There is value in that idea.

But sometimes I’ve found this alternate version far more helpful:

If a job’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing badly.

There are days when doing the next job well feels impossible. Even starting feels hard. When it comes to motivation, sometimes we have to lower our targets. There’s few things as off-putting as feeling we’re expected to achieve an impossible target, and we’re not talking here about the reality of our ability – just how we feel about it.

And the real-life paradox is that our second or third best is almost always good enough.

The thing is, fear of failure can totally paralyse you.

One of our sons joined the selective school where I was teaching. He seemed to be having a good time, doing okay, though I deliberately didn’t pry. Then in the summer term he seemed to fall apart. And finally I got it. We had exams each summer for all year groups. He was in a competitive environment. I asked him how well he expected to do. Didn’t know. What were we expecting him to achieve? Don’t know. Neither do we, I said; we’re just going to wait for the results, and then we’ll know what you can do.

At once he relaxed. Am impossible target with unknown repercussions for failure had been removed. And it was all the more frightening because he hadn’t even known what the target was.

There are a couple of old posts relating to this: here and here. They’re in a series ‘Effective Goal Setting’. And that second link has a recent cartoon fragment in its full environment.

Trick 4

How well do you think you need to do? Identify that ambition which is holding you down and ditch it. Today you feel rough, so things just aren’t going to be that good. You can always come back on a good day and fix things. All you have to do for now is do the job badly. It’s okay. You can always take the ambition back on board when you’re having a good day.

Trick 4.1

It can be hard to ditch a target or an ambition. Try recalling other times when you’ve felt like this, managed to get started, and been surprised by how good the result was. Recall times when you thought you’d really fouled up, yet people you trust told you how good you were. Feel just a little optimistic Go on, you know you want to.

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I really can't be bothered (part of a 'Uses for a maths teacher' cartoon by Miriam Slechter

Do you ever have days when nothing feels worth starting and everything is shades of grey? Days when the sun doesn’t shine, and getting out of bed is the hardest thing you’ve ever done? Periods when the smallest chore becomes an impossible task?

Well of course you do. You’re human.

I remember someone telling me that as a youngster he worried he’d inherited chronic depression from his Mum. Later at university he discovered that everyone feels down for a few days at a time, now and then. It’s normal.

Actually feeling like this in adolescence (call that ages 12-25 ) is common. The hormones are rampantly badly mixed, the challenges of life are to be faced without as yet the desired rewards. Who am I? What do I believe? What will I do with my life? How do I succeed? Am I happy? Do people like me? Does she love me?

I get this feeling of lethargy and inertia far more often, and sometimes far more severely, than people without clinical depression. But it’s basically the same feeling. Over forty five years I’ve had many tricks suggested to me. I’ve tried them out, and discovered other possibilities too. This series will be the things I have found work. For me. Often enough to be worth trying.

I’ll be including a mixture of quick, medium, and long term tricks. They won’t all suit you, but some will.

Imagine you are at the top of a hill and the enemy approaches. You need to roll that boulder down onto them. But at first it won’t shift. These will be tricks you can try that might get the boulder started rolling.

Miriam’s picture? Yes we know verticals should look vertical even in a cartoon, but it makes sense when you see the whole picture.

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Our town has many charity shops selling cheap but smart second-hand clothes. Whether or not you feel happy buying this sort of clothing for your family is just a matter of attitude. You don't have to be rich to be well clothed. You do have to be less concerned with the latest fashions or exact styles and colours. Happiness need not be about money, provided you have enough for the basics.

Yesterday I attended a ‘Child Protection’ course. It was good, clear, informative, helpful, and threw up one alarming oddity. This was one of the many statistics provided to give us a sense of the extent of child abuse in the UK. Most of the statistics were relevant, but one stood out.

Apparently 2.8 million children in this country live in poverty.

A horrifying statistic.

Until you check the current definition of poverty.

Poverty is defined as living in a family with less than 60% of the national average family income.

