Stressful jobs, recession money woes and unrelenting pressure from family and social duties can turn even the most cheerful person into an anxious pessimist with little motivation. But positivity is all in your mind, and once you understand that your mood and your outlook on the life is something you can actually control, you’ll be more ready to tackle any challenges that life hurtles your way. Here are ten little tips that will help you turn negatives into positives, ultimately letting you lead a life with less worry.

1. Speak in the positive. Even if you have to convey a negative thought or emotion, say it in the positive. For example, instead of saying or thinking “I can’t get through this,” say, “I’m lost” or “I need help.” Speaking in the negative just reiterates your negative feelings.
2. Rethink obstacles. Try to view problems as something you can work through, instead of obstacles that prevent you from getting what you want. Just because your first plan of action didn’t work, doesn’t mean there isn’t another way.
3. Avoid ultimatums. The more pressure you put on yourself and other people, the more out of control you’ll feel. Ultimatums also tend to make small issues blow up into problems that cause more trouble than they’re worth.
4. Force yourself to smile or laugh. Release a little positive energy by smiling at someone or telling a joke.
5. Remember the things you’re good at. If your job is killing you, think of all the things you’re actually good at, like fly fishing, listening to others or painting.
6. Reach out to others. You don’t have to see a therapist to reap the benefits of talking about your problems. Friends and family can also give you another perspective on your problem that will help you get through the tough times.
7. Sleep on it. If you just can’t see around an obstacle, put it aside until after you get a good rest.
8. Start more sentences with “I can.” Try to turn as many “I can’ts” into “I cans” each day.
9. Reduce your stress level. Try to reduce your stress level by doing one positive thing each day, by giving yourself a little more free time, going to bed early, or visiting with friends.
10. Figure out how your problems will pan out in the long term. Will this problem still be a major issue in 3 weeks, 6 months, or one year? Gauge your reaction to problems by asking yourself how important and relevant they are to your life.

This post was contributed by Tara Miller, who writes about the online psychology degrees. She welcomes your feedback at TaraMillerr00 at yahoo.com

One interesting tool I found way back in the early 1990’s was Roger Von Oech’s Creative Whack Pack.  The Whack Pack is a deck of cards based on his popular creativity building books A Whack on the Side of the Head and A Kick in the seat of the Pants.

I happily own a copy of each of these as well. But one problem always plagued me. I never felt like I understood the Whack Pack. They are fun cards to read and all, but I was missing something because I never felt like I was getting answers. Just more questions.

A picture of me “whacking”

Then along comes the iPhone and subsequently The Whack Pack for iPhone . This awesome version has with it a ‘workshop’ mode that guides you through the process.

To do a workshop, you enter a problem you are having. Simple enough. Then you are dealt 4 cards that will predict your future and you live happily ever after (just kidding ). The 4 cards actually are designed to give you a “whack” in each of their focused areas. By their very nature, whacks are designed to stretch your imagination in new ways so you can see your problem from new and different perspectives.

It may sound a little silly – and it is at times. But we all need a little sillyness now and again to keep creativity flowing.

I presented a problem I was having last nonth to the CWP. And overall, after 20 minutes or so of working on my problem I felt much clearer, relaxed, and optimistic.

Below is a recent workshop I did – complete with typos for your convenience.

Your Issue:

Deciding what my highest priority goal should be

Card 28 – Imagine Others

http://creativethink.com/je3

Creative people I respect:

• Edison - he would say, work night and day with stuff you like doing. Your goal will appear.
• David Gilmore – practice and get drunk now and again. You’ll figure it out
• Da Vinci – take chances – explore new worlds.

Card 11 – Use Your Senses

http://creativethink.com/p1b

I look at the idea of honing in on 1 goal today as a dark, pressure filled event. Sort of like since I take on stuff SO ambitious, I can’t help but fail – at least in some respects.

Not focusing let’s me relieve some pressure since I can always move on to something else.

Maybe I can think of a goal that is both fun and low pressure that involves enjoyment of other senses. Like maybe my one and only goal for June is to make extaordinary food for lunches and dinners.

