Eureka! I have found the secret formula. “Of what?” you may ask.

I have found the tried and true, works every time, secret formula for frustration.

Anytime you want to guarantee frustration, follow this formula: Pretend that things shouldn’t be the way they are.

The gap between where things ought to be and where they are exists almost always. The way we approach spanning that gap will determine our level of self-induced frustration.

The more we focus on the enormity of the gap, the more frustration we get. The key is to recognize the gap and then form an incremental plan for closing it.

To prove the premise, think back on a time when you experienced prolonged frustration. If you examine that time carefully, you will find that your mind was focused on what shouldn’t be rather than what was actually happening. The language you used contained some of these words: Should, shouldn’t, ought to, must, have to, and the like. These are words that keep you locked in frustration.

A helpful way for assessing the gap is to assign a number to it on a scale of 1 to 10 – 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. Suppose you assess the gap as a 5 and you want to jump to 10 in one step. You have now insured more guaranteed frustration into your life. A less frazzled approach is necessary. The plan that closes the gap quicker and with less frustration is figuring out how to get from a 5 to a 6. It’s a much more manageable piece. Once successful with that step, you can go on to the next step, one step at a time.

But before you can formulate a plan, you have to recognize how you keep yourself stuck. Here is a strong dose of medicine that’s hard to swallow but extremely effective: You are the cause of your frustration; no one else, just you. It’s not your parents, your spouse, your teacher, your job, your boss, your lover, your friend, some family member or your enemy. Your biggest obstacle is you pretending what is shouldn’t be.

The longer you hold that position, the longer you remain frustrated. Action is frustration’s biggest foe and will defeat it every time, as long as it follows a detailed, step-by-step plan.

If you are frustrated about your relationship, job, lot in life, or anything else, find out where you are on the scale, not where you ought to be, and then put together a workable plan. What needs to happen to get to the next number? Find out and then take the step if you truly want to step away from frustration.

Here is my unofficial assessment: The bulk of the population will choose to stay in never-never land where “should and ought to” are the operative words preached in the daily gospel. Piss and moan will rule the day inviting frustration in for an extended stay.

Got frustration? Get real!

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

I claim there is a difference between burning the candle at both ends and taking it to the limit. One saps your energy; the other increases it.

We are a candle burning society that rarely gets to our limits. Candle burning is busy work that seems important, but isn’t. Going to the limit seems risky until you see the rewards it delivers.

Candle burning language is filled with “shoulds, ought-tos, musts” and other such imperatives. Going to the limit only contains the language of possibility.

Candle burning is a lifestyle of fear; going to the limit neutralizes a fearful existence.

Taking it to the limit is a visit to the edge, a place candle burning will never take you. The edge is where you hone your skills. It’s a place of learning and deep discovery. It’s where you test yourself.

It’s easy to predict the results of candle burning – soon there will be no light. Going to the edge provides a light at the end of the tunnel – something to propel you forward.

When’s the last time you tested yourself? Testing not only shows our strengths and weaknesses, but it also delivers an aliveness that we’ll never discover reading by candlelight.

What keeps you from moving towards the edge? It’s a blob of wax known as the fear of failure. Here is one of life’s hidden secrets: It’s better to fail than to fear.

You won’t know if you’ll fail or succeed until you test yourself. That test can only happen at the edge.

Start with baby steps. Attempt to do something small that you think you can’t do. Notice the aliveness you feel when making such an attempt. You will generate energy, not deplete it.

Whether you succeed or fail is irrelevant. It’s the action itself that delivers the reward of aliveness. Burning candles is a dead end job where you never learn anything new about you.

Schedule a trip to the edge and find out what’s possible for you; otherwise your aliveness will drip away.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

I assert that even Mother Teresa had an ugly side. It’s not a pretty opinion, and it’s not about her as much as it is about us.

We’ve all witnessed the ugly side of someone, even someone we love, but our observational skills become justifications when the ugly person in the mirror is us.

I will readily admit that I turn from mild mannered David Banner into the Incredible Hulk when I watch my favorite, professional football team perform like high school cheerleaders. I’m not so ready to admit the venom that I’m capable of using on an everyday basis. It’s called prejudice.

We attempt to hide our ugliness when we label our prejudice as “discernment” and put it under the banner of fact. It’s easy to spot prejudice in someone else, but we pretend the spotlight only shines one way. The fact we rarely look at is that our own prejudice is alive and well and is secreted on a daily basis.

The remedy is not to eliminate our prejudice but to notice it. Noticing and interrupting are transformative actions that can turn an ugly toad into someone a bit more regal.

Outgrowing our prejudices will always be a work in progress, but each time we notice and interrupt our own prejudice, we get a little prettier.

Back to my Hulk reference . . . My contention is that if we ever saw a video recording of our ugly side, it would give us pause and give us cause to become less ugly.

Become your own videographer and start to notice in yourself what you so easily notice in others. Once you notice your own shortcoming, interrupt the behavior. With each interruption, you step in the direction of growth.

