Making Generalization

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, generalizations

262/365 Camouflaged
Written By Eugene Morgan

It is easy for us sometimes to make a generalization on an unpleasant event.  It is amazing how one unpleasant event can make our whole week feel like a disaster.

Our generalizations can blind us of the pleasant events that happened between the unpleasant ones. When we do remember or challenge our generalization by counting how many pleasant events we had, we begin to realize that the week wasn’t that bad after all.

We don’t have to laminate on things we can’t change but focus on how we can change our perception or how can we learn from them and know that things happen in our lives are things that happen to all of us.  It’s just some of us deal with them better than others.

Why Goals

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Goal, Potential

Train Tracks
Written By Eugene Morgan

Sometimes we give up too soon on a dream or a goal, because it seems so big, or we worry about what others may think. It’s easy to come up with excuses than to trek through the goals we set for ourselves.

Sometimes, we doubt ourselves way before we start working on the goal.  Goals are opportunities for personal growth.  Goals are deliberate.  Goals awaken our potentials. Goals are rewarding when completed.

There are short-term goals and long-term goals.  Long-term goals are mini short-term goals met steadily. Meeting short-term goals are like connecting another piece of train track for the wheel of a cart to move forward.  It’s sound tedious, because part of work will be tedious, but it’s necessary.

Adversities, But Life Continues On Anyway

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Reality, Unfairness

misfortune cookie
Written By Eugene Morgan

Adversities are a time for growth.  At times, adversities are overwhelming to deal with.  But we don’t have to be alone in our personal adversities; that’s what friend and families are for; they’re our supporters when going through misfortunes.

During adversities there seems to be a spiritual element.  We tend to ask ourselves “why is this happening to me.” But hard times are only temporary.

Misfortunes don’t have to be a liability to one’s life but an opportunity to reconnect with others. No one is without adversities; it is part of the human condition.  Life continues with and without adversities; life just continues.

Breaking down Assumptions

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: belief, Beliefs, believe, Biases, solution

O Mundo Mágico de Escher
Written By Eugene Morgan

Breaking down assumptions entails questioning our beliefs.  Sometimes we believe things without checking them out.  When we don’t check things out, we keep ourselves in the dark.  But when we do question our beliefs, liberation is upon us. We no longer have to settle for limited beliefs.  Learned beliefs are passed down from one generation to next without question. We are given the answers whether we like it or not.  And we’re not allowed to question what our parents told us.  But as adult we certainly can challenge old beliefs that are out of date in our lives.

No day is the Same

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Perspectives

Life is forever changing
Written By Eugene Morgan

Everyday is always different; it’s never the same. We will never repeat the same day, because each day is new.  A day is a gift, where it’s a new opportunity to begin anew.

One person may be experiencing a good day while another may be experiencing a bad day.  While we’re experiencing a bad day, we can recall our good days.

And while we’re experiencing our good days, we can recall how well we’ve gone through our bad days to get to where we are now. Our bad days is a time when we can focus on what really matters and our good days is a time when we can experience what really matters.

Life is a work in Progress

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, self

Work in Progress
Written By Eugene Morgan

Sometimes we allow our egos to get in the way of our progress.  We want to impress our family and friends about what we have done.  Our friends and family are supporters not our ego boosters.

We don’t have to be motivated to make it in life by impressing anyone.  Instead, we can ask ourselves how can we be better people, and what can we learn about ourselves in a certain situation?

Because life is a place where we encounter new and difficulty things, it can teach us about ourselves. And that is more important than boasting about something to our friends.

Different Personalities; Different Perspectives

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Abilities, Acceptance, Ericksonian Principles, Perspectives

Reality is the Sum of all Perspectives 4/4
Written By Eugene Morgan

We ought not let others define who we are as people.  Sometimes we think that because someone wants us to be a certain way doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us. We’re all unique people.  Each of us looks at the world slightly different.

Sometimes, we find ourselves wanting to define or to change someone’s personality. We ought to leave the other person alone because he or she will, for the most part, find his or her own way through life just as we’re finding our own way.