Or maybe a goal to spend 1 hour a day doing nothing. Just sitting at the park taking in the sounds of people and children playing.

Card 12 – Listen to Your Dreams

http://creativethink.com/4sz

What is dreamlike in my current situation? The images of future pressure, failure, disappointment and thoughts of letting me and others down is just an illusion. Rationally, I know it’s fear, emotionally it is confusing. Just like when you wake from a dream you know there isn’t a creature under the bed. But you are still afraid.

Card 23 – Rearrange

http://creativethink.com/0jn

How can I rearrage my issue?

1. Decide for ALL of June I will have no goal or direction

2. Every time I feel pressure to perform, I stop and review #1

3. I start focusing on the objects I want, not the actions. Do I want a boat? A Mac? What?

Have you tried whacking?

I know many of you have either read Von Oech’s books or use the Whack pack, why not post your opinions below.   Maybe you have some tips for getting more from the books or software.

If you like this post, please consider voting for it on del.icio.us or stumbleupon… you’d be helping your fellow whacker! lol

CIO magazine interviewed me recently about Mind Mapping and why I use it.  The article appeared last night:

Brad Isaac, CIO at Breslow Starling Frost Warner, an accounting firm, uses a mind mapping application from Mindjet for project management. In situations like deploying a new server, mind mapping helps him keep track of the project and ensure he’s covered the necessary bases: who’s managing it, who will be using it, who needs training, he says. “You’re able to address all these layers of a complex project in a visual manner and it only takes moments.”

CIO: Mind Maps Fuel Productivity

The interview was more in depth than what is covered in the article.  Will the print edition will cover more?

I went into how I not only use Mind Mapping for work, I use it for play, blogging and at-home projects.  Much like I have on my blog in the past.

Pursuant to my last post about keeping a 100 year old journal, found a .99 cent journaling program for the iphone / ipod touch in the App store called MyDiary.

This software closely mimics the journal approach of the small pocket calendar I was talking about before. Plus it feels similar too – with exception of the pen to paper tactile sense.

I’ve been using it right at 1 month and here are my thoughts…

Again, one of the cool things about MyDiary is the fact that it resembles the day by day calendar I was describing in the prior post. Each time you hit the new post button [+] you start with a new date where you can do your journal entry. This is an advantage over paper journals because when you miss a day in a paper journal, you get a blank spot.  In MyDiary, there are no blanks, it just goes to the next entry. 

Another advantage is obviously the portability. You carry your iPhone or iPod touch with you anyway, here you have your journal in your pocket with you too. I put the application on the first screen so I see it every time I turn on my iTouch.  So I am prompted to make a journal entry every day – even when I wasn’t intending to.

Privacy

There is simple dial controlled password feature of MyDiary.  This isn’t the most secure code on the planet as someone could brute force break it in a couple hours if they really wanted in.  The code dialer resembles an old combination lock you’d use to lock your bike to a rack.  By simply going through the numbers 0001, 0002, etc.  You’d eventually hit the golden code.  Maybe they’d consider doing a 10 minute lockout if you dialed 3 passwords incorrectly.  Or they might consider making it a 5 or 6 digit code, which increases the brute force time.

Either way, the code IS a better security than a paper based journal.

Other Features

Widescreen (yay!)- Most appreciatively, they’ve included widescreen entry and editing.  This, of course, makes text entry much easier for giants like me. 

Email journal entries to yourself or others – If privacy isn’t your biggest concern, you can email your journal entries all over the world.  I can see this possibly being handy if you’ve got an email to Twitter or FaceBook account set up and wanted to keep your Twitters in your journal as well.  Simply do an entry and choose the email button.  Just be careful not to send your entry about what’s going on between you and that cute co-worker up the hall

Auto backups through iTunes – The reviews in the app store express concern about no backup feature.  I did some poking around and found the database is pulled into an iTunes backup when you dock your device.  I contacted the developer and he said that was true.  If you factory reset your iPhone you’ll get your MyDiary entries back. 

Bugs and wishes

MyDiary does have a few small bugs. First and foremost I will say that it has not crashed once on my iPod touch. That is a good thing.

