you
Participating in a consistent visualization practice will benefit you in seen and unseen ways. To reap the rewards, make sure you’re reading and listening to the truisms that are available at Psycho-Cybernetics.
And when you are ready to go to the next level with me as your coach, go here and let’s see how I can help you become the director of your own major motion feature.
See it. Feel it. Do it.
Matt Furey
3 Bizarre Ways to Wake Up Your Brain
If you’re not in the mood to do what you need to do, to get done what needs getting done, especially when you want to get it done, then here are some bizarre ways to light up your brain and get yourself propelled forward:
1. Take out a pen or pencil and begin drawing a series of straight lines. Don’t try to draw the straightest lines you can draw. Instead, mentally picture a straight line being drawn as you move the instrument. If the line isn’t as straight as it would be when using a ruler, then join the club. Even seasoned artists cannot draw lines that straight. After drawing some straight lines, you can move to wavy lines, circles and figure 8’s. Five minutes of his exercise is all you need to kick start your brain.
2. Get your hands dirty by working with plants and trees. If you have a garden, this is easy. If not, you nowhere to go to get started.
Digging into the earth with your hands and feet does more than activate the brain, though. When you take care of what you previously planted, when you observe the seasonal, automatic changes taking place, your mind cannot help but ponder whether or not a Creator’s hand is involved. As you look at the laws of nature with something you planted, you are drawn to examine how these same laws are operating in your life.
3. Do something noisy. Whether it’s beating a drum, cracking a whip, knocking over pins (bowling), hitting golf balls, playing ping pong, singing/chanting, shooting free throws or tapping your fingertips or feet on a floor or table, your brain loves the repetitive sound of noise. It doesn’t take long, either, for your brain to relax, to leave the limbic world of fight, flight or freeze and enter the world of the creative gene-yes (genius).
All of these exercises give you some creative ways to blow off steam and gain a feeling of control over your life.
It’s true, sometimes, even when we want to get going, we can resist doing so. This is when it is a grand idea to pull some tools out of your grab bag and get yourself going, without even realizing you are doing so. Giving your hands something to do is ideal because your hands (and feet) have more nerve endings connected to your brain than any other areas of the body.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
Psycho-Cybernetics.com
P.S. For more information on getting coached in Psycho-Cybernetics and Theatre of the Mind, go here.
Big Goals – Big Energy?
If you want more energy for each day, then set your goals BIG and think BIGGER.
But what if you’ve already done that and you can’t get yourself out of bed in the morning because you’re paralyzed with fear, worry and self-doubt?
This is what happens to many people who’ve been taught the standard goal-setting procedures. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones where you set big, hairy, ludicrous goals, especially ones that “scare” you.
Yes, it is ludicrous to set a goal that scares you. And it is the polar opposite of what Dr. Maltz taught in Psycho-Cybernetics.
As for goals that inspire you, that’s a different story altogether.
The truth is it doesn’t take a big goal to get you off your duff. Small, simple goals that you can nail on a daily basis will definitely do. And then once a month or every two weeks, you stretch yourself. You go where you’ve never gone before – yet you do so without anxiety, worry or the ridiculous notion of “getting out of your comfort zone.”
Huh? What?
You mean I don’t need to get out of my comfort zone?
Correct. You need to find your comfort zone and expand it without even trying to do so, without giving any thought to it whatsoever.
Want to learn how to do this? Then contact me about coaching by going here.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
When Goal Setting Isn’t Working
There are many reasons that so many goal setting methods don’t work for the majority of the people who use them.
Here are seven of those reasons:
1. The goals are too big.
2. The goals tend to create fear, panic, anxiety and nervousness.
3. The goals don’t spontaneously put you “in the zone” – and the teachers of the methods erroneously claim that ALL success comes from getting OUT of your comfort zone. This is easily refuted by observing how quickly children (and adults) learn when they are comfortable versus how difficult it is for them to learn when their nerves are rattled.
4. The goals involve too many action steps.
5. The goals are all about money, status, fame and power.
6. The goals are things you think you “should” do, be or have rather than what is best for you.
7. The goals are only about results and never cover a procedural system that will make attainment of the objective much easier.
Yes, there are people who believe the opposite of what I’ve shown above, but as I so often tell them, “Find the places in Psycho-Cybernetics where Dr. Maltz teaches you to do any of the above. And when you find that I am in error, give me the page, paragraph and line.”
I seriously doubt you’ll be able to find Dr. Maltz telling you to “set goals that scare you,” or to “get out of your comfort zone.”
Why?
Because neither of these notions helps facilitate your brain and nervous system automatically and effortlessly moving toward the targets you have in mind.
Tis true.
How about setting goals that inspire you, goals that create momentum, goals that catapult you into “the zone” where everything you do feels as though you have the magic touch?
That’s what I teach, my friend.