The mirror will not listen to a justification speech. Your true self will disappear from sight and the only thing left to look at is an ugly you.

You can’t put lipstick on prejudice and make it pretty. You can notice your attempt to camouflage it and stop it in its tracks.

You may never get to change someone else’s ugliness but you can go to work on you, and discover that “To thine own self be true” is less about others and more about you.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

We’ve all made decisions in our lives, but I’m not sure we fully appreciate the process of deciding.

It’s my experience that decisions make us. It looks like we were the decider, but who we actually are is the reporter of a decision that has already been made by another part of us.

Did you ever notice that when you think things over, there comes a point where the thinking stops and a decision arrives? If you look at the process carefully, your decision was delivered to you, not chosen by your keen thinking apparatus.

Deciding is a feeling that shows up in final form as a thought. We decide with our feeling sense, not our thinking. Our feeling sense is ready to decide when it gets an OK or not OK feeling about something. It’s a relatively quick process. What delays our decision is our thinking. We often ignore our feelings and “decide” to think it over some more.

If you are someone who sits on the fence to the point of getting calluses on your coolie, you may want to consider streamlining the decision process.

It begins with fine tuning your awareness about your OK and not OK signals. Think of a time when you instantly knew that something wasn’t OK. Where did that feeling show up in your body? If you forgot, just go back to that time in your mind (daydream) and notice where that feeling registered. Was it in your throat, your chest, your belly or your bowels? You felt it somewhere.

Catalog that feeling and then think of another time when you knew something wasn’t OK and you’ll make an interesting discovery: That feeling will show up in the same spot. The next step is to locate where your OK feelings live by repeating the process. Think of a time when you instantly knew something was OK and find out where that feeling registers.

This isn’t a prescription for rash decisions; they’re totally thinking events. This is an exercise to find your decision barometer.

Deciding doesn’t take a lot of thought; we only think it does.

Decide to find your OK and not OK feelings and you’ll KO a lot of unnecessary thinking.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

As I was walking Snuffy the Black Nosed Beagle in the frigid cold this morning, I found myself singing a song from the musical legend, Ray Charles – “You Don’t Know Me.”

I always wonder about songs that pop into my head randomly, and this was no exception. After I wondered a bit, The Grasshopper showed up in his earmuffs and scarf and had this to say, “You won’t know me until you know you.” Now I had lots to wonder about.

I find that we know a lot about certain people but we don’t necessarily know them, that’s because we don’t know ourselves. We know about our likes and dislikes, prejudices and preferences but, by and large, we ignore our core.

Once we delve deeper than the surface, we find ourselves and everyone else. It’s here that we’re all the same; it’s only our conditioning that makes us seem different. It’s from this place of depth that we can truly say, “I know you” because it’s here that you know yourself.

Life is lots more peaceful when you know yourself. Knowing you helps you find the common ground with the common man, and as a result, you’re not looking for differences to disagree about.

This is not an exercise in conscious cataloging in an attempt to find all the ways you are like another; it’s more streamlined than that. You only need to find the one way you are the same, and then the differences can be celebrated more often than castigated.

The one place we’re the same is in our depths. It’s a quiet place of commonality where we get to know everyone.

If you’re looking for a little more peace in your life, get to know you, and then you’ll have all you need to know about someone else.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

Here is a link to an  incredible blogpost from one incredible teacher – Jerry Stocking.

How to Increase our Sexual Energy. ~ Jerry Stocking

How do you filter your day? Which prism or eye goggles do you view it through?

I believe the first filter we use is positive or negative. Which one you use depends on whether you’ve been conditioned to see the glass half empty or half full. The one approach you regularly use, consciously or not, will color your day no matter what circumstances you encounter.

We all know the person who can turn a windfall into a wet blanket. “Sure I’ve just won millions in the lottery but that just means my relatives will be leaning on me for handouts.” You can predict how people will respond based on their filters.

The next filter, and the most crucial one in my opinion, is the choice filter. Most people don’t recognize that they have a choice because they view their day, month, year, life through the “no choice” filter. Choice is a constant that most of us miss because our goggles are dirty.

Have you every awoken and started right in choosing a crappy day? “Oh, it’s Monday and I have to go back to that dead end job and deal with people I don’t like and not get paid what I’m worth.” All of that may be true, but if viewed through the “no choice” filter, a crappy Monday will continue to choose you.

I’m not suggesting that you view the above situation through rose colored glasses; I’m suggesting that you have made the assumption that you are stuck with no choice. What if you notice your Monday morning blues and allow them to trigger you to ask the question: “What’s possible for me?” If your first answer is “nothing,” you are dealing with your conditioning and not reality. Keep asking and keep exploring alternate choices.

Possibility questions present choices, ones you would never get to if you let your conditioned choice stay on automatic pilot.

And the last filter is reacting or responding. Once we recognize that we will always have the ability to choose, are we going to let a reaction choose us or are we going to choose a response?