But in widescreen mode, there is no way to go back to the main screen when you complete an entry.  You have to physically rotate the iPhone to go to portrait mode to get back.  So if you are editing one of your diary entries, you hit the done button, nothing happens. You must go rotate your device in order to see the back arrow button. This is a small oversight that I am sure will be easily corrected in the next version.

The other thing I would like to see is a way to a way to back up outside of using the iTunes application. As I mentioned, iTunes does backup your MyDiary database.  The database itself is not encrypted.  However, finding it on a computer is difficult and virtually impossible to find on an iPhone itself without doing major surgery.

But it would just feel a little bit better if there was a button that said backup and you could copy your database in an encrypted format to a hard drive of a computer or e-mail the encrypted database to yourself.

But overall, I consider MyDiary an excellent substitution for the paper based journal I mentioned in the prior post.  It is a convenient way to keep track of your life with some bonus features thrown in for good measure.

What are your thoughts?

Link: MyDiary in the App Store 0.99 cents

Developer website: MyDiary for iphone/iTouch

Do you keep a journal?

These days you might feel like you don’t have time or you don’t want to keep up with another “thing” like a paper journal. I hear ya…

But journaling is still important. A journal helps you reflect on what you did right. It helps you learn by reminding you what you did wrong so you can avoid the same mistakes in the future. It is also great fun to sit down and read your own history and how far you’ve come.

In my early 20s, a 70-something British friend of the family gave me my first journal. It wasn’t a big journal.  It was slightly larger than a book of matches – which surprised me.  His method of keeping a journal was brilliant in its simplicity.  Even lazy students like me could keep up with writing every day.

My friend Maurice’s journals covered his World War II experience as a foot soldier, his dating life, marrying his true love and 100 years of life details until his death two years ago at the age of 99.  He explained how those journals were such a great addition to his and his wife’s life.  How simple it was to reminisce.  How easy it was to remember when everything was written down.

Again, his method was simple.  Keep a tiny, pocket sized or smaller date book in your pocket at all times.   Each day has only about a 1 inch by 1 inch space to write.  That means you can’t write a whole book.  You can only write 2 or 3 of the most important details.  “You’ll remember the details, just write down the important topics and the details will come back to you.”

I was on my way.  I kind of liked keeping a journal this way.  Every night before bed, I’d write down the most important events of the day.  But eventually, I ran into trouble.

Maurice would sometimes ask me how my journaling was going. I’d sheepishly explain that while I did ok keeping a journal sometimes, there were sometimes months, and possibly years of gaps in my record keeping.

You see, I tampered with his method. I tried doing a ‘traditional’ 8 x 10 journal here and an ultra thin month-only journal there. Since both these types were harder to keep on hand and easier to misplace, I got slack and would skip days and weeks worth of entries.

What worked and still works for me is still the small, pocket sized datebook. I know Moleskine makes one and they are nice.  It’s their Moleskine Weekly Notebook 12 Months Hard Red Cover Pocket version.  But it is a little too bulky for my tastes – and that bright red has got to go! Why not stick with black like their other journals?  I prefer something more the size of the Mini Weekly Planner.

Turns out nothing beats having a journal in your back pocket at all times.

Keeping the years in line

Maurice shared another tip with me for keeping your years in order when the journals start piling up.  After all, when you have 50 or so of these books lying around or on a bookcase, it might be tough figuring what happened in what year.  His method?  Every New Year’s day, he and his wife (now deceased) would go through the prior year’s journal and type up a 1 page index of the most important happenings from that year.

There as an additional benefit to indexing the prior year.  It helped to reinforced the memories of the events.  At the end of the year, almost like studying, he’d review his notes and make a cheat sheet.

He would then fold up the index and tape it to the inside cover of the journal so it would be handy.

99 Year Old Man Keeps 100 Year Journal?

So how was my friend Maurice able to get 100 years of the Journal from 99 years of life? His secret was that he went to the library and pulled the microfiche of the newspapers that existed that were planted at the time of his birth. So here you had someone 99 years old and from the time of its conception there was a historical record of his life from conception on.

I think this is a pretty cool way to share your history with your family. If you’re going to create a unique life worth living, it is worth recording and sharing with future generations.