Right.

That’s a seriously unhelpful definition which risks bringing the rest of the data into disrepute.

It reminds me of when my wife, many years ago, worked part time as a Social Welfare Officer. She was sent on a training course, which was good. However after being told to observe signs of families living in poverty they were advised to look for such indicators as only having a black and white television. Well excuse me, she thought, but we only have a black and white TV and do not consider ourselves to be living in poverty. We just made the decision not to waste extra money on a colour set when what we have is fine and cash is fairly limited.

Happiness is all too often related to where we perceive ourselves to be relative to other people. A major world problem, and a growing one, is that modern technology shows people in poor countries how rich those of us are who live in more fortunate countries. This “causes” unhappiness. Clearly if your family has a low income relative to most in your country – say below 60% of the national average – you are at serious risk of feeling jealous, and as a result feeling less happy. But should happiness really be about relative income? Should a crude statistic like this be offered as an indication of child abuse?

No, I’m sorry, but happiness is not about how much money you have. Yes it’s nice to have spare cash, but it is not an essential for a happy life. We need enough food, clothing and shelter. We need to feel loved. It helps if there is a little to spare for luxuries such as a black and white television, but it’s not essential.

Some decades back I was struck by two families I visited in the USA. One lived in an affluent suburb of a wealthy city. They had colour TV, and back home in England I knew no one who had that. They had a dish washer. A what? I’d never even heard of a dish washer. Over dinner there was little conversation. After the meal Mum reminded one of the daughters it was her turn to stack the dishwasher. There was an immediate display of petulance. What an imposition, to expect her to stack the dishwasher.

The other family lived in a small wooden bungalow on the wrong side of a small town. The father worked at a manual job which he did not complain about. They split food for four between the five of us. It was a simple but adequate meal in a warm family atmosphere. As soon as we had finished the two children sprang to their feet, cleared the table and washed up. There was no doubt in my mind this was the happier family, and no doubt that their children were having a good childhood.

We’re now living on my pension, but I’m happier than when we had my salary as a teacher. I miss teaching, but I’m physically healthier and mentally far less stressed. We have the luxury of two cars – may have to sell one soon to reduce outgoings but that will be no real hardship now, just mildly annoying. We never have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. We’re careful about how we heat our home in the winter, but not anywhere near panic that we might not be able to afford heat. We’ve only had a few foreign holidays over the years – too busy paying school fees for the children – but that’s okay. Britain has a marvellous variety of scenery and atmosphere which we will never exhaust and the people speak our language. Okay so we’d like to go and visit friends in New England one summer and can’t afford to unless I place a book or two with a publisher, but that’s no reason to feel miserable.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the people deciding on such matters as a definition of poverty would turn their backs on trendy ideas, maybe go out and look at real life, and come up with sensible and helpful ideas for a change.

Hardly likely I know, but we’ll survive.

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Yes, I was traumatised for many years. The abuse was merely emotional, but it hurt. Like it or not memories of those days dogged me for years. They simmered just below the surface and distorted my thinking and my behaviour. They made it far harder to learn how to cope with my own depression. They made it less likely I’d make a good parent myself.

I was exceedingly fortunate. Over the years I made a number of friends who listened attentively as I rambled on about how bad things had been. Some experiences I recounted again and again. Gradually I got used to them and they lost their power.

We all have painful memories. By and large they can be left alone because we’ve grown beyond them, but sometimes there’s one worth dealing with because it’s having a damaging effect now. In a previous post I described some NLP work I did with a student which enabled him to recreate an alternate version of a true memory. In the alternate version he handled an embarrassing situation as he would now with his increased maturity and understanding. If the bad memory surfaces he has the option of switching to the modified version. Which version is true? In a sense neither. The actual events happened, but they do not describe who he is now. He is able to relax and shrug off the embarrassment because he knows he has now used that experience, he has grown up.

