Have you ever thought this?  Apparently there is something that can be done about it!

Changing your perspective changes the results you are getting in life!

A middle-aged man went to consult his therapist because he was so miserable and felt that his life had become a series of bad events.

 The therapist started by saying, “let’s do a little test before we proceed.” He got his writing pad out and drew a line in the middle dividing an assets and liabilities column.

Then he announced, “for the purpose of the test, on the assets side, we will think about all the things that are right in your life.  We will list them here. After that, we will look at your challenges and we will look at all the things that have gone wrong in your life….”

The man started laughing, “ l’m not  going to have anything on the assets side, he mumbled.”

The therapist responded, “that’s fine let’s just go through with the  exercise to help you overcome your challenges.” The therapist started by offering condolences and declared, “ first of all l just want to say, l’m so sorry to hear about your wife passing away.” The man was shocked and uttered, “what are you talking about?, my wife didn’t pass away, she is alive and healthy!”

 The therapist muttered, “oh has a healthy wife, alive and wrote it down.” Then he announced, “before we go any further, you must be devastated about your house burning down and you have been left with nothing!” The  middle aged man replied, “my house didn’t burn down, l have a beautiful house.”  The therapist commented,  “ he has a beautiful house, noted  it on the list.”

 Then he conveyed,  “one last thing before we get  started, “l’m very sorry to hear about how you got laid off your job and now you have no income, how are you going to make it?”  The man shouted, “where are you getting this information from, l didn’t lose my job, l have a good job he insisted.” The therapist also noted  down that he has a good job.

 Suddenly the man caught on and he demanded, “give me that list!” He wrote down loads of other things that he was grateful for in his life. He walked out of the therapist’s office with a whole new attitude and outlook on life!

When we make a deliberate effort to  talk about the good in our lives, we  defeat wrong thoughts. Yes wrong thoughts are defeated with words not with other thoughts. Words create the circumstances of our lives!

Growing up in Zimbabwe, sadly this is something l heard more often than l would have liked. It was a difficult time of our past and I’m glad it’s over!

Zimbabwe was a British colony for approximately 165 years before gaining independence in 1980. Since then, we have been on a slippery slope to poverty.

 I wanted to understand why we had fought for freedom and yet it remained illusive to us. I knew that a lot of people had lost their lives to achieve freedom, Zanu Pf made sure that everyone was kept informed of this.

That’s when I came across literature on the power of conditioning and how that affects how we have responded to freedom.   The question is, did we really understand the burden of freedom?

 In my journey of studying the power of conditioning, l came across a science journal. The scientist’s team leashed a dog to a stake. Then they put the animal’s food just out of reach. When the dog tried  to get the food, he hurt himself because his leash wasn’t long enough. Every time he lunged toward the food, he felt pain.

By the fourth week of this cruel experiment, the dog stayed right by the stake. He didn’t even try to reach for the food. During  the fifth week they removed the dog’s leash and put him two feet away from the food . But by now the dog stayed next to the stake. The animal refused to go near the food. He had been so conditioned by the pain that kept him from reaching the food that, although he was free to eat again, he believed he couldn’t. That dog almost starved to death during the last seven weeks of his testing. He wouldn’t move from the stake even though the food was accessible. They actually had to pick the dog up and carry him to the food to slowly recondition him.

Most countries in Africa are now having to rely on aid from their previous colonisers or they would starve to death just like that dog in the experiment. The politicians in Africa do not seem to understand that freedom carries a burden of responsibility.

Instead of building infrastructure they spend their time travelling, shopping and utilising health services from other well organised nations. They blame everything and everyone apart from themselves for their dilemma.

The Zimbabwean government has been blaming the sanctions imposed on them by the governments in the west. What l didn’t realise was that these sanctions were imposed whilst Zimbabwe was still colonised, known as the Southern Rhodesia then.  However, the Smith dispensation was able to thrive despite these sanctions and the country became so prosperous that it was labelled the bread basket of Africa!

On the other hand, since Zanu PF took over, plenty other precious minerals have been discovered in Zimbabwe. It has not impacted the economy of the country, due to mismanagement and their corrupt ways of handling resources.

The above experiment although cruel demonstrated that when the mind of an animal is conditioned, it will live within the limitations imposed upon it even after it is set free! There is no way to walk to freedom without shouldering it’s responsibility. The people of Zimbabwe do not appear or feel free at all because of the government’s failure to manage resources.

Without mental transformation, the actions we take to change may only produce a new place where we continue to do our old things. The answer lies in renewing our mind and not blaming others. They spent years conditioning us and we have to spend years educating ourselves! It starts with each and every one of us!

A psychologist conducting a stress management seminar, began by telling everyone how everyday we are faced with challenges which help us grow and help define us.  He explained that sometimes  when stress creeps in, it makes things seem impossible and can even paralyse us, preventing us from doing things that need to be done.

 To illustrate, he poured water into a drinking glass and asked all the students how heavy they estimated the  glass of water to be?   One student thought it contained 8 ounces,  another estimated 12 ounces, someone mentioned 16 ounces.