Don’t you agree?

What are your opinions? Do you keep a journal? If so tell us your insights in the comments.

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Flashcards are in my opinion, the very best way to memorize the most information quickly.  Traditional index cards with your own handwriting are easy, cheap and efficient.  You can carry them in a pocket or purse for learning just about anywhere. 

However, there are a few downsides.

You can lose a card or two.  You can drop them and have to play 52 pick-up.  Or you might find that keeping them in a particular order is nearly impossible when they are carried loose in your pocket.  In those cases, I recommend making your own Pocket Flashcard Caddy.

All you need is

• Index cards
• 1 Book Ring
• a 1-hole punch

You can use standard 3×5″ index cards, but I like to cut 8×5 index cards into quarters.  There are several reasons for this. 

1. It saves paper. 
2. The mass of cards are smaller to carry in your pocket. 
3. By cutting the 8×5 ruled cards into quarters, the lines are horizontal so when you write your answers, they appear at the same angle as the questions.

Make your flashcards using the no-fail flashcard technique so you can ensure maximum learning.  Then go back and punch a hole in the upper right hand corner of each card.  Finally clamp them all together with your book ring. 

Now, you can keep them in your pocket for learning know matter where you go.

According to the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, the authors Ori and Rom Brafman claim we all (yes you too) act irrationally at times.  Some of these actions cause more profound pain than others.  But overall, seeking to end irrational behavior is the goal – does the book Sway help end irrational decision making or does it simply chronicle different examples?

In 2000 I bought Cisco stock for, at the time, a low $56 per share.  It was my first chance to dip my big toe in the water of stock market investing.   Almost all analysts said it was a great investment – it had historically proven strong.  With the bonus incentive that Cisco had made many investors millionaires.

But then the Internet bubble burst and Cisco stock started dropping.  It went down to $50 a share.  Then dipped to $45.

I decided if it hit $40 I’d sell.  Well, it breezed right on past $40 to around $37 and I still didn’t sell because I wanted it to go back up to $40 and Then I would sell.  It never hit $40 again.  So I set a new figure.  If it hits $35 a share, then I’ll sell.  Sadly, I still didn’t sell.  I kept riding it out.  How far?  I’ll tell you in a minute.

But first, if you look at the behavior of riding out a dropping stock, you’ll notice it seems like irrational behavior, no?

So why would a seemingly rational person (me) make an irrational decision like ride out a falling stock for his first investment in the market?

Playing not to lose and losing anyway…

Irrational decision making by normal people is what Sway is all about.  After all, my Cisco investment experience went from a simple test of the market to losing my entire leg to the sharks of Wall Street.  And although I haven’t completed the book, the chapter about playing to lose is brilliant.  They call it the “Swamp of Commitment”.  I know that I must be careful with my commitments otherwise I’ll drown in that swamp.  It explains my behavior in my Cisco investment very well.

So why would I have continued such a mistake?  According to the authors Ori and Rom Brafman, in staying with my investment, I was chasing a loss.  Much like a gambler who sits at a blackjack table until the repo man takes his car, I went against everyone telling me to “Brad, for the love of God, get the F— out of CSCO!!”  I simply hoped to recover the money I had lost.  Sadly, I sold out in 2002 for approximately $16 a share.

Before you put on your best Fred Sanford impression and scream “You big dummy!”  I’ll note that playing to lose in this instance isn’t confined only to me or my actions.  It’s quite common.  

• A salesman who takes actions against his company’s best interest so he won’t lose a customer – instead of trying to win more customers. 
• A wife who says things she’ll regret later to her husband so she won’t lose an argument instead of playing to win by formulating a solution where both would win.
• A group of Harvard MBA students who traded $200 for a $20 bill instead of cutting losses at $10 and going home (example from the book.)

Loss Induced Stress

Losing what we have is stressful.  We not only experience a gap, we often have to deal with remorse of losing in the first place.  Friends question us about the loss.  For me, on each successive downturn of the stock, it made the loss greater, thus, the pressure to recover was even more intense.

