Success and happiness are in the heart

Success and happiness are in the heart

Tim Connor

The heart is the most important organ in the body.  Yes you need every other organ to function correctly but when the heart stops – well it’s over. Few people grasp that the heart is more than an organ that just pumps blood every minute of every day.

You’ve heard it – what does your heart tell you?  Does this mean the heart has feelings, emotions, can give you guidance on important matters or questions or is generally an insignificant aspect of life’s decisions, outcomes or behaviors?

Everything I have read over the years tells me to listen to my heart and not just my brain when considering challenges or opportunities.  For, years I accepted this guidance but didn’t really know what it meant or how to do it.

How can the heart think or feel?  I thought these were brain functions. Let me ask you – have you ever made a decision that you justified but it didn’t feel right? And the outcome or consequences?

Years ago I read in a powerful book, that said, “The most important thing we need to do to be happy and successful is to take the 18 inch journey from the mind to the heart when we need to make decisions, take actions or just learn to live life.” When I read those words frankly I didn’t know what they meant let alone how to take this journey but over the years it has become much clearer.  Let me explain.

The human body is a very complex organism and its trillions of actions it takes every second are carefully crafted and coordinated.  Research has proven that every cell has memory and this includes every cell in your heart.  What does this mean when cells remember?  Or better still can they do more - that we just haven’t discovered yet?

These are questions I have pondered for many years as it was my early life goal to be a neurosurgeon (just never made it).

The body is far more complex than the best researchers or physicians realize.  It does things every second and we haven’t figured out how or why, we just know that these functions give us life.

So, one has to wonder if the cells in the heart are better equipped to help us make wise decisions than brain cells?  Evidence is beginning to surface that say the answer is yes.

Scripture says in multiple locations that we need to live form our heart.  Psychologists are beginning to understand that when actions are taken just from brain memories we often go astray.

I’m not qualified to question the research in either area but I know when I have made decisions only from my brain, things have always tended to turn out badly or even wrong.  Why?  Did I fail to honor feelings or urgings from my heart and did I mistake these heartfelt feelings or emotions and assume they were coming from my mind?

How can we really know where this council is coming from especially if we don’t have the appropriate backgrounds or benefits of years of research?  We can’t.  But what we can do is pay attention, listen and heed.

Often heart messages feel like they are coming from our gut.  We feel anxious or nervous when we feel we are heading in a wrong direction.  Been there?  Of course it’s part of our makeup.  The question is – what do we listen to – our thoughts, memories or mindsets that have developed over the years or from feelings, emotions or urgings that we can’t identify or often ever grasp or understand.

Our soul or spirit wants us to be happy, at peace and content and its messages guiding us in this direction come at us constantly even if very subtly.

The ability to come at life from the heart is not difficult if we will just pay attention and listen to its guidance, but most of us over the years have been trained to look at everything from a mental or mind perspective justifying, acting and deciding based on previous experience or thought patterns (what many refer to as our our mental maps).

True success and happiness requires that we do both – think and feel if we want the best possible outcomes and that we use the messages from both the heart and the mind when making decisions or taking actions.  But the real life success will only come when we let the heart lead and the mind follow.

“The key to success is for you to make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear."

 Vincent Van Gogh

Regret weighs tons

Regret weighs tons

Tim Connor

Got any regrets? Who doesn’t?  Stressing you out? Why – nothing you can do about them now!

One of the common reasons why people fail to achieve happiness, contentment and inner peace in life is due to previous regrets – things done and things not done and often things said and things not said.

Avoiding regret is like reliving the past (ain’t possible folks) however, you can recognize where and why you have taken or avoided actions in the past and do a better job of not repeating many of these similar mistakes in the future. Is this possible?  Of course but it takes thoughtful introspection, analysis of why you do or don’t do things and then the courage, faith and will to change.

I have many regrets and unfortunately I seem to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  Am I crazy or just normal like the rest of the world?  Well, I’d like to think I am normal but when I consider some of my mistakes, decisions and inactions and yes, actions, 

I could be either crazy, out of touch or stupid.  Yes, I am writing this and I just called myself stupid – so what does that make you – reading it?  I’m not calling you stupid but if you come to some of the same conclusions I have after some careful thought – well – call it what you will.  But, the point is, can we do a better job of avoiding disappointment and regret in the future?  Yes we can.  Can we avoid all future regrets?  I seriously doubt it.  So why worry, just keep making mistakes and creating more regrets?