The  psychologist then  declared  that the absolute weight of the glass didn’t matter at all.  He insisted that, it depends on how long you  hold onto it? He stated that if he holds onto it for a minute nothing happens. If he holds it for an hour his arm will begin to ache. If he holds it all day long his arm will feel numb and paralysed.

  The weight of the glass will not have changed but the longer l hold onto it, the heavier it becomes, he reasoned. The psychologist maintained that the  stresses and worries of life  are like the glass of water.  If you think about them for a little while, there is no problem.  If you think about it for a little bit longer, it begins to hurt. If you think about them all day long, you will feel paralysed and incapable of doing anything. Always remember to put the glass down

One day a professor entered the classroom and asked her students to prepare for a surprise test.

They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor walked around the class and handed the question papers with the text facing down wards. Once, she handed them all out she asked her students to turn the page and begin…

To everyone’s surprise they were no questions just a black dot in the centre of the page.

The professor explained, to everyone’s confusion that she wanted them to write what they saw on the page.  The worried students began to do what they had been told to do.

At the end of the class, the professor took all the answers and read them aloud in front of the students. All of them, with no exceptions described the black dot, trying to explain it’s position in the middle of the sheet. After all the answers had been read the classroom was silent, the professor began to explain….

“I’m not going to grade you on this test, I just wanted to give you something to think about.”

“No one wrote about the white part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot and the same happens in our lives. We have a large side of the white paper. Many wonderful things we have or happening around us but we take all of it for granted and we focus our attention and energy only on the small, dotlike failures and disappointments. The health issues, the money that we need, the luxuries we don’t have, relationships, complications , problems with family members disappointments with friends and so on.

Life is a special gift and we always have reasons to celebrate. It is changing and renewing everyday. Our friends, jobs, livelihood, love, family and all the miracles we could see. We need to realise that the dark spots are very small and only few. And yet we allow these to pollute our minds. Take your eyes away from the black spots in your life. Enjoy each one of your blessings each moment that life gives you.

 Whilst teaching timetables in school one day.   The teacher started by writing the nine times table on the board. She deliberately put the wrong answer for the first sum. 

9×1=7

9×2=18

9×3=27

9×4=36

9×5=45

9×6=54

9×7=63

9×8=72

9×9=81

9×10=90

For the rest of the list she wrote the timetable correctly. When she was finished, she looked at the students and they were laughing at her because she had got the first sum wrong.

The teacher then explained to them that she had wrote that first sum wrong on purpose to teach them something important. She informed them she had deliberately done that to demonstrate how ruthless the world is. She pointed out to the students that although she had wrote the timetable correctly nine times, everybody had ignored that fact to focus on the one error she had made. No one congratulated her for getting nine correct answers. Instead they had all laughed and criticised her for the one sum she got wrong.

I heard about a study carried out by Harvard University.  The main purpose of this study was to challenge whether our perception, of how much exercise we are getting has any effect on how our bodies look. The study was conducted on two groups of hotel maids.

 Hotel maids spend the majority of their days lugging heavy equipment around hallways. Their work is mostly physical. However, the hotel maids themselves didn’t see themselves as physically active. When asked if they exercise in a survey, more than half of them reported that they didn’t exercise at all.  The researchers were surprised by this since their job was mostly exercise and they also exceeded the target for the recommended daily exercise. Whats more, they also didn’t seem to be benefiting from their activity.

The researcher’s measured their body fat, waist, blood pressure, weight and BMI. All indicators matched the maid’s perceived amount of exercise, rather than their actual amount of exercise.

 They were divided into two groups.   In one group, the researchers carefully went through each of the tasks which they did each day, explaining how many calories those tasks burned. They were informed that their activity already met the recommended target of acceptable active lifestyle.

The other group was given no information at all.

One month later the researchers returned to obtain physical measurements and they were astonished by the results! In the group that had been educated there was a decrease in their blood pressure, weight and waist measurements. However there were no changes in the measurements in the group given no information.

Whilst conducting the research, the team surveyed both groups and found no indication that they had altered their routines in any way. The only change applied was changing the mindset of one group.

On a dark, cold and grey day during a downpour, two marketers wake up in their different locations. The first one jumps up from the bed when his alarm goes off. He draws the curtain back and noticed how terrible the weather is. Makes up his mind quickly and resolves that it’s insane to go out in that type of weather!  Greatly, feels relief as he steps back into bed. After all, he consoles himself  probably not many businesses  will open that day anyway,  due to bad weather. He slips back into a nice warm bed.

The second person also wakes up and does exactly the same as the first man. Draws the curtain back and upon seeing the unusual weather, quickly, makes a decision. He is filled with a deep sense of determination and he concludes that the different weather makes it a perfect day to go selling because they are bound to be no other salesman.  Infact, he is certain that most salesman, do not go out in this kind of weather so  that would give him an advantage as he would be able to access their share of customers too.