Reactions are conditioned choices that will only get you what they got you the last time. Responses are choosing a choice. For example, most arguments are made up of conditioned reactions. “You’re a cotton-headed ninnymuggin.” “Oh, yea, well you’re the offspring of a no count weasel.” There is no choice in that back and forth, or most any argument. That’s why nothing gets settled.

What if you noticed that you could pick a response to a stimulus rather than going with your conditioned reaction? That would open up a lot of choices to pick from.

Responding is a filter we too often leave on the shelf, even though our reaction filter is clogged with more lint than Shaquille O’Neal’s belly button.

Bottom line: You do have a choice in filtering your day. To use this choice to your best advantage, make the choice to notice and respond.

All the best,

John

On first pass, existing and living seem to be one and the same. “I’m existing here on earth” or “I’m living here on earth” mean the same thing to a student studying English. They’re synonymous, or are they?

When I examine it more closely for me, existing has me going through the moves, and living gives those moves a purpose.

The mantra that came up for me is “Live with Purpose.” I’m sure that’s already on a bumper sticker somewhere, but it just hit home for me.

Identify the purpose for your moves and your moves will contain more life.

I was asked at a seminar over the summer, “What’s your purpose in speaking?” How often do we speak without purpose? We just decide to open our mouths and see what comes out. There is so much banal chatter that leaves our lips which contributes more to existing than it does to living.

Identify your purpose for speaking or acting more often and you’ll begin the process of moving past existence into living.

Living has aliveness about it; existing is like treading water in the Dead Sea.

If you are in a funk, chances are you are stuck in existing. The first step out is purposeful in nature. Find your purpose for living. It’s there waiting to breathe life into you.

You may want to make yourself reminder cards and post them in many places – your nightstand, your bathroom mirror or the sun visor of your car to name a few. Have the card read: WHAT’S MY PURPOSE? or WMP? for short.

“Existing” or “Living with Purpose” is always a choice. When we let the choice make us it’s a lifeless existence.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

If you got paid for every thought, you’d be a very wealthy person.

There is no shortage of thoughts that run around in our heads, so which ones do we pay attention to that pay dividends?

If you monitor your thoughts for just a few minutes, you will make a major discovery about thoughts – they think you, you don’t think them. Thoughts have a mind of their own, but one thing they have in common is they all clamor for our attention.

Which ones deserve our attention?

The first act of separating the wheat from the chaff is to pay more attention to thoughts that are based in fact, and less attention to those dripping with opinion.

I suggest that you take just 2 minutes anytime today and observe what thoughts are occupying your mind. Observe without participating in the thoughts; just watch them parade by. What you will discover is that most of your thoughts are opinions, conjecture and a game of not connecting the dots.

Those are thoughts that are entertaining to watch but pay no dividends, kind of like watching “The Biggest Loser.”

The thoughts that pop in that are based in fact are the ones are worth paying attention to. Thoughts that are verifiable will take you to the bank; those that can’t be verified will keep you bankrupt.

How much of your thinking can you verify? It’s worth paying attention to. Just doing a simple 2 minute exercise like the one I recommended gets you in the habit of prioritizing the thought process. It makes you aware of what you are thinking.

Once you become aware of the value of your thoughts, you have the ability to interrupt the ones that rob you blind, and listen to the ones that put money in the till.

This is not financial advice. It’s an accounting system for your mind that lets you pay more attention to the thoughts that will pay off.

You’ll never know for sure whether this is a fact or an opinion unless you do the experiment.

All the best,

John

JOHN MORGAN COACHING
ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

It occurred to me that everyone is consistent even if it’s in their inconsistency.

As I have stated before, I worship at the altar of consistency but I have recently discovered that I am biased to the brand of consistency I adore.

The brand that gets me to dress up for church is the one where I can count on something or someone to produce consistent results that I like. If you are consistently producing things I don’t like, I call that inconsistent – a newly discovered shortcoming on my part.

I loved that basketball star, Michael Jordan could produce 30 plus points on a consistent basis; I didn’t like that tennis great, Jimmy Connors consistently hit his forehand into the net on long back and forth exchanges.

So my discovery is that I truly don’t like consistency; I just like my brand of it.

This led to a bigger discovery for me and perhaps you – that we really don’t like the truth, just our version of it.

I like to define truth as that which has no opposite. Genuine truth is self evident and is not debatable. The minute that you can muster an argument against your truth, it’s not the truth. It’s a conditioned opinion that you bow down to – a false god, if you will.

If you are consistently spouting the truth, you are inconsistently hitting the mark, because it’s only your brand of the truth that you speak. Your brand excludes all the other brands. The whole truth is everyone’s brand mixed together, not splotches of the mix you happen to like.

Be careful when you are speaking the truth because you’ll be consistently inconsistent. Once in a blue moon it’ll be solid truth, but most often it will be scattered, prejudiced blather.

I believe it’s in our best interest to label our truth for what it actually is – an opinion that we’ve come to like. When we label what we are offering as our opinion, we can consistently be genuine without the inconsistency of claiming to know the truth.

It’s my opinion that you will communicate more effectively with opinion than you will with the truth, and you’ll do it more consistently.

All the best,

John