OK, Tim how about a few suggestions rather than more of the above?  Great idea, so here goes.

Life happens, people do things, we can’t control everything and actually very little but we can control our decisions, actions and behavior but we can’t control the outcome of these so what’s left?  Consider. . .

There are four kinds of regret; Things said, things not said, things done and things not done.

Let’s start with things said.

Most of the regrets from things said are done during stressful, emotional or fearful times. We blurt out stuff we don’t mean just stuff that we feel when we say it will make us feel better.  Well, if you’ve ever done this it might have made you feel better at the time but I’ll guarantee the words spoken will at some point come back and haunt you regardless of who they were said to – a spouse, friend, customer, boss or child.

The way to avoid these types of situations is when you are feeling any negative emotion that is triggered by another person or a circumstance is to stop and take what I call a “quality pause”.  Simply stop and count to five slowly but while counting – say to yourself – I have a choice – I can let this person or circumstance control me or I can control me – which do I choose at this moment?

Things not said.

I can’t tell you how many people I have met that have told me they have lost a loved one and there were so many things left unsaid or questions not asked.  If they are gone, there is no solution to this however, with the people who are still in your life you can avoid repeating this mistake and how?

Tell people what you want them to know every chance you get.  Ask them the questions you want answers to.  Don’t wait.  Do it now, today, this week or it may be too late.

Things done.

Made a bad career choice? Made an unwise financial decision? Picked the wrong life partner?  Drove too fast on a snowy day? Eaten the wrong foods for too many years? This list could go on for hundreds of pages but I’ll spare you my rambling but let me ask you – are you still beating yourself up due to some of these poor past choices, decisions, actions or behaviors?  Why?  What good is it doing you now?  You can change things now, but you can’t change things from the past.  It’s done, over, finished – let it go.  But if they are important for your future – fix it, change it, do it.

Things not done.

If I talk with one more person who says they wish they had . . . years ago or even yesterday I think I will scream.  I know, you were too young, too old, too broke, too busy, had kids, had a new business or job, had aging parents – excuses folks all of them.

During my career I have spoken in 25 countries, visited several others just for fun, sailed the Caribbean, cruises to Alaska, Europe and Greece, tried out for the Olympic trials . . . blah, blah blah . . . but I still have a lot on my bucket list – stuff not done yet.

You can’t visit Bora Bora, Fiji or Bermuda after you are dead.  You can’t learn to play the guitar after you are dead.  You can’t hike the Grand Canyon after you are dead.  So create your bucket list and get started.

And the conclusion.

There are no valid excuses for not living life to the fullest (you choose how you define fullest) but believe me – regrets cost; happiness, inner peace, contentment and often remorse and even discouragement.  So the answer is – start – something, anything and start now.

“The things you will regret the most in life are the things you didn’t do.”

Michael Curtiz

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

What do you do

when you don’t know what to do?

Tim Connor

Feeling stuck?  Uncertain? Afraid? Conflicted?  Join the ever growing club of good people who feel out of control whether it’s their business, career, relationships, finances or just life in general.

I can’t tell you how many times during my life I was at my wits end to know what to do when given unexpected and often dramatic circumstances that I was unprepared for.  What to do?  Will this work?  Should I wait? What if I..? I have tried everything and nothing is working.

Was it fear, a lack of preparation or planning, ego domination or some other trait or characteristic that was being tested?

What to do now or next . . . a troubling position to be in hoping that things would get better or at least not worse.

As a global speaker and bestselling author for over thirty years I often didn’t feel like I deserved the circumstances that I found myself embroiled in, but here they were nonetheless.

What can we do when we feel like we have nowhere to turn, no one we can count on or just feel like – what’s the point?  Well here is what I have learned during my long journey, I hope some of the ideas might help you if you feel like you are in a deep valley or just unsure of what your next step should be.

-Talk to people you trust and who won’t be judgmental, critical or invalidating.  Be honest and share truth with them and listen to their guidance.  You don’t have to do any of it but who knows, maybe something they say may open doors you had not considered.

-Read more. There are literally millions of resources available today and most of them are free.  But, don’t let money get in the way, if you have to buy some resource – do it.

-Hire a coach for a few sessions.  Doesn’t have to be a long term process.  Again be vulnerable, honest and forthcoming about your issues, challenges and/or fears and uncertainty.

-Let go of your pride, ego, arrogance or any other “self” trait that may be hindering your progress or process into the future. This is often the hardest step for most people, especially people who have a history of success and achievement.

