Perhaps you are one of many millions of people all around the world who want to achieve personal success. Perhaps, you are someone who has set goals and set your mind to achieve these goals. Maybe, you have even been successful. At least for a while. The irony of the pursuit of success is that it begins to feed people in different ways. Some people are fed the success of wealth. Others, the success of love. And still others, the success of wisdom. Whatever the case, the Paradox Principle is what drives ultimate success in the world. Our job is to be able to accept the Paradoxes that occur in our lives, and be able to flexibly maneuver through these apparent obstacles to manage our successes.

Paradox Unleashed

When an individual expresses the desire to achieve something, a chain reaction begins. The intention to reach out causes different kinds of action and reaction. So, you set your target to be wealthy. The moment you do that, the environment begins to feel the pulse of your activity. In some cases, the very act of movement causes the Ripple Effect in consciousness. People who are supportive add to the positive impact of that goal. But others, who may act against it in jealousy and fear, intrude either consciously or unconsciously.

And in addition, our invisible forces within ourselves cause a tremendous flux. You may seek to achieve success but internal beliefs may skew you in a different direction. You know that achieving your goals is a good thing but the reality is very different. It could be an interplay of your emotions, your memories, your beliefs, your values,  your personality and your identity.

The Paradox of Emotion

When moving toward your goals, there might be a tussle. In many cases, the idea is that you need to be highly driven or motivated to achieve your goal. Most people don’t think that there is any other way to achieve. It’s a myth that it’s all hype. Sometimes, it is despair, fear, compassion and love that propel us forward. It requires one to be more focused in seeking out an emotional state that is effective in helping us achieve our desired outcome. The paradox of emotion is simply this: many people think that emotion is ‘natural’, and therefore whatever we ‘fake’ into doing in not real. In reality, you can change your emotional state if you have the appropriate tools. This is not control or faking. It’s simply knowing how emotional states function. In the world of NLP, we talk about solution states and problem states. Problem states lead us to ineffective outcomes. Solution states help us to counteract those problematic states and lead us to more effective outcomes.

The Paradox Of Memory

When was the last time you had an argument? In that argument, did you feel your point of view was correct? Ironically, when I ask that question, there are many people who will vehemently say they were in the right. But you can put the same arguing parties in the same room and they both will raise their hands to say they were correct in their argument. What gives?

Interestingly, it is not the accuracy of their memories that is the problem. The issue is the acceptance of that point of view that is the problem. In many cases, there have been instances where people may actually develop experiences that are not real, but fantasized.

Memories may not serve a person well because of a simple fact – we do not re-investigate our memories. When you were a very young child, you would have remembered a house as much bigger than today. The main problem is not that the house became smaller, but you became bigger physically. I remember clearly, the days I spent at my grandmother’s house in Malacca. As a 7-year old child, I definitely remember the room as really big and spacious. After many years not visiting and I returned as an adult, the room was familiar but felt much smaller and crammed. I was 21 years old, and my mind was reconciling the ‘space’ difference… in my mind.

If the brain has to keep updating this information through time, and we can recognize this for physical changes, will we be able to recognize these changes in our beliefs and values? For instance, why is it that sometimes, you get upset by someone without realizing why it was so important that you got upset? She could have made a passing remark, and you got irritated. Could it be that the memory you used to have has yet to be updated?

I remember I used to get irritated by the phrase “you’re too young to do xyz” because I felt it was not fair to judge my capabilities based on my age alone. I also heard this being used on others sometimes, and the feeling of unfair judgement crept in once again. It was all too familiar, and until I investigated it, I didn’t know where it came from, how it was related to me and why it was taking up a lot of decision-making processing speed psychologically, when working in teams. Perhaps back then, hiring a young team (and not wanting to admit that they were really not mature enough to handle certain things in a business) was my way of making things work for me… until it (paradoxically) didn’t.

The Paradox Of Beliefs And Values

There will be situations where you strive to achieve success. On one hand it gives you great satisfaction to reach out to get your success. You may sense the initial euphoria of achievement. At the same time, that kind of success will bring additional new challenges. Sure, you reach for wealth and attain it, but the challenges come  along with that. The temptation to flaunt it. The haunting thought if the friends you have are genuine. The ability to control and manage it. The ability to use it wisely. When your wealth creates more problems for you, it creates a split in your soul. How can it be that something you have worked so hard to achieve have such disappointing results?