This leaves me with a number of questions. First and foremost:  If we have a tendency to act irrationally at times in order to avoid loss and we know in hindsight that it’s not good for us, how can we tell ahead of time whether we are acting out of the irrational fear of loss or not?

For instance you know I am persistent, it’s the name of my blog!    I think sticking with things is one of the cornerstones of success. But how do you know what to stick with and what to drop? I am hoping Sway answers these questions for me.

Avoid Playing Not To Lose

Here are five of my ideas based on experience on how to avoid acting irrational out of fear of loss:

1.  Plan before major investments of time, money or energy - Considering an investment in hard earned money?  How about investing months of your life into a new project?  I think it’s crucial that there’ll be a plan in place. How long do you expect to stay in before the payoff happens?  What is an acceptable loss?  Be it time, money or energy, how much can you stand to lose in this investment?  

Example: A lot of people want to start a blog but they give up after the first month. That’s definitely not enough time. But what is enough time?

2.  Set a deadline for progress - Decide on how long you will stick with the investment for it to show a return and stick to it.  On the date of your deadline, take an accounting.  Are you showing the expected progress or is it more or less.  In investing money are you showing more money?  In the investment in a project, is the project close to completion?   

Example:  If you have started a blog and your 6 month deadline was up.  You would want to see the results of your dedication.  Do you see a profit in ad revenue or have you reached your goal 500 readers? Are you at least close to your intended results?

3.  Simply ask yourself if you are taking actions to avoid loss - This step will take some soul searching.  But here is a tip.  Think of all the times you have said “I have to do… or else____ will happen.”   If you are taking a compulsive action to avoid something from happening, you are likely playing to lose.  

Example:  We all have a “whipped” friend or two who jumps through seemingly crazy hoops to please their significant other.  We wonder how a guy can baby talk on the phone 5 times a day.  We wonder how a woman will put up with a cheating husband.  I am sure the thought “I have to do this or they will leave.” has crossed their minds.

4.   If it’s not working, consider restructure - if you created something like a blog for people who like jaywalking and you find that you have absolutely no readers. What else could you spin your idea into that would be successful? Perhaps a blog on walking for fitness would be more successful.  In my stock investing example, I could have traded Cisco stock when it hit the emergency level of $40 for something outside the technology sector.

5.   Give up gracefully and learn - At the end of your deadline, you may decide what you are doing is not working.  Also, there is no satisfactory way to restructure it.  Many business partnerships work this way.  One person wants out the other doesn’t.  One person does the bulk of the work, the other is a lazy jerk.  In the case where your deadline comes and you are showing no progress and it doesn’t appear progress in on the near horizon.  Give up gracefully.  

Giving up gracefully means not beating up on yourself or others.  It also means not giving up on yourself.  Take your loss in stride and learn from it.  While many people will stick with a long failing business because of the fear of loss, they never consider what they gain by letting it go.  They don’t consider the free time they’ll have to do other things.  They don’t consider the money they’ll recover since it’s no longer going into a bottomless pit.  They don’t consider the valuable knowledge that can come from failing at a business.  Only through failing can they know at a reflex level dozens of actions not to take in their next venture.

I’m sure you have some ideas on diagnosing irrational behavior and stopping it.  Please share your ideas in the comments.

For more articles about playing to win subscribe to my RSS Feed.   

You know how important it is to read.  Reading leads to new and better skills and higher concentration.  It improves your success rate and ability to communicate.  But many of you feel like on top of everything else you have to do, you don’t have time to read all the time.  In fact, you might be one of those who pushes reading to the bottom of your list of things to do.

If that’s the case, you should check out my post The 26 Major Advantages to Reading More Books…

“Reading never did anything for me..” some say.   What a shame.  Because reading is still one of the best ways to learn new concepts and skills.  When you have a problem with your career, you don’t necessarily have to go back to college or take night classes.  A problem with your marriage, doesn’t necessarily mean having to go into years of therapy.  Reading can be an inexpensive and time saving alternative.

So the excuse of not having enough time to read is poor at best, delusional at worst.   

But there’s also a secret to reading when other people are wasting time.  In fact, I used it to gather 634 extra hours of educational reading in the past year – without cracking a book.  How did I do it?  Read on to find out.