Variety of personalities is better than everyone trying to fit into one type of personality.   We need different perspectives and different gifts and talents to give as citizens of the universe.

Making the first Move

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Chess is Big at UMBC
Written By Eugene Morgan

Expectation is not waiting for something to happen. Expectation is an attitude to do something to expect something to happen.  It’s something that we do that influence something external that might happen.

We can’t rely on external events alone for something to happen for us.  We must play our part in the process so that others have the opportune time to respond.  We get rewarded when a certain action takes place and we get a response from others.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a positive or negative response, as long as we get some feedback from our actions.  We can always readjust our actions if we want a positive response.  The point is we’re getting feedback to help on readjusting our behavior.  We got to rely on ourselves to make the moves.

Better Decisions and Better Choices

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Choice, Ericksonian Principles, Frame of reference

1967 - Penny
Written By Eugene Morgan

The decisions and choices we have made in the past are the direct correlation of what we are doing today.  If we want to change the course of our lives we must make a series of decisions and choices. It’s all right to question our decisions we’ve made in the past. Those decisions were made a long time ago from an old frame of reference of what we we’re thinking at the time.  As we grow older and hopefully matured in our wisdom of life, we can make better decisions and better choices for our lives.  We no longer have to be tethered by old decisions.  We can make new decisions and create more choices based on a new frame of reference.

Craft it Out of a Routine

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, flexibility, Rigidity

Happy Mother's Day Mom, Kindergarten Craft
Written By Eugene Morgan

When it comes to our craft or whatever we do in life, there’s always room for growth.   It took us a long time to learn a craft.  When we’re learning something new, it is usually conscious learning, and once it’s learned it becomes unconscious.

In other words, whatever we learn eventually becomes routine; we don’t think about it anymore because it’s out of our consciousness.  But some routines are good, and for the most part, are satisfying enough to no longer think about improving them, such as, standing or walking is something we do everyday.

But there are some routines we may want to improve on, like speaking in front of a group and developing listening skills.  Routines can make life dull, but if we keep improving our craft or take up something new, then it can make a difference in our lives.

Be an Expert in Dirty Work

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Reward

Best Grinding Machine in the World ;)
Written By Eugene Morgan

For us to succeed in life, we must do the dirty work.  We must do what most people dread doing for us to succeed.  There are some monotonous and mindless tasks we must endure.  We may have to stay up late to complete a task before retiring to a sound sleep.

We’re going to want to do something other than what we’re doing at the moment.  Some tasks will get boring.  There will be tasks that have deadlines to meet. The work will need sacrifice and a lot time on our part if we want to make things happen.

And then we look back, we will see how stronger we’ve become, how wiser we’ve become, how knowledgeable we’ve become, and how much we’ve grown over time,  there will be a sense of maturity about us. And finally we will be proud of our successes.

A Different Conclusion of Change

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: change, Ericksonian Principles

Lighthouse prism
Written By Eugene Morgan

What about change?  Change is good. There are things we can change and there are things we can’t change. Perhaps we can’t change certain things, but we can change our attitude about them.   But how can we change the way we look at things?  One way we can change the way we look at a problem for example, is changing where we place our attention.  If we look at a problem the same way, then we will come up with the same conclusion, but if we shift our attention to another entry point of the problem then we will come up with a different conclusion.  It may not be the conclusion we want, but the important thing, is that it is a different conclusion and a good exercise.

The Unconscious Search For Creativity

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: creativity, Ericksonian Principles

Light Bulb
Written By Eugene Morgan

Sometimes we want an answer or an idea right away. Creativity is a wait-and-see process not an on-demand process. When we don’t have an answer or an idea right way, it could be from a conscious block, or we aren’t in a certain mindset to receive the idea and/or answer from our unconscious minds.

When there is a delay, our unconscious minds is searching from our vast storehouse of experiences to put together ideas to help in finding a solution. The ideas usually come to us when we least expect them, usually when we are attending to other things.

Getting It Right is not Always Better

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: creativity, Ericksonian Principles, flexibility

Children playing
Written By Eugene Morgan

As children we were free to imagine and be ourselves without any restrictions. But as we grew older our parents and our teachers told us that to master something, we had to get it right.  But when we began to focus on getting things right, we began losing our creativity.  As result, our creativity repressed and laid dormant inside us.