Well, to be frank, it’s not the result that is the problem. The issue stems from the fact that you are blaming the outcome in the first place. Let’s suppose you are walking (action) toward your house (goal). In the process, you fell into a hole and broke your ankle (obstacle). Somehow you overcame that obstacle (change strategy). However, you did not go back to the root cause of the problem (broken ankle). You continued to execute your original plan of working toward your outcome. It now hurts to walk toward your house, when it was so easy before. Now, because of the simplistic “cause and effect” thinking of our chronological mind, we associate the pain with the outcome rather than figuring out how to heal the ankle!

So, you end up with two minds. The outcome is exciting for you, but it hurts to move toward it. The value of achievement conflicts with the value of love. The feeling of intimacy conflicts with the fear of betrayal. All these are commonplace conflicts but many of us don’t understand the psychological impact it can have on goals – you literally freeze and don’t do anything! Unfortunately, then it’s taken as ‘procrastination’ when in reality, you might have a psychological gap that stops you from proceeding.

This is the manifestation of a conflict within you, and will require some form of healing and inner therapy to resolve. Hey, if Windows needs updating due to patch fixes, I don’t see why a human wouldn’t need one of these once in a while too.

The Paradox Of Personality

It is said that personality is fixed at our true core, according to Jung. While this is true, finding this true core personality is very difficult because we change different environments and therefore shift our behavior accordingly. There have been countless situations where I have been deemed an extravert by many people. But I don’t derive energy from interacting with people always. There are good friends whom I would expend my energy with, but extraversion activities mostly drain me (yes, that includes training in a seminar).  It doesn’t mean that Jung wasn’t correct. It merely means we need to learn how to hit a moving target.

Imagine I met someone whom at face value took me to be an extravert and we started to work with each other on projects. In no time, you would find that this creates tension in me because this is not my typical mode of work. Ironically, that which got me this project contact also drains me further!

I like to put this in the context of the dating. We all know that we behave differently in times of stress. Imagine you met your life partner when you were performing at your best, and vice versa. You’d know when there was a ‘dip’ and your partner required support. However, imagine if you met your life partner when both of you were at your worst. You’d still be attracted to each other, it’s just that you’d be attracted to their ‘shadow’ self.

The question is so obvious: do you really know your personality? Do you know when it wavers? Are you even aware that when you interact with people under different situations and levels of stress, that you behave differently and create impressions of yourself differently with the people around you? What kind of impact is that likely to have on your desired goals and direction? What if… the fact that you set the goal affects your personality? The systemic repercussions are going to be important to consider, and a high level of self awareness would be a requirement as you progress toward your outcomes.

The Paradox Of Identity

I mentioned in my last article on Identity that certain conflicts may occur. I didn’t offer solutions related to the consequences arising from those conflicts largely because it would take quite a long time to explain. However, I think it warrants a short answer at least.

When you are stuck between your idea of yourself and others’ expectations of you, you end up being driven toward stagnation. It is happening almost everywhere: when parents drive their children to choose careers they did not want; when employees expect certain things of their employers; when a man expects unrealistic things of his spouse or children.

These expectations themselves are not ‘bad’. But as an analogy, have you ever loaded a PS3 CD into a PC or Mac? I mean, they are all running on completely different platforms and you can hardly expect them to work. Likewise, your expectations are definitely different from your parents’/employers’/spouse… but what is your ‘why’ behind it? It is easier for them to buy into the reason why because if it is meaningful, there will be consensus. If it isn’t meaningful, then there will be dissent.

Coming back to your own idea of identity, imagine that one side of you feels that you should be a winner in life. You’ve experienced that in life. But at the same time, there might be another side that expects you to fail, and that was also a past experience. Rather than resolving this inner conflict, you suppressed it. So, left forgotten, it manifests itself in procrastination and not wanting to take action on things unless some kind of awareness is built around this issue.

So is it really serious? Well, many of the conflicts stem from past interpretations of situations. All it requires is an update to be downloaded. Into your brain. Such a process is known as reimprinting in NLP. I’ve used the process (of course modified to suit each individual’s differences) to help them gain clarify in life purpose and direction, resolve inner conflicts and problems, and come to terms with difficulties in their life.

The Paradoxical Conclusion… It’s Just The Beginning!

Okay, so ironically, such difficulties don’t just stop there. They are simply the beginning of the future. Who knows what other issues we might face, real or imagined. The most important thing is to realize that just as we need to brush and floss our teeth on a regular basis to prevent cavities, we need to grow to achieve success. That growing never ends.