Some memories are like feuds between families or nations. What triggered things happened long ago and we should move on, but somehow we can’t. Someone, perhaps a parent, treated us in some unfair way which has crippled us, and we continue to resent what they did and suffer the after effects. This is frighteningly normal, but hardly rational and certainly not helpful.

The trouble is that we may need more than friends loving enough to listen to our memories. We may need the skills and expertise of a counsellor trained and experienced in working with destructive memories.

Psychodynamic counselling does far more than just deal with memories, but it is one approach that might prove useful. I suspect Post-Trauma counselling could also be useful, though I’ve not experienced that kind. A competent NLP practitioner should also be able to help.

A triplet of warnings:

• You need to let go of destructive memories, yet if you’ve been hanging on to them grimly for decades that will not be easy. Approach this with your eyes open: it will be hard work, and it may prove very painful for a short time. It is worth it.
• There is evidence that some hidden memories which are affecting you now may best be left alone. Dragging them to the surface and experiencing them again can make matters worse. I suspect whether or not this happens has a lot to do with the relationship you and your counsellor have with each other.
• There are examples of counsellors looking for repressed memories, and phrasing their questions so badly that false memories are created in the client. Beware of a counsellor who asks closed questions such as “did your father abuse you” when they should be asking open questions like “thinking back, do you think any part of your childhood might have been worse than it should have been?”. Police are increasingly being trained to interview witnesses using only open questions and non emotive words because otherwise they run a high risk of altering the witness’s memories just by how they phrase the question. Loftus and Palmer did a neat experiment on this in 1974. Google ‘Loftus and Palmer 1974′ or check out this site which describes the research.

If you know of any other types of counselling which includes constructive reprocessing of bad memories please let me know. Thank you.

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Bad memories can be tough to live with. Alcohol and other drugs feel like a solution but they are oh so temporary, and the side effects can be worse than the memories.

Have you ever watched a film in which a character has repeated flashbacks to some traumatic event in their past? Part of the story line is that the past is controlling their present. Believe me, it happens.

Fortunately bad memories can be controlled. Some interesting new research on this has recently been published and the BBC have reported on it here. (I think the researchers’ web site is here, although I’ve yet to track down the original research paper. Let me know if you find a link to it. Meanwhile I’ll be studying some of their other research papers with interest )

We all have memories we’d prefer to be rid of. Sometimes these are powerful forces distorting lives. For years my own memories of things that happened in my childhood (actually fairly mild emotional abuse) tortured me. They kept returning. They kept hurting. They kept telling me I’d never recover, never be normal, never achieve what I was capable of. Okay, so I still haven’t achieved that, but now I can relive those memories without pain, and without them manipulating me. They’re just part of who I am, and I’ve moved on from the bad effects.

Often it’s not the experience itself that damages us, but how we react to reliving it inside our head.

Some therapists believe in getting clients to relive trauma. I guess repeated exposure is supposed to dull the pain. That strikes me as a pretty hit or miss approach without clear objectives, although I believe it can work. My understanding is that this process on its own sometimes makes the memory even more damaging. Another danger is that incompetent (presumably uninformed) counsellors or interrogators can guide the process in such a way as to change the memories into what the questioner thinks they might have been. In fact it’s frighteningly easy to create false memories. Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ contains some great examples of this, but on a lesser scale we all do this all the time with our own memories. Usually it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it does. If we witness a crime our memories may well be not quite right, and careless questionning can distort them further.

A couple of thoughts here, based on study, training, and experience:

Firstly I believe it is important we retain the original, factual memory as something we can recall at will. The trick is to no longer be controlled by the mental images, but to be able to view them calmly, with hindsight. Probably the only experience we cannot learn something of value for this life from is death. I’m guessing that in the (Phelps Lab) research mentioned above the subjects were able to recall having been frightened by the chosen colour.