Here’s what I did…

In the normal day to day reading of marketing, self-development, and copy writing blogs and web pages, I would highlight long articles and push them to Text-2-Go.  Same thing with some e-books – the ones that allow you to copy and paste text.

This saved time in reading web pages because I know that oftentimes the most valuable articles are the long ones.  I could effectively procrastinate on those articles by pushing them to my iPod.  What was left were the short 30-second read posts that I could read or skim right there.

Those familiar with David Allen’s Getting Things Done, know this form of active reading both meets the 2 minute rule and the use of buckets for information.  I immediately read the pertinent articles that take more or less 1 minute to read.  The others get put in the bucket for “ear reading” later while driving, walking or just lying back relaxing.

After about 1 year of using the software, I’ve chalked up an extra 634 hours!  Much of what I’ve gotten from that is motivation, writing skills and enhancements, hot marketing tips, copy writing strategies and organizing skills.

Then I’d go back to my favorite audio-book creation software Text-to-go and import the articles for reading back to me while I was driving.  I’ve also used it while walking, hiking, and jogging.  There’s nothing quite like idea generation while out on a walk.  

Here’s a small sampling of blogs that translate well into educational audio learning (there are many more, but these are a few that came to mind):

Zen Habits

Problogger

Dosh Dosh

Michel Fortin

Basically, Mark, the coder behind Text-to-go has thought through his software before he coded it.  We met through email and on top of his wise coding, he’s a nice Australian.  It’s tough for us to get in touch due to the time difference.  

It’s as simple as highlighting an article and clicking the text-to-go button.  Next thing you know, it’s sitting on your iPod – ready for your next trip.

The text-to-go method is so quick I’ve snagged some articles on my way out the door.  I’ve tried just about every text to speech app on the planet and Marc’s is by far the most efficient.

I found out yesterday he’s got a Beta in the works.  I knew he was tossing around some ideas for speech/word correction.  You see, one drawback of text to speech is the voices often can’t compensate for odd spellings, acronyms and abbreviations.  If you are listening in your car, the voice might read “Run ipconfig /all and check DNS settings” as “Run ipp-cinfing slash all and check Dinns settings“.  This is confusing to the listener.  

Well, in his latest beta, I knew he’d be working to make corrections like this easy.  Fortunately, I was not disappointed.  I don’t want to blow all the secrets of his next version, but I’ll say his correction utility is again, well thought out and shall I say ingenius?.  I corrected at least 15 mispronunciations this morning in just 5 minutes.  

There are also some other features to the new beta that are both fun and productivity increasing.  What that means is this year I might inadvertently squeeze in 2-300 more hours of this passive reading.  

If you like this post, please consider stumbling or submitting it to Digg.  Thanks!!!

Over a nice breakfast this morning, my kids were quizzing me about pancakes. 

I am by no means an expert because pancakes add little value to the outcome of my life.  But their questions reminded me of when I was a kid how I learned an important lesson about pancakes – of the chocolate chip variety.

When I was 12 or so we didn’t have a lot of money to go out to eat.  So it was a rare occasion I found myself out to eat breakfast.  But every time we had breakfast out,  I dove into the menu searching for the coveted chocolate chip pancake dish I longed for.  Often times the restaurant wouldn’t have it.  When the restaurant did have these morsel laden pancakes, my Mom wouldn’t let me get them.  She had good reason.  Before I hit my teens, I was overweight and meals involving chocolate and pancakes would contribute to my chub-factor. 

But this one Sunday was special.  She wanted to celebrate a job promotion, so it was a Sunday breakfast out and Lo, they had Chocolate Chip pancakes on the menu!  I sheepishly asked if I could order them to which she replied “just this once.”

I couldn’t wait.  In my mind, these pancakes would be like getting a 3 big chocolate chip cookies stacked on one another.  How happy I was at last to finally taste the sweetness of this coveted dish. 

Mount Everest

When the dish finally arrived, I’ll say it looked even better than it did in the picture.  The plate was huge.  Chocolate chips were not only baked into the pancakes, there was a generous pile forming a mini-Mount Everest of cocoa of them on top of the cakes.  And to top everything off, there was whipped cream cresting the outer edges of the flapjacks thereby sealing the visual representations of the neighboring Himalayan peaks.  Ok, I’m on a mountain theme, just work with me.