However, it’s all right to brainstorm or to think freely without trying to get it right.  When we allow ourselves to think freely, new ideas and new solutions will start to become conscious to us.

Adult thinking or conscious thinking is quick to dismiss crazy ideas or ideas that won’t fit into the situation we’re trying to solve.  Although the idea sounds illogical, let’s us use our creativity to find out if the idea can find its way into solving a problem.  Yes, applying logic is one good approach but applying creativity is even better.

 

 

 

Believe You Can

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Beliefs, Ericksonian Principles, self

We Believe
Written By Eugene Morgan

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there,” Theodore Roosevelt.

This quote speaks volumes. It is the belief in the self what makes the difference. Believe in self is a powerful motivator. When we believe we can do something, it is about our abilities.

When we believe in our abilities, we take advantage of opportunities that come our way.

So a lot of what we can do, has a lot to do with believing in self.  In other words, half of the time is about believing we can and the other half is about doing the work we’re capable of doing.

Staying Cool in a Chaotic World

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Perspectives

Chaos is losing sight of that one thing
Written By Eugene Morgan

How do we keep cool when everything around us is chaotic?  We don’t have to react to an event, but it’s easy to react to an event.  When our response to an unpleasant event is like a knee-jerk reaction, then probably the event is controlling us. We feel a need to control the event that we think is controlling us.

But in reality the event we are reacting to, isn’t controlling us but the opinions about the event that is causing the knee-jerk reaction.  And it’s a lot easier to control us than try to control an event or someone’s behavior.

We can take a deep breath and we can refocus when things seems to be out of our control. Also, it can be helpful to change our opinions about things.

On Being Teachable

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Teaching

Teaching the youngster to feed
Written By Eugene Morgan

Are we teachable? Are we willing to learn from others? Sometimes, we think we have all the answers, or we want to be always right.  When we think we’re always right, it leaves no room to learn.

After learning something new, it becomes significant to us. The thing we learn becomes meaningful to us.  We now can feel it with our heart and mind. In some ways, the new thing we learn becomes us, or it changes something inside us.  It becomes a gift to us and then we want to share this gift to others.  When we share this gift, we begin to re-experience the feeling as a new learning.

Going Back to The Basics

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: curiosity, Ericksonian Principles

stencilled
Written By Eugene Morgan

Sometimes we get stuck in a rut.  We lose our direction or our purpose.  So how do we get unstuck?   Going back to the basics is one way of getting unstuck.

We can go back to a time when our curiosity compelled our interests on a particular thing or a subject. Curiosity had us to wonder and to imagine different ways of approaching things to help in creative problem-solving.

Returning to a good book, or re-watching a good movie, or revisiting an old place can bring up long forgotten images or feelings. These forgotten images and feelings is a powerful tool to help us in our creative juices.

Never lose Hope When you begin to lose Hope

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

hope
Written By Eugene Morgan

Since we have our own journeys, we should dare not compare them with someone else’s. Because we have our own unique journeys, it’s not fair to us to compare ourselves with someone else’s success.  Besides, that person wasn’t always successful.  The person began with fears and failures, but the difference was that the person never gave up and that mistakes were seen as valuable lessons.

We can be inspired and motivated by the person’s body of work and success.  So whatever we do, it requires growth and great labor.  So we ought not to lose hope when we see that our desired outcomes have not come into fruition.  Slow and steady wins the race, not the hare!

A Community of Potentials

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Perspectives, Simplicity

Mustard Seeds Germinating
Written By Eugene Morgan

We are a community of people, which means, by our nature we are social creatures.  We cannot survive alone, we need one another to function.

Milton Erickson often mentions about human potential. We don’t know how far our potentials will take us when we work together.

We’re still in its infancy when it comes to our potentials.  But when we look back in history, we can see how far we’ve come, and we can see how far we must go.

We can ask ourselves, what potentials do we have that can make a different in our society?  And how can we work together to fulfill our potentials?