Secondly, it is relatively easy to create a second version of a memory. For instance I have helped a student make an alternate memory of a time when he behaved stupidly. In the new version he behaves as the older, more experienced him would have reacted. He has both memories, and is clear which is the historic truth. The other is a psychological truth.

Of course, in creating a second version we are not just reliving the original but reprocessing it in controlled ways within minutes, which is well within the six hour window Dr Elizabeth Phelps’ team identified.

By the way, if you need help with a memory and so far no one has been able to help, consider seeking out a qualified NLP practitioner. They’re not all good, but they should at least have been trained in effective skills and techniques. Make sure he or she understands you wish to retain the original version undamaged and clearly identifiable.

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We called him ‘Kim’ after Kipling’s character. His surname was ‘Warwick’ but I cannot remember his real first name.

He worked as a clerk in a bank, and took pleasure and pride in his work. Why was he never promoted? I don’t know. He may not have wanted promotion. Maybe he cared too much about people. Perhaps it was the reddish scarring blotched across much of his face. Those of us who knew him no longer noticed the scars, just the warm human being. As a family man he owned an unremarkable semi-detached house on the cheaper side of our Bristol suburb.

I first met him when I joined the Cubs – now called Cub Scouts. There was a waiting list. Mum had put my name down years earlier. Then, shortly before I was old enough, there was a programme on TV about Cubs and she rigged things so I watched it. Naturally I got excited and asked if I could be a Cub. It was to be a major part of forming who I am now, and it was to introduce me to Kim who was Group Scout Leader but very much involved in working where needed with Cubs and Scouts; it was a long time before I cottoned on that he was in overall charge. He was just there when needed, happy to do any kind of job, and he was one of the few adults we felt at ease chatting with.

He once described how the father of a Scout had rung up and asked if he would talk to the son who was getting out of control at home. Father brought the son round to Kim’s home and asked if he could sit in “to find out how you do it”. He was not allowed to, and it’s sad he didn’t realise that his presence would distort the chat. Kim didn’t talk at us, he listened and we would chat as equals.

We just soaked in the rays of the setting sun, at peace, friends, maybe chatting

One of my fondest memories of growing up was when I was a Patrol Leader at our Whitsun weekend camp somewhere just outside Bristol. We were a small troop, which reduced the range of activities on offer but I think made the experience more enjoyable. There were just three patrols. Our tents were perched along the top of a gentle stream valley. That evening I think we’d had a camp fire, quite a small one, built from dead branches found nearby and chopped to size. Part of Scouting in those days was learning how to use a hand-axe effectively and safely. The fire heated up a dixie of milk which later provided cocoa as we sang our favourite songs, stuff like “Oh you’ll never get to heaven with a fat girl guide” and “Have you ever been to Wales where they brew the finest ales”.

Later the younger Scouts headed off to bed and we patrol leaders stayed sitting on the ground round the fire with Kim watching the sun set. We will have chatted but I don’t know what about and it doesn’t matter. Here was a man we respected tremendously who was one of us and at the same time a real adult. He was quiet and unassuming. He was happy to serve but able to lead. He wasn’t perfect, but he helped us all grow up to be better people.

In the previous post I chatted about what most people seem to think success is all about, and how it tends to fail. I’d like to suggest that Kim Warwick was an example of true success. He wasn’t rich, but he earned enough to look after himself and his family and never ever indicated he wanted more. He wasn’t famous, except to the people whose lives he touched. He had a little bit of power being in charge of our Scouts and Cubs, but he saw it as a valued responsibility and an opprtunity to serve. To my knowledge never did he misuse his power.

Let me try to express what I think makes a person successful in life:

• They have learned to be content with where they are and what they have at any given moment. They’re not forever waiting for something better.
• They know what really matters in life, and they know it’s not money or fame or power or…
• They respect each person they come into contact with as a unique individual.
• They are valued team members who work with people. Often they’re well able to accept a leadership role when appropriate and fulfil that role well, but they don’t value power except as a tool to use in benefiting others.
• They are humble. They don’t see themselves as anything special, but they use the talents, abilities and experience they’ve got.
• They have real friends as opposed to lots of acquaintances. Often, depending on their role in life, there are hundreds or even thousands of people who have been blessed by their presence and who would drop whatever they’re doing to help that person if in need.
• They aren’t dependent on  the people round them or independent of everyone else, but interdependant. The help and are helped. They’re involved.

