Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 25

Stop Trying to Quit Drinking Alcohol

In this video and podcast I discuss why trying to give up alcohol is a complete waste of time. It is far more effective to just give give it up. Press play to watch the video. You can find the podcast of this episode below:

Press play to listen to the podcast:

Learning to Accept Compliments – Because I Need Them

I tend to feel uncomfortable when people compliment me. It’s not so much that I’m cynical about the motives of the other person (I am sometimes) – it is more to do with not seeing much value in these words.

Watch Your Big Head

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but I fear becoming too ‘full of myself’. I found out at a young age to use self-deprecating humor to gain acceptance from my peers – the ‘love me, love me, I’m stupid’ approach. I’ve had no trouble in ignoring other social conventions, but I managed to hold onto this taboo against developing a ‘big head’.

When people compliment me, my usual response is to quickly change the subject. I don’t really get anything from these words. It is much easier to get my attention with criticisms – I can really get my teeth stuck into those.

Not Celebrating My Successes

My inability to accept compliments is closely related to my reluctance to celebrate my successes. As soon as I achieve something, I almost immediately become obsessed with achieving something else. I don’t stop to savor my victory.

It turns out that my aversion to celebrating my achievements and accepting compliments has been costing me heavily. I didn’t realize that both of these events offer the opportunity to charge-up my motivation. Savoring compliments doesn’t mean I’ve developed a ‘big head’ –it’s about accepting a type of nourishment I desperately need to succeed in the future.

I’m Now Accepting Compliments

In future I’m going to take all compliments in good grace.The don’t even need to be sincere – so long as they are believable. From here on in I’m going to be taking as much as I can from this life, so I need to be constantly replenishing my motivation.

Nobody Cares Why You Cannot Stop Being an Alcoholic

In this video and podcast, I discuss the pointlessness of focusing on the reasons for not being able to break away from addiction. There can be a million reasons not to do anything in life – the magic happens when we focus on what can work. Press play to watch the video – you will find the podcast of this episode below.

Press play to listen to the podcast of this episode:

Master Plan for Achieving My Financial Goals

I’m going to be financially secure by age 50 (in less than six years). I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen. Last month I created my master plan for achieving this goal, and I’m going to share it here:

Goal

I Will Be Financially Secure By Age Fifty

Start – 01 September 2013

Finish – 20 August 2019

Motive

I will be able to protect my family and enjoy the benefits of financial stability.

My definition of Financial Stability

I will be earning €30,000 (US $39,000) per year, and this will come from my own writing (not writing for clients). I will have no debts, and I will have bought my own house.

How Will I Achieve This Goal

• Reaching financial security before age fifty is now my main priority in life. I can’t care for my wife and son properly while our finances are so unpredictable. I will do whatever it takes to make this a reality.

• I will be self-disciplined enough to do what needs to be done. I will not stop until I reach this goal.

• I will be willing to work long hours, without complaint, to reach my goal.

• I’m going to be grateful for what I have in my life right now.

• I’m going to enjoy the process of achieving my goal.

• I’m going to celebrate my small victories because this is going to keep me motivated

• I will do something every day to bring me closer to achieving my goal

• I will stop listening to the negative bullshit inside of my head – I’m going to make this happen.

• I will gain the knowledge I need to make my goal a reality.

• I will meditate for one hour every day to keep myself in good mental shape.

• I will eat well and keep and work on my physical fitness.

• I will learn from my failures.

• I will be accountable by monitoring my progress closely – daily progress tracking and weekly progress tracking.

• I will keep on asking myself if what I am doing is helping me achieve my goal – if not, is it worth doing at the moment?

• I’m going to eliminate anything from my life that is holding me back

I’ve been using this plan for one month so far, and it is working to keep me focused. I’ve also developed a ritual where I visualize achieving my goal, and I do this ritual at least twice a day. I’m not performing this visualization to magically fool the universe into manifesting my desires (I’m not convinced this works), but to keep me motivated – this is also working really well.

Achieving these goals does mean getting out of my comfort zone, but it is definitely within my ability. I’ve already made significant progress. I’m so glad to have such a clear goal for my life. I feel strong, positive, and excited about the future – basically I feel unstoppable.

Juice Fasting or 5:2 Intermittent Fasting

5:2 intermittent fasting or juice fasting can be an excellent way for you to regain control over your diet, lose weight, and enjoy improvements to your physical and mental health. There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, and this is what I’m going to be talking about here.

