Takumi Yamazaki - Shift: 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be

Copyright 2011 by Takumi Yamazaki

One Peace Books

57 Great Jones Street

New York, NY 10012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-937003-72-2

There are books out there that tell you what to do. They make all sorts of claims about how to be more motivated, how to get more done, how to be a better person. They tell you to do this and thatthey teach you the "right" way to do things.

This is not that kind of book.

to change place or position

Merriam Webster

It's not that you're lazy, and it's not that you lack motivation. Noyou have plenty of motivation, but it always seems to fade away just when you need it most. The problem is not that you don't have motivation, it's that the motivation doesn't stick around long enough.

So what kind of book is this?

It is the kind that takes knowledge and inspiration from motivation specialists (maternity coaches, neurologists, athletes, business consultants, etc.) and distills them into something easy to understand. There are also exercises that will illustrate the points along the way, so please make an effort to complete them as honestly as possible.

Have you ever gotten so excited about something that it's hard to sleep and then awakened in the morning only to realize that it was the dumbest idea you've ever had?

Sometimes we all get that way. Sometimes you get so excited you feel as if you can take on the world. But then you give it a day. You sleep on it. Then when you wake up, you find that it's gone.

This might leave you wondering just how you can get control over your inspiration, your motivation, and your emotions. It's never as easy as you want it to be because motivation is a fickle thing.

Despite how much motivation you had yesterday, today you can't find it no matter how hard you look. You think you have found it, and then it disappears just as quickly.

Sometimes people can give it to you, and sometimes they can take it from you. No matter how hard you try, you can't produce it on demand, and when you finally do get it you may find that you no longer have a need for it.

If you think that motivation is something that will just stay with you forever, you'll soon discover that's not the case. However, when you allow yourself to admit that motivation is a feeling, and that it will pass, you'll find that it is much easier to coax it back when you need it.

Take love for example. Let's say that you fall head head over heels in love with someone, and that you just know that theyre The One because you like them so much.

But what happens when, a few months later, you calm down and realize that they are just another person with faults? That might be the end of the relationship.

Successful relationships are ones in which both partners know that their feelings change with their moods, and with the day.

Everyone knows how hard it can be to win a battle with your mood. You may find yourself committing to a dietright after you finish the cake on your plate. Or deciding to devote yourself to studying something new, but the TV is just too interesting so you decide to start tomorrow. Your declarations and commitments will never put up much of a fight to the temptations right in front of you.

But your life is just a collection of moments. If these little moments don't go the way you would like them to, your life will never move in the direction you want. As these moments build up, you may start to feel as if no matter how hard you try, your life just isn't going the way you want it to. You may start to feel helplessly out of control. But here's the

thingeveryone is like that. When something good happens, motivation appears. When something bad happens it disappears back to where it came from. Motivation appears and disappears in response to events external to you. If you don't think of something to retain it, and make steps to jump and gain some control over it, motivation will sway in the breeze, unchecked and unprotected.

But you probably know some people who are always full of energy and are always succeeding at everything they try. These people don't let their motivation sway in those external breezes, rather they know how to jump in and bend it to their intention. They know how to control it.

I intend to introduce you to their methods.

Let's start with an easy one.

Prepare a sheet of paper and a pen.

1. Write down three things that made you happy recently.

2. Take a moment to think about what made you happy about each one of them.

3. If you can't think of anything recent, it's fine to just write something from anytime.

1. Write down three recent things that made you happy.

2. Take turns reading them out loud to your partners.

3. When listening to a partner, listen with open ears and eyes and an open heart, as if a miracle is happening right before your eyes.

This is very effective when you do it before a meeting.

Explanation

This is a way to intentionally get yourself and others into a good mood. While at first you may not be able to think of anything, suddenly something comes to you and you feel like you need to share it. When done in a group you'll see that after everyone has told their three things, people will be excited to hear about these happy things. Something as simple as collecting these happy memories will put everyone in a better mood, enable them to listen and respond better to different issues, and create an atmosphere where good ideas come easily. Try it when you get people together and things don't seem to be going so well. It is just a simple way to change your mood before starting something new, and if you try it you may find that the way you think about things begins to change.

So now that you are in a better mood, let's move into the real project of this book.

This book is designed to help you make a shift. A fundamental change in the way you are and the way you see yourselfa shift from where you are to

where you want to be. But in order to make such a shift you first need to actually understand where you are and how you came to be there.

The exercises and discussions in this book make use of the terms conscious and subconscious, and until you have a grasp on the relationship between these two things it will be difficult to proceed. So first allow me to explain what I mean.

The Conscious, Subconscious, and Unconscious

Our ability to be aware of the things around us is called consciousness. However, we can be conscious of something but not yet aware of it. This is called the subconscious. Take a look at the illustration below. It's an optical illusion that you've probably seen before.

Depending on the way you look at it you can either see a young or an old woman. Go ahead, take a look. At first glance which one did you seethe young girl or the old woman? Without taking a moment to think about the picture, its meaning or its design, one of them must have instantly stood out to you. This is your subconscious mind framing the way you look at the picture.