The first bite was wonderful.  A dream come true.  The cakes were perfect, the chocolate decadent.  I took another bite and then another.  What joy to be a kid devouring a mountain of chocolate, whipped topping and pancakes.  Was this heaven? 

Base Camp #3

Then, I hit a pitfall.  I got to about the half way mark on the pancakes.  Like reaching base camp 3 on an Everest expedition, my mind threw me.  I was a little dizzy and sick to my stomach.  In an instant, I knew I had too much.

I must have done something wrong, I thought.  Maybe I should have started on the south side and skipped the base camp of whipped cream topping.  Or maybe I should have forgone the chocolate chip peak for a tour of the lower foothills.  I had no idea.  But I did know it was too late. 

To save face, I put on a big smile and offered some to my sister, hoping, no praying, she’d take the other half.  No, she said.  She wasn’t having any of it.

Maybe my mom would want some?  “No you enjoy them.” she said.

I was stuck.  I stared down at the plate of now gooey chocolate, cream infused batter and became more nauseous by the second.  Maybe I could take them to go and sneak them into the trash when nobody was looking.  No, they are getting soggy as-is.  They won’t keep.  My Mom said.  If you want them, go ahead and finish them up.  I don’t know if she even had a clue I wanted to throw up.  She may have thought I was still enjoying them.

Descending From The Peak

Finally, I had to come clean.  They are making me sick, I told her.  Thankfully she said to stop eating them.

To this day, almost 30 years later, the thought of chocolate chip pancakes makes me a little nauseous.

Bottled Oxygen

But the experience was important because I learned two lessons that day.  First, the old saying “be careful what you wish for because you might get it.”  I got what I wished for and regretted almost every minute of it.

The second lesson was that food can’t make me happy.  Chocolate is good but only if taken in small quantities.  The same with cake.  But neither can make me happy. 

In retrospect, I think the great chocolate chip pancake experiment drove a wedge deep in my mind about how eating can be both pleasure and pain.  That small portions are good, large portions are bad.  Like the adult who doesn’t drink alcohol because he threw up from drinking as a 15 year old, I formed the same association with food.

I have been thin since high-school (minus my first year of marriage when gained and subsequently lost over 50lbs. due to Kim’s delicious cooking.)   I still like chocolate, but I am careful with it.  Never too much.  I still like pancakes but 1 or 2 is plenty. 

If you struggle with weight loss, you can draw upon a similar event from your childhood.  Maybe you ate too much ice cream one day or ate potato chips until you were sick. 

You don’t need to scar yourself for life like I did but maybe just thinking about those incidents more often would help.  Or try pinning a picture that represents your eating to the point of nausea to your refrigerator to remind you that you should both be careful what you wish for and that food cannot make you happy…

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It’s funny how reliant I’ve become on technology to remember stuff. I have alerts to remind me of upcoming birthdays – at least 5 days in advance so I can arrange for gifts. I also have phone numbers, recipes, DIYs and other items that would be good to just remember stored in my Pocket PC. 20 years ago, my PIM or Personal Information Manager was my brain and a Franklin Planner. Today, I leave most of that up to my Pocket PC.

But there’s a twinge of regret that I can’t remember everything I used to. If I could remember more, I wouldn’t spend so much time searching. To commiserate with this feeling of memory loss and add some tricks that might improve the memory Tamim Ansary has a post that can help. 12 Memory Tricks is a collection of the strategies he is using to gain back some of that memory lost in the recent technology boom.

I haven’t has as much luck with his #4 Chunking or some of the more common association tricks. They seem to be too much work – I might as well just memorize stuff if I have to write a complete short story to remember a dozen items or so.

Personally, I find that relaxing is my best memory trick. If I am not rushed or feeling hurried, I can often relax and coax memories to come to the surface. Even dreams that I wanted to remember but forgot in the morning hours. If I sit still and relax, I can almost always bring them back.

What’s your most reliable memory trick?   Please share in the comments…