If you want to learn how to truly apply Psycho-Cybernetics, then check out mycoaching program, by going here.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
What the H?
A lot of people ask the wrong questions.
“How are you going to do that? How are you going to make more, do more, be more?”
These are what I call “What the H?” questions. They are out of line, as well as out of order.
Your top priority is having your “what?” established.
A “what question” asks you to search your mind for a specific target. A “how question” tends to begin an internal debate about whether the target is within the realm of possibility.
There is a time and a place for “how questions,” but it is NOT before you ask “what questions.”
Picture what you want. Choose a specific target. After doing so, you can ask yourself how you’re going to pull it off, how you going to get it done.
Or, better yet, you can continue asking yourself what questions, such as, “What am I going to do to get this done? What am I prepared and willing to do to create this result?”
One of the biggest keys to using Psycho-Cybernetics effectively is establishing the WHAT before the HOW.
“What’s my goal for today?” causes an entirely different mindset than, “How am I going to get through today?”
What questions get you to think in terms of possibilities that can become realities. How questions keep you locked in resistance-mode over whether or not you can accomplish something.
Replace your how with a what –
and you’ll walk with a strut.
See and experience the difference –
of living life without resistance.
See it. Feel it. Become it.
Matt Furey
P.S. More on turning How into What in my best-selling Nightingale-Conant program, Theatre of the Mind.
P.P.S. For information on coaching with me, go here
My Father’s Gratitude
My father was laid to rest yesterday afternoon in Florida National Cemetery. ’twas a grand moment to observe the military salute, the playing of Taps and the meticulous, respectful folding of the flag.
Since the passing of my father, who was 97, and a veteran of WW II, I am eternally grateful, not only for his life and the lessons he taught me, but also for the prayers and positive thoughts sent to me by so many. I have done my best to acknowledge everyone who has reached out to me in anyway. If I have overlooked you somehow, please accept my apologies as I say, “thank you” again.
Last weekend, a man wrote to tell me that there was no need to thank anyone, that the focus should be on me, my family and what the emotions we are dealing with. I appreciate this man’s words, but there is just no way I can do as he suggested. I literally feel compelled to thank each person who has written me, called or who came to see me at my father’s funeral.
This sense of duty is not something I came up with or read in a book. It was instilled in me by my father.
Just before Christmas, when my dad was in the hospital for a few days, I watched him thank every single nurse or doctor, every single time they came into his room, to help him. Whether he was brought a straw, a glass of water or a napkin, he would thank the person who helped him.
When a nurse was taking my dad’s temperature, he conveyed his dismay that he was unable to send Christmas cards to family because he was hospitalized. The nurse looked up and said, “Oh, I think they will understand.”
As I recall so many precious memories with my dad, feelings can volley around the court from one emotion to another. Thank goodness for my nightly practice of Dao Zou – which has definitely benefitted me in ways I did not foresee when I initially released the program.
I’m telling you about Dao Zou now because it continues to help me process and ultimately detach from emotions such as grief and sadness. There is no attempt to suppress or control the emotions with the program. You let the emotions flow as you rewind your mind and effortlessly enter another dimension; a dimension where peace that surpasses all understanding becomes part of you.
If you’re aware of someone who is battling sadness or other negative emotions, this non-thinking way to detach from them definitely works. I practice Dao Zou every night before bed – and I cannot stop raving about what a difference-maker it is.
Again, “thanks mucho” to all who have written me. Your words of comfort are greatly appreciated.
Best,
Matt Furey
Best Way to Practice Anything… and Get Good
The best way to practice something and get good is to do what almost nobody teaches.
Instead of applying more pressure during a practice or training session – you do the unthinkable: You eliminate the pressure from the equation.
As soon as you add the element of pressure to a practice, over-anxiety, over-motivation and excessive tension show up.
You can read all about this in Chapter 13 of Psycho-Cybernetics.
Each time I read this chapter, and I’ve been reading it since 1987, I get a new insight, a new idea, a different way to apply the teachings.
Shadowboxing is an example of how to practice without pressure. It was something I first began doing as a high school wrestler, but we called it shadow drilling.
When I used shadow drilling regularly, my results were off the charts. But because no one ever pulled me aside and told me about this “secret,” I didn’t realize until later on the correlation and connection between the victories I attained and the quiet solo workouts I had late at night when most people were sleeping.
A friend who played professional basketball and now coaches in the NBA, told me how he would get up early in the morning and shoot free throws when no one else was around. No crowd. No coach. No other players.
Zero pressure.
Did this help him improve his free throw shooting? In a big way.
Re-read Chapter 13 again. Mark it up and highlight it.
But do so in a quiet room when no one else is around.
I think you’ll find more than a few life-changers in those pages.
Matt Furey
Note: If you want to learn the details within the details of how to apply Psycho-Cybernetics and Theatre of the Mind, if you want to catapult yourself to the next level of success, then contact me about coaching.