I don’t know many people like that, but am privileged to know and have known a few. To them, thank you so much for enriching our lives.

PS: have I missed anything significant from the list above? Oh, and to those of you who know him, yes of course Peter Jolly is another example.

This article is # 3 in the effective goal-setting series.

If you want more articles like this please click the Thank you button just below.

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When I turned 30 Dad wrote saying the best of life was over, I’d passed peak and it would all be downhill from now on. Thanks Dad. I think he must have been fairly depressed when he wrote that.

Also it’s not true. Yes I’d never again run ten miles in under 55 mins, but so what. The best and most enjoyable mountaineering and rock climbing was still to come. I did my hardest climbs when I was about 40.

I married Jenny at 34, and that was a major change for the better. Thank you Jenny. I became more sociable, less introvert.

When I turned 50 my sister (six years my elder and better – I’m still her baby brother ) wrote in her card “I can’t believe you’re 50!”. Four years later I considered writing “I can’t believe you’re 60!” in hers but chickened out. Mind you at 50 I felt worn out. Teaching was becoming very stressful and tiring, though it remained the right job. For five years after that I became increasingly ill, frequently feeling like I was going down with flu. At 55 teaching had to stop. Teaching with chronic depression had become impossible. It took years to recover, but life was new.

We love being grandparents

At 60 there are fresh challenges. They have to match a body which weighs more and is weaker. They have to fit round a mind that gets tired more easily. That’s life. But overall I’m more content now than ever before.

When I was 20 there were other problems. I was still in full time education and had little money and no home of my own. I was insular and difficult to get along with. Like Mark Twain at the same age I thought I knew everything when in fact I knew very little. Again, that’s life. We move through. Stuff changes. Some things become less convenient, but other things improve. I’m very glad I don’t have to go through all that adolescent stuff again. Maybe one day, like my mother before me, I’ll end up in a nursing home wondering where my teeth are and forgetting the names of my grandchildren. That was a sad time for us, but we loved her very much. Also she was much happier in the home than in sheltered accomodation because there were people around all the time. She lived to her early 90s. We still do love her.

Yeh, it feels good to be 60.

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Looking back with bemused affection. On the back of this photo someone has written 'April 1961'

Recently I was rooting through the attic and came across some old photos. This one I showed Jenny and she assumed I must be one of the kids, but was puzzled. She didn’t think any of them looked like me – and she’s good at recognising faces in old photos. She handed me back the picture and I asked how carefully she’d examined the kid sitting down at the right. “What kid sitting down?”

This photo captures something of what I remember. The kid is 11. Why is he seated when everyone else is standing for the photo? Why is he separate from the group? What is he thinking about? Does he have Asperger’s Syndrome (a disability not invented yet in 1961) ? Do the other kid’s dislike him? I have no idea about any of that even though it’s me.

I do remember the camp. It was just a few days somewhere in the Quantock Hills south west of Bristol (UK). I had a great time. You can tell from the photo, can’t you. No? Well can you guess I spent a lot of time inside my own head and had difficulty relating to other people? Wow, amazing, you can. The next year I was back and this time my best friend Robert came as well. Actually I don’t think I had other real friends. I wasn’t good at friends. Robert looked after me well. If you’re old enough you may remember the Jennings and Darbishire books by Anthony Buckeridge (still in print). Robert was Jennings.

Did I spend so much time withdrawn from everyone because it was a way to cope? My Dad was having major problems with chronic depression, and this had a knock-on effect for me from, as I recall, about age 4 or 5. No physical abuse, but plenty of emotional – some of it inadvertently from my Mum who was having a much worse time of it but still loved Dad. I do know being withdrawn did help me cope. It was a bit like playing a computer game now when I’m very depressed; it let me move into a different world.

