I have been expanding my abilities to work with people, especially men, and guide them to a more empowering life.
For many men it is their view of life that disempowers them and prevents them, in their mind, from leading the life of a grounded, present man. This site is about helping men find their ‘Personal Masculinity‘, and through a process of Awareness, Acceptance and Authenticity, growing and developing their potential. A mens guide to an empowering life.
One of the aspects of an empowering life I have learned about is the basis on which an empowered, authentic man creates his life. These can be thought of as the rules or assumptions of life. They certainly exist, I realise, as a basis for my life.
“What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I thought it would be helpful to set out some basic ones as a guide for men to use in creating transformation in their lives:
1. Respect other people
We all come across people who annoy us because their viewpoints do not align with ours or people who just seem to have crazy approaches to life. We can easily get into arguments with them or become caught up in trying to change their minds or views. I used to spend a lot of energy on this. If we shift our perspective and put the effort into understanding their model of the world everything shifts. We still may not agree with them, but we will understand them.
2. You are in charge of your mind
Your mind may seem to go its own way, influenced by circumstances or other people, your parents, your teachers. The truth is that you control everything you do, you make the choices. Whether you make choices consciously or leave them to your unconscious, you are in charge. You, therefore, are in charge of all the results you achieve in life. What happens to you is created by you alone.
3. Your expectations determine your outcomes
The expectations you have of life come from your view of life, from the perspective you create for yourself. Because you control your results, you control your expectations. These expectations put limits on the outcomes you achieve and place a boundary round what you do in life and what happens to you. When you don’t like what you get in life look to yourself and your expectations.
4. Actions speak louder than words
People’s behaviour reveals the values they have in life. The words are often part of the mask they wear. The way to determine the extent to which they live life authentically is to look at their behaviour and calibrate it against their words. Always remember this applies to you as well.
5. Reality is represented by the mind
Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that “the map is not the territory,” encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. This applies to what we see as the world. What we regard as the world is an internal representation created by our brain under the influence of our conditioning and the choices we make. Our view is not the world, it is not actual reality.
6. Communication is only as good as the responses
How often do we struggle with communicating something to friends or family only to find that they just don’t understand it. We get frustrated and often angry with them I know this feeling, I used to feel it a lot. It’s only when we realise that the problem lies in our communication that we can do something about it. People receive what we give them, if the get it ‘wrong’, we have given them it ‘wrong’.
7. Unconscious change is long-lasting
Our expectations, choices, values, beliefs and all the other results of our thinking are largely created by our unconscious mind. Much of it comes from when we were young and open to suggestion by those we depended on. Our understanding of life lies deep in our unconscious mind and controls our whole approach to life. Changing this unconscious pattern of thoughts, beliefs and momories will change the whole basis of how we make choices. When we embrace unconscious change we will change our entire future.
8. Your focus determines your results
Your conscious focus in life is determined by your mission vision and goals. The extent to which you drive your life to a point where you achieve and grow determines the results you achieve in life. As we have seen you results don’t just happen to you, you create them. Their, creation, however, is most influenced by your conscious choice of direction life.
9. People do the best they can
We can criticise people who seem to lead a life lacking in drive and passion, people who seem to drift through life with no determination of goal. We forget that it’s not those people who are lacking but the resources they work with that are lacking. They may be in unresourceful states and not have the knowledge to change. We can help them change only when we see that it’s not them we need to change but their resources or their states.
10. Outcomes must be for good
Whatever we seek in life for ourselves or other people, whatever change we seek to implement must be for the good of ourselves, the good of others and the good of the planet. When we diverge from this ecological approach we end up exploiting those around us. Manipulation is not change, it’s a trick, and will not create lasting change.
Always do what you believe to be right—even though it may not be the easy way out or the least painful path.
(Roy Beers)
—Photo tastygoldfish/Flickr