-Do something, anything, get moving even if they are small and inconsequential steps.  Don’t just sit and wait for things to get better. They may but this can be a long term approach and what might you lose in the process.

-Spend time in honest and detailed self-evaluation of past and current traits, weaknesses, tendencies, approaches, philosophy, mistakes, lessons learned and reasons for all of these.

-Study the lives of mentors, heroes or other people (alive or dead, failures or successes, famous or unknown) and spend time considering their paths to greatness or to self-destruction and look for similarities in your life, career, relationships or business.

-Don’t develop a victim mentality and beat yourself up until the scars and bruises become permanent and life threatening.  Regardless of your current state you have previous skills, achievements, successes etc. that will validate who you are.

-We all face tribulations and trials sooner or later.  Accept them as simply things that have come into your life to help you grow, learn and get better and wiser. No one who has ever lived and accomplished great things whether an athlete, teacher, politician, clergy member, parent, artist, musician or any other life role did it without facing some form of adversity.

-And finally, take full responsibility for your past, present and future.  This is your life and you can do what you want with it, but you have to work, believe, act and learn or you can sit and blame, complain, feel self-pity or just useless.  It’s a simple choice.  We are all given years to live by God and we can live them productively regardless of our roles or responsibilities or we can give in to fate, circumstances or failure. But in the end, on your deathbed – will it be - blame, regrets and a lack of mature responsibility or a smile that you lived life to the best of your ability.

“This is a world of action and not for moping

and droning in.” 

Dickens

Fear and love can’t coexist

Fear and love can’t coexist

Tim Connor

What the world needs is love unfortunately what the world is experiencing now and for the foreseeable future is more fear.

There are only two basic emotions love and fear and evidence has proven that when you live your life from a center of love (not talking here about romantic love) rather than fear you will live longer, accomplish more and be happier.

If this is true, why do the majority of people let fear drive their life? Well, it’s complicated, but let me try and make it less so.

Every emotion is an offshoot of love or fear so whatever you are experiencing today; resentment or joy, anger or inner peace, uncertainty or faith, jealousy or confidence, happiness or anxiety or any other emotions - they are being driven by your basic emotional state.

Research over the years has also proven that you can’t come from love when you are dominated by fear and vice versa. So in a nutshell – love and fear can’t coexist.  Yes, the potential for both emotions and their relatives are always present and ready to surface at any time, but in any given situation regardless of its circumstances will cause you to respond according to your dominant emotional position at the time.

I could go on for pages about the various consequences of both emotional states, but suffice it to say that letting the love based emotions determine the quality of your life will always be better than the fear ones.

When I say that love and fear cannot coexist - I am basically saying that you’re conscious decisions and choices are determining which emotions you allow to be the drivers of your life.

Coexisting is essentially a sharing and the mind will permit either fear or love to dominate. The mind doesn’t judge or rule, but simply reacts based on previous experiences and their impact on your life.  It stores everything, I mean everything that you have ever thought, felt, believed and interpreted.  When a circumstance shows up in your life and these are always neutral – in other words circumstances are not bad or good but depend on your interpretation of them and you have a conscious choice as to how you will view or define these and these definitions will be the result of you defaulting back to your mind’s storage of the past - blended with your interpretation or definition of what is happening now.

Therefore if you are coming from a love perspective you will interpret these in a positive way, however if you are coming from a fear position you will do the opposite and define them in a negative way.

The question is simply – how do you want to live your life – from a fear or love position and the decision you make will be continuously reinforced by actions, choices and behaviors that are congruent with this belief or expectation.

You know which of these emotional states are dominant in your life.  If not just look around you or within you.  Are you always stressed, pessimistic, upset, disappointed, frustrated, impatient, anxious, isolated or angry?  Or, are you always accepting, playful, happy, involved and friendly?

You can’t be both positive and negative at the same time.  Yes, you can fluctuate back and forth between these based on your interpretation of various situations or events, but in every case one or the other will dominate and this domination will always be based on your; mindsets, life philosophy, attitudes, expectations, interpretation of past experiences and knowledge.

If you don’t like living in a fearful state of mind you can change this, but it takes, courage, patience, awareness, knowledge, discipline, desire and action - none of which are easy if you are or have been dominated in the past by a negative or fearful mental state.  But we always have a choice as to how we live from moment to moment.  We can let circumstances control our lives, emotions and reactions or we can take back control.

“The flocks fear the wolf, the crops the storm and

the trees the wind.”  

Virgil