School was good. Relationships were puzzling. I really had no idea how most other kids thought, but I liked having them around. They were kind of cardboard cutouts floating past. They were company on the rare occasions I needed it. They could be useful. It would be many years before I learnt to look at life through someone else’s eyes.

I went through a series of obsessions. The first main one was for some reason with American superhero comics – you know, stuff like Superman, Batman and Spiderman. I bought everything I could get hold of, and sulked furiously during the periods when nothing new was on the racks. Wish I’d kept my collection – would have been worth a lot now

Later I got into running and that stuck with me for years. I had the totally unrealistic belief that I was destined to be an international athlete and win gold at the Olympics. In my twenties part of me was realistic, but a separate part still followed that obsession. Not normal at that age. Then I moved on to rock climbing which became pretty much central for two decades. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these activities, and running and climbing brought me into more social situations which was important. I wouldn’t change having done them. I would change the weird obsessive nature of my interest and have been a bit more chilled but there you go.

I’m not a qualified psychologist so I’m not competent to diagnose mental problems. You need to have worked with experts over a long period for that. However for many years I did more or less satisfy the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome. That link is to a Wikipedia article which when I looked did not go into much detail, but I’ve studied the DSM-IV criteria and worked with some people who have been classified as Aspergers. I’ve found I understand them pretty well, as if from the inside. Aspergers is a cluster of symptoms which frequently crop up together, but people are not as simple as the manuals imply. If you almost fit but ‘fail’ on one item then technically you’ve not got the problem – yet clearly you have problems which could probably do with similar help.

In the next post are some points about Aspergers which are relevant to how we view all apparent disabilities.

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A disturbing article in the Independent (Philip Hensher) described some instances of the narcissistic type of self-esteem. It has become increasingly common in teenagers and young adults, at least in the developed world.

I’ve stumbled over the narcissistic type as a teacher. Here are things a few students say or imply:

“Why shouldn’t we talk while you’re teaching?” – well, because you’re distracting me and making it harder for some other students to learn.

“Why should I say where I downloaded my homework from? I read it and understood it?” – Well yes, but you didn’t actually do anything to develop your own thinking and writing skills. You just used research skills, and you gave the impression it was your work.

“Why should I hold the door open for you? Okay so your arms are full with books, but I’m in a hurry.” – possibly because I held a door open for you last week when you were loaded, and it’s polite, and considerate, and well never mind maybe one day you’ll join the human race.

“My parents pay your wages so you do what I say.” – er, no. Your parents pay school fees to the Governors with whom they have a contract. The Governors then employ and pay me, and they appoint a Headmaster to run the school and sort out how I should do my job. And by the way, I’m paid by the year on a monthly basis so it’s not a wage, it’s a salary. Thank you for asking.

Our niece's wedding included a sunset cruise on Lake Windermere with refreshments and a jazz band

Yesterday we drove back from a niece’s wedding in the UK Lake District. Stopping for coffee at a Little Chef plus Burger King I felt a bit chilly so headed back out to the car to fetch my fleece. As I reached the door to leave a family arrived at the other side. The young daughter, half my height, tried and failed to pull the door open. I gently pushed it for her and stood to one side to let them in. The daughter flounced past me. The overweight parents followed. Not one of them looked at me or spoke. I considered cheerily saying “Thank you” as they passed but decided there was no point.

On my return they’d finished looking at the menu. They stood up noisily and made for the worker who was serving someone else at the till. She got an earful. Apparently burgers in the Little Chef (table service etc) were far more expensive than burgers in the Burger King, and this was outrageous. The worker looked puzzled. Well, you would. If you don’t like the prices don’t eat here, but be nice to the paid staff. They repeated their complaint louder and stormed out.

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