A Man’s Dream to Change the World

Back in the 1980’s while working on my first Masters degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I had a mentor who introduced me to the writings of Dr. Shad Helmstetter. He suggested the book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. It is the best book on self-talk I have ever read. I often recommended it to clients over the years especially with those who had faulty thinking about themselves. I was also glad to see he recently updated it in an updated edition. A short time ago I came across a autobiography Dr. Helmstetter had written titled, The Boy Who Wanted to Change the World. I read it so I could gain insights from his life.
There are many standout items about his life that can be learned through his biography. One that comes up early on is that he was a believer in dreams and creating goals. Early on in his life he wrote down how he wanted to write a bestselling book. This was years before What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, and he did it.

He grew up in the Midwest in a Christian family with 6 siblings. He emphasized that his family always ate meals together which built an environment of communication. Both parents encouraged creativity. He says of this, “My father decided to never have a television in our home, and we never had one. That choice proved to be one of the greatest blessings to my childhood. Instead of sitting and watching television we had to be creative.” (page 12) This through his story can be seen as a background of his dreaming big of wanting early on to make an impact in the world.

He also shared how in the family, he and his siblings were encouraged to think well, so as to be critical thinkers. The encouragement of reading and learning to love music strengthened his thought life. Later when he went into Christian ministry, but then moved to psychology, thinking he may make a bigger impact in life, the importance of thinking stayed a stronghold in his life. Even in the writing of his aforementioned book Dr. Helmstetter emphasized that the thought from Romans 12:2 “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” is a foundation stone of his teaching on the power of positive self-talk.

In his young years as a teen he often worked in the fields and that experience taught him the importance of self-reflective thinking and having times of solitude. His going through the various phases of his life he tells stories along with what he personally learned from the happenstance events of his life. Reading his life story is a helpful reminder to keep open to learning moments in the events of our lives.
With his desire to get the message of the importance of self-talk out to people he shares the importance of thinking through what we say to ourselves. The importance we need to understand is that we can change our movie scripts. I like that analogy of our lives as a movie, which aligns well with narrative therapy, I have mentioned in the past. We can change by changing the negatives we tell ourselves to a realistic positive movement. I highly encourage people to read Dr. Helmstetter’s What to Say When You Talk to Yourself book and also his life story.

Reflection: What is a story moment in your life that you have learned lessons for your own growth? Look at your self-talk. What are you feeding your mind with in self-statements that you can change for the better?

It Is All About Choices

As you know if you have been stopping by here the past couple weeks, I have focused my blog on questions I have had people ask about my new book, “Living More Than OK”. This week I want to discuss how can people begin to live more than ok? When posed with that question the first relevant word that came to mind was “Choices”. The movement towards “Living More Than OK” starts with a choice. I would even say the opposite is true that staying stuck in boring okness begins with a choice as well. All aspects of our life journey revolves around our choices.

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Dr. Shad Helmstetter in his book, “Choices”, states that, “you may think that in life a lot of things happen to you along the way. The truth is, in life you happen to a lot of things along the way.” In our times of being stuck in the rut of existence we blame the circumstances and the stuff of life that is happening to us. What Dr. Helmstetter is bringing to light is that yes a lot happens to us, but we have a choice in how we react to what happens. We can choose to do nothing and stay stuck in a passive acceptance to our circumstances. This choice just keeps up with the routines of life and living in an ok survival mode existence. Often, in that case we do not stay on the same plane of existence, and we then spiral down to lower levels of negativity.

The Upward Spiral:

The other choice is with the “Living More Than OK” mindset which does not settle for boring stuck-ness or living a downward spiral. It moves in an upward spiral to continued personal growth. The movement is towards living the best life possible.

This brings me to another quote by Dr. Helmstetter, “It is your programming that has created your choices in the past. It is the choices you make today that are creating the programs of your future.”
This means that the choices in our past created circumstances that have affected our present situations. If we want to improve our futures we need to improve the future programming by making positive choices in the present, which will result in more positive future circumstances. These positive choices help create the upward spiral to better living.

