A man goes to a doctor & says, “ Doc, I’ve got this splitting headache for days . I don’t know what to do.’
The doctor looks at him for a minute & says, ‘Stop hitting yourself with that hammer!’
The man is stunned, then smiles at the Doctor & says, ’Thanks doc!’ & walks away.
I’m sure you got what I’m trying to say here. What the doctor meant was that the man was unnecessarily stressing himself out. Stress was the ‘hammer’ causing the headaches.
Stop a second & think of those little ‘hammers’ pounding away at your head from time to time. They are all self created, by your reaction to the people & situations around you.
Most of us who have read some self development book or attended a ‘personality development’ course would have heard this line before…. that all stress is self created,…..that it is not the situation but our reaction to the situation that’s causing us the pain.
OK, so how come all the ‘little hammers’ are still in our head?
The answer is …..we are not letting go of those ‘hammers’. We’ve become so ‘comfortable’ with them that if we don’t’ have ‘stress’ in our lives, we actually feel uncomfortable!
I know a guy who just can’t enjoy the good times. If he’s had three good days, he thinks , ‘This is too good to last .I know that a big problem is coming my way soon!’
When we kids, our parents would scold us if we laughed a lot & had a good time. They would say,’ Don’t laugh too much now. You are going to cry a lot later.’
That’s the craziest thing to say to impressionable young minds. This teaches them to focus on the negative all the time & grow up to become worried, stressed people. Instead if they told us, ‘Remember to laugh like this when you face the next problem because no problem is bigger or stronger than you!’ Just think how that would affect us?
It would make us stronger & help us cope with stress. It would teach us that whatever the stress, we can handle it if we think differently. We cannot avoid the little ‘hammers’ totally but can control the size & intensity of their pounding.
I use this method when things are going a little out of control . I ask myself:
1. ‘What’s the worst that can happen in this situation? ( definitely not death!?)
2. Is the situation stronger or am I stronger? ( I am a living being with strength & abilities while the situation is an inanimate, time bound event which will pass. )
The next steps are important:
3. What is the thing that I’m doing that is causing the situation? Let me do less of it .
4. What is the one thing that I must do that will make things better?
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey asks readers to
answer two questions:
*What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a regular
basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?
*What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?
Your answers to these questions will tend to sit squarely in the middle of what
Covey calls 'Quadrant 2' activities - those things in life which are important but not
urgent. By choosing to place these items onto our daily schedule and at the
heart of our daily routine, we are planting seeds of greatness and resourcefulness which we will be able to harvest at those times in our life when we need them most.
Try it out & tell me!
May the ‘hammers’ in your mind vanish!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article is part of 'Powerful Thoughts ' - a fortnightly ezine from GREATSCOPE. To recieve this, send mail to
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From India, Mumbai
2The doctor looks at him for a minute & says, ‘Stop hitting yourself with that hammer!’
The man is stunned, then smiles at the Doctor & says, ’Thanks doc!’ & walks away.
I’m sure you got what I’m trying to say here. What the doctor meant was that the man was unnecessarily stressing himself out. Stress was the ‘hammer’ causing the headaches.
Stop a second & think of those little ‘hammers’ pounding away at your head from time to time. They are all self created, by your reaction to the people & situations around you.
Most of us who have read some self development book or attended a ‘personality development’ course would have heard this line before…. that all stress is self created,…..that it is not the situation but our reaction to the situation that’s causing us the pain.
OK, so how come all the ‘little hammers’ are still in our head?
The answer is …..we are not letting go of those ‘hammers’. We’ve become so ‘comfortable’ with them that if we don’t’ have ‘stress’ in our lives, we actually feel uncomfortable!
I know a guy who just can’t enjoy the good times. If he’s had three good days, he thinks , ‘This is too good to last .I know that a big problem is coming my way soon!’
When we kids, our parents would scold us if we laughed a lot & had a good time. They would say,’ Don’t laugh too much now. You are going to cry a lot later.’
That’s the craziest thing to say to impressionable young minds. This teaches them to focus on the negative all the time & grow up to become worried, stressed people. Instead if they told us, ‘Remember to laugh like this when you face the next problem because no problem is bigger or stronger than you!’ Just think how that would affect us?
It would make us stronger & help us cope with stress. It would teach us that whatever the stress, we can handle it if we think differently. We cannot avoid the little ‘hammers’ totally but can control the size & intensity of their pounding.
I use this method when things are going a little out of control . I ask myself:
1. ‘What’s the worst that can happen in this situation? ( definitely not death!?)
2. Is the situation stronger or am I stronger? ( I am a living being with strength & abilities while the situation is an inanimate, time bound event which will pass. )
The next steps are important:
3. What is the thing that I’m doing that is causing the situation? Let me do less of it .
4. What is the one thing that I must do that will make things better?
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey asks readers to
answer two questions:
*What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a regular
basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?
*What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?
Your answers to these questions will tend to sit squarely in the middle of what
Covey calls 'Quadrant 2' activities - those things in life which are important but not
urgent. By choosing to place these items onto our daily schedule and at the
heart of our daily routine, we are planting seeds of greatness and resourcefulness which we will be able to harvest at those times in our life when we need them most.
Try it out & tell me!
May the ‘hammers’ in your mind vanish!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article is part of 'Powerful Thoughts ' - a fortnightly ezine from GREATSCOPE. To recieve this, send mail to
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From India, Mumbai
Many times, Stress is brought about by Worry. As someone once said, "If the problem does not have a solution, Worrying about it is not going to solve it for you. If the problem has a solution, why worry?"
Reams of paper have been used to highlight how the human body reacts to worry--what happens to the heart, what are all the stuff that get into the bloodstream, the harmful effects of all these...The fact remains, at the end of the day, not only does the problem continue to exist, we have just added health--our health, to the list of problems facing us. I am NOT saying that all of us should become fatalistic. All I am saying is that we should look around for solutions and if these are not possible, for work-arounds and if these too are not available, for how best to handle the situation. "If something cannot be cured, it has to be endured". No two ways about it.
Let us work to get these Hammers out of the way!
Sanath
From India, Mumbai
Reams of paper have been used to highlight how the human body reacts to worry--what happens to the heart, what are all the stuff that get into the bloodstream, the harmful effects of all these...The fact remains, at the end of the day, not only does the problem continue to exist, we have just added health--our health, to the list of problems facing us. I am NOT saying that all of us should become fatalistic. All I am saying is that we should look around for solutions and if these are not possible, for work-arounds and if these too are not available, for how best to handle the situation. "If something cannot be cured, it has to be endured". No two ways about it.
Let us work to get these Hammers out of the way!
Sanath
From India, Mumbai
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