WRITTEN WORDS

Be Happy in LIFE Inspiration - February 2006

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means, what I want and what I fear
– Joan Didion

Use writing in your personal development During my childhood, long before I started writing, books were my best friends. I know they were for many others too. Books were there to learn from, to give us information, to expand our visual world with pictures, to enhance our imagination and take us to worlds that existed only in our heads, worlds of fairies and amazing creatures, worlds of hope, dreams and adventures.

The fast-track era, with its live broadcasts, endless number of channels and immediate gratification at the press of a button, pushed the books aside. With less use of the written word, the magic of the words lost some of its spark.

7 years ago, I took a group of 30 young kids, aged 1-5, into the library in Singapore. I worked for three weeks to make this excursion happen. I can still remember the look on their faces. There were soooooo many books there, of all sizes, in all the colours, for all ages, with so many pictures and textures and so many words. I believe this visit changed their lives forever. In the first days of the computer age, people said books would disappear. I remember myself touching the books softly and wondering if the words written on a screen would have the same effect.

Deepak Chopra, in his book "The way of the Wizard", discusses the power of the words. Think of what combinations of sounds can make you feel. What do you feel when someone you care about says, "I love you"? It is not the sounds that make the feeling, it is the meaning you have for every combination. To understand the power of the words, go back to your childhood and remember how sad you felt when someone said, "You're not my friend", even if five minuets later they came back to play with you. Words have an amazing effect on us.

In the book "The four agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, the power of the words is described at a deeper level, having the ability to create the lenses through which we see our world.

In our coaching, we believe that the written words have a strong effect, since the feeling they create stays with us, on paper or on screen, to be able to read and feel again, as we wish.

In our coaching, we give a lot of weight to the written word. Where some forms of coaching mainly focus on conversation, in our coaching program, the written word has its own magic in creating the change.

Goals

Write your goals down and read them daily When dreaming our life as we want it to be, we set a course for our ship to sail towards our own Heaven on Earth. In writing our dreams, we write the story of our life. Unlike a dream that is a vision, a feeling or a thought, the written goal can be detailed and changed easily. Try this - create a vision in your head of the desired goal and try to imagine it, exactly the same way, a week, a day or even 10 minuets later. What are the chances that it will be exactly the same vision? When you write a goal, reading it will be the same, every day and every hour.

Write your goals.

Homework

If only 7% of our communication is words, how many times do we need to hear something in order to register it in our memory? 14 times! Just think about digging into your auditory memory, trying to recall certain words and learnings to keep them fresh in your mind. The written word is much more accessible and easier to reach.

Practice your new learning at home Our coaching clients, aged 9 to 65, smile when we talk to them about "homework." Most of them used to have a negative connotation to the homework concept. Homework for them was something they did for the teacher and to avoid punishment. In our program, we discuss the importance of them taking the program home and writing down their thoughts, their commitments, their understandings and their learnings. Going over the information one more time, after a day or two, has the ability to integrate the learnings into day-to-day life.

Tell me, how many times have you read a book, gone to a seminar or learned something that was wonderful and after a while the effect started fading and all that was left was a vague memory of a feeling? Most people report that snaps, one-time solutions without reinforcement, fade within two to three days. Homework is a name for the concept that helps the memory keep something alive in our head. It helps us repeat, recall and learn to integrate our learnings into life.

Love your homework. It reinforces your learning.

Actions

Another aspect of the importance of the written word in our program is the action step. Imagine holding in your head a "to do list" for 6 months ahead. This might be a bit much, right?

Many clients benefit a lot from writing down their action steps, because:

Writing action steps eases the feeling of overload/overwhelm by chunking goals down into manageable chunks. Once you have the list, you've "paved" the road to your next milestone.
Writing action steps helps to prioritise your "to do list." Once the list is in order of priority, you know what to do next, which increases your feelings of control and confidence.
Writing action steps allows you to focus on one thing at a time, decide what resources are required, how long each step will take and how to overcome potential obstacles to completion. More focus means more effectiveness.
Writing your own action steps creates commitment, a promise to yourself to make it happen.
Ticking your action steps when you're done gives you a sense of achievement and fulfilment.

Click here to download the Be Happy in LIFE Action List.

Write down your action steps.

Quotes and inspirational writing

Quotes are a great way to consolidate learning Quotes offer a wonderful way to experience the magic of the written word. A quote is a mixture of words that, when read individually, has no meaning, but while put together can transfer a concept, an amazing feeling and great wisdom. It is a summary of many words, lots of experiences, many books and stories, condensed into a concise and powerful paragraph.

Quotes are the essences of learning. We need the learnings to enjoy and fully understand the quote, but we don't need to carry hundreds of books and memories and experiences. A quote, a phrase, a poem or an inspiring short writing, can ease the load. We can read the quote or the writing to help us create a desired feeling.

Read! Read! Read!

Summarise your learnings into short, inspiring writings you can carry with you and re-read whenever you need.

People become authors because they wish to pass on a massage. Some say that authors are very happy if they succeed in passing on one or two massages in their books. I don't know about others, but I wish to pass on many massages in my writing. I wish to bring the magic and power back into reading with every word I write. For me, writing brings a combination of words together to create the magic of feeling, understanding and growing.

In the new world of more TV and less reading, many words have disappeared, many dreams have shattered and many goals have faded. We, at the Be Happy in LIFE family, wish to help bring the power of the written word back to life. So when you read a book, to allow the magic to enter your life fully, ask yourself these four questions:

Why am I reading this book? What are my expectations from reading it? (Goals)
What are the messages this book has for me? (Homework)
What can I do with the learnings from this book to make a difference in my life? (Action steps)
What quotes and inspiration I can take from this book, which will summarise the learning from my reading? (Quotes and inspirational writing)

By following these four questions, you can bring every written word into its proper place. Every book will become the wand with which you create the magic of the feelings you wish to have in your life. Instead of reading or experiencing it all again to obtain the feeling, you can read the summary of the learning at any time. You can surround yourself with the learnings and adopt them as part of your belief system.

Books and stories are good friends. They can help us feel and think and learn. They have lots more to give us. Lots more than what we take.