I just had a flash of insight a couple of hours ago because I was in the middle of doing an unprecedented in-house training for a group of my trainers. While we all had a fun time with “mind blowing” details (I was teaching them the dynamics of marketing online), it somehow struck me that there are things that people are “interested” in doing, but won’t do. There are also things that people are “obsessed” with doing, that no matter what happens, they MUST do.

I got a little surprised myself because I thought about what makes me want to do something versus what I don’t like to do, and what struck me was that I really enjoyed working with people and seeing them learn, but seriously dislike it when people aren’t able to learn. And I don’t mean this intellectually – I mean it viscerally in my gut. It’s a reaction to their reaction of the inability to grasp information.

So as I thought about the implications of this, it could mean two things. First, it could mean that it might force me to be a better trainer. Second, it could mean that it might make me ignore certain things in an audience simply because I might want to have the illusion that I’m doing a great training. Ultimately, I don’t just want to do good training or pretend that it was, I want to make sure that the people around me “get it” regardless of how I feel, the participant must be more competent to take action.

This is the kind of awareness I tell people to partake in regularly because I find that it is so illuminating. Without this kind of insight, we can never learn to improve. It is self-awareness of things that propel you and the forces that repel you that make you discover more about who you are and what you do.

For example, do you know what you believe? And, do you know that your beliefs could damage you? One idea behind the Law of Attraction (that many people have mistakenly thought originates from the documentary ‘The Secret) is that whatever your beliefs are shape you and attract like things.

photo credit: myuibe

Now, I don’t want to me mystical and tell you that it’s about universal reverberations. Let’s just focus on your thoughts. What happens when you have a negative or disempowering belief? If you have always feared going up on stage, the prospect of doing it actually creates a physiological chain reaction. Not only does it prevent you from being your confident best, it also prevents you from opening yourself to a different interpretation to on-stage success. The stress leads to a release of a neuro-chemical known as cortisol, which, if in your system for the long term, causes bodily aches and pains. What now happens is that the thing you fear, is literally causing you more pain, and becomes cyclical. The more pain you feel, the more you associate it with other negative beliefs about your life, your age, etc. The result: a nervous breakdown.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that this is bad for your future, and it has really nothing to do with universal vibrations. All it is, is your reduction of strength from a very real, physical limitation placed on yourself through your beliefs.

photo credit: Lazurite

Until someone points out to you “hey – in the past you were just nervous but nowadays you seem to have gotten really frustrated and angry when told you have to do a presentation” do you realize that something has to change.

I believe that self-awareness comes with practice. Not everyone is able to gain self-awareness because we keep getting caught up in the day-to-day, getting distracted, and missing time for ourselves. Maybe it’s time to re-prioritize. Maybe it’s time to make time to listen to our inner thoughts, reflecting on why we do the things we do, and re-calibrating ourselves toward our success.

People learn to make choices in life, but we don’t always know what kinds of choices to make. We know that in order to achieve results, we need to spring into action – one of the fundamental choices we can make (choosing to act).

I believe the next choice we need to make is to see from all angles. If something is perceived only from one angle (usually the one we favor) then it may not always be the clearest picture.

In attending a motivational program, many people forget that the choices they make are the choices they have to own. If you discovered that you have to change your job, then make sure you do it out of clarity rather than impulse (which many people do).

Impulsive change is not what you want. You want massive action based on clarity of awareness.

I believe the second choice we have to make is the choice of sustaining a reaction. Sure, we learn that we can react to negative things, but we also seldom learn to look out for and react to positive events in our lives. We say that we can treat a negative issue in a positive light. But even if you had a good day, do you know how to keep that positive reaction? How do you respond to that? Do you sometimes let that fade? Perhaps, you could

• be grateful
• strive for an even better outcome
• appreciate those who were involved in that event

Sustaining change is just as important as initiating change.

One other choice I believe we need to learn to make is the choice of course correction. Not everything in our lives goes smoothly all the time. In fact many of the things we decide to do will never go smoothly or perfectly. Instead, we need to learn how to go with the flow and be able to change the course that we are on. This is important because we need to also remember that there should be flexibility in the application of the method. Too many times, people give up and don’t move toward their goals and end up changing their goals.

Finally, I believe the choice for us to stop and look at ourselves and reflect on our behaviors is also important for personal development. Without doing this, our life goes on by without us having the time to think about what we do in the first place, and then to ask ourselves if this is a meaningful behavior. A lot of the time, meaning is lost in our action, because we know how to sustain it but we don’t know how to enrich our behavior with meaning. Meaningfulness, I believe will be the ultimate reason why we grow.