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Positive Choices = Positive Living

So the positives and the negatives in our lives for the most part go back to the quality of choices we are making in our decision process. That is why I feel my essay on critical thinking in my book , is of such critical importance! We need to keep improving the quality of our thought processes to build up our positive programming from the choices we make. Input into our mental programming negative and passive choices we find that the output will be negative circumstances. Input positive wise choices and the result will be positive circumstance in our life. It is the simple programming concept of garbage in, garbage out.

I believe no one wants negative results in their lives. No one enjoys boredom, but they succumb to it by reacting passively to the stuff of life around them. The lack of critical thinking makes people believe there can never be any good things that come their way. They believe, Lady Luck never shines on them not understanding that one needs to be active in creating their luck by choosing to grow, or choosing to try something different.

Another relevant thought by Dr. Helstetter is, “Those who choose to succeed always do better than those who never choose at all.”

Of course the way I look at it, not choosing is a choice as well to passively stay stuck.

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So if you are unhappy feeling stuck in a negative spiral and you truly desire a positive change, order a copy of my book, “Living More Than OK … Spiraling Up To Abundant Living”. That can be a positive choice to move your life into a positive upward spiral.

Reflection:
What is the quality of your choices? Do you think choices through with critical thinking or simply passively respond to what life throws at you? Visualize what a more positive life would be like for you. Now go for it by making wise positive choices!

Taking Charge of Change in Life

Change is one thing we can always count on in life. Sometimes it comes fast and swift and other times change sneaks up on us. Change also varies in that it can be a good change that we can be grateful for or a bad change that negatively impacts our life. As a new semester is starting for my teaching at the college I found myself thinking about change. Also as my daughter begins college this is a change in our family life and her life.

I found myself pulling off my bookshelf a book I had read years ago, You Can Excel In Times Of Change by Dr. Shad Helmstetter. I want to share today just a few of his ideas on how we can make the most of change in our lives. The important part of change is how we react. All change has an impact on our lives either bringing good feelings or debilitating us. Loss especially in death of a loved one is a change that is hard to let go of. Especially when the death is unexpected -- the change of having that person gone can create a shock that is difficult to overcome. In the same vein job loss is a difficult change to overcome. There is a sense of life is not fair that can take over and hold people in responding to the change by negatively keeping stuck in the pain.
Dr. Helmstetter in this book brings out that many of the changes that occur in our lives when we look at the causation, is often out of our control. But the outcome of the change is controlled by our choices to be responsible in the face of change or irresponsible and staying stuck. He brings out the point that people who make it a habit of being responsible in their lives handle changes better. Those who hold on to excuses and blame often stay stuck longer or go backwards when faced with change.

A key element in our response to change is our attitude. Again we may not be in control of the change agent that affected our life. In response, though we have a choice to shape our attitude in a positive or negative way. Our attitude is a powerful force we can control to make good come from even the worst changes that may occur. Successful people and people who overcome great odds when their lives are examined; their success comes back to the positive attitude they carry in their life.
To excel and take charge of change Dr. Helmstetter encourages the reader to go beyond attitude to change your perception to the resulting future of your choices about the change. Write down and create mental pictures of the next steps in your life journey beyond the change. List the positive things that you want to move towards. Create goals to go after what you want to gain for a better life. If this is not done he says we can stay stuck in what he calls just an average life, just ok. Not a life that is succeeding.

Dr. Helmstetter gives a couple of examples of what he is getting at. He describes a couple that move their mother-in-law in with them with an initial attitude to get to know her better. But in not moving beyond attitude they begin to resent her being there and life turns negative. A young woman takes French classes with an attitude to learn so as to travel to Europe. She never goes beyond the initial attitude and never travels. She keeps a nagging regret of why she took the classes in the first place. So there needs to be a choice to move beyond being stuck by changes. A choice is needed to move beyond living just average or what I call living more than ok.

Reflection: What changes are you facing in life? Is it a new change or a change from the past still holding you? Reflect on your attitude about the change. List what can happen if you choose a positive viewpoint of the change. Create a mental picture of future positive possibilities you can move towards in your life.