The Pros and Cons of Juice Fasting

I completed a 15 day juice fast last month. I greatly enjoyed this experience, and I expect to repeat this type of fasting in the future. The pros of this approach when compared to 5:2 intermittent fasting would include:

• Hunger isn’t really a problem with juice fasting because you are consuming calories from the juices.

• You only need to juice fast for about three days to notice the health improvements.

• Some of the juices are delicious – it can feel more like juice feasting than Juice fasting

• You should lose about one pound (0.45 kg) in weight per day on a juice fast.

The cons of juice fasting would include:

• You need to buy a juicer – I spent 3,600 THB (85 Euro or US $115) for a juicer here in Thailand

• It can be expensive to purchase all the vegetables and fruit you need for your juices

• If you drink coffee, you are going to need to stop this for the duration of the fast (I cheated by drinking green tea).

• If your juices contain too much sugary fruit, you could have high blood sugar levels for the duration of the fast – I made this mistake the first time I tried juice fasting.

• You don’t really get hungry on a juice fast, but you are likely to really miss solid food.

• You can’t juice fast forever

The Pros and Cons of 5:2 Intermittent Fasting

The pros of the 5:2 fasting diet would include:

• You only need to go without food for two days of the week – you can eat normally for the rest of the week.

• You can eat 500 calories first thing on your fast day – you then go for 24 hours after this without food.

• I don’t usually feel hungry until the last few hours of the fast (the trick is to eat a high protein meal before you start).

• Some people find that it is easier to be good for just two days of the week.

• It is probably feasible to commit to 5:2 fasting for the rest of your life – I wouldn’t want to do this.

The cons of the 5:2 fasting diet include:

• You have a 24-hour period with no food – you are going to experience a bit of hunger.

• The benefits of 5:2 fasting are not so obvious because the fasting days are so spread out.

• The claim that you can eat what you want on your non-fast days doesn’t seem to be valid (at least not for me). I stopped losing weight during my first attempt at 10-weeks of 5:2 fasting because I was eating too much on my normal days.

Juice Fasting and Intermittent Fasting

It is possible to combine juice fasting and intermittent fasting. This means you would drink juices on your fast days. It is a good compromise if you want to enjoy some of the benefits of fasting without having to deal too much with hunger. I’m thinking about doing one day of juice fasting every week once I reach the end of my ten weeks of 5:2 intermittent fasting.

How to Avoid Destroying Your Dream Life in Thailand with Alcohol

Thailand is an Alcoholic’s Disneyland. In a location like Pattaya, there have hundreds of bars to choose from, and you can get drunk for a fraction of the amount of money you would pay in the west. If you have a habit of picking up red-cards when you get drunk, it’s not going to be a problem – there is always another pub ready to welcome you. Best of all, nobody is going to give a shit if you are slurring your words before breakfast.

How Expats Poison Their Thailand Dream with Alcohol

It’s hard to say how many expats in Thailand would fall into the category of alcoholic. In a post on here last month, I talked about the growing number of westerners who are now homeless in Thailand. I doubt many of these guys ended up like this from sipping the pineapple juice. Drinking too much alcohol is a recipe for disaster – Thailand is a dangerous place to be out of control.

It is usually the expats who choose to open a bar in Thailand who have the most dramatic downfalls. These are usually guys whose only experience of running a pub is paying their bar-tab. There can be a morbid fascination in observing these people fall apart – it can be like watching a disaster movie in slow motion.

Alcohol is a perfect drug for dreamers because it makes almost any old bullshit appear plausible. It encourages a level of risk-taking that even the adventurers who want to climb Mount Everest without oxygen would find a bit reckless. Alcoholics don’t need business school – all it takes is a few bottles of Beer Chang and enough life-savings to invest in a bar. These people don’t have to worry too much about not having customers because there is no risk of their stock going to waste.

I’ve known guys who came to Thailand with the intention of drinking themselves to death – one of them was me. I’d given up all hope of breaking away from my addiction, and it felt glamorous to spend my last days on the planet sipping my beers on the beach of an exotic island. Of course, it isn’t that easy. It turns out that drinking yourself to death is a long and painful process – it doesn’t matter if you are lying on a tropical beach in Thailand or sitting in a bus shelter in Detroit.

Broken Dreams in Thailand

I’m sure most individuals who end up struggling with alcoholism in Thailand did not come here with any type of death wish. These are just people who arrived on holiday and fell in love with the place. I’ve heard from dreamers who’ve spent years working in jobs they hate just to save enough money to make their dream of living in Thailand a reality.

Thailand can be a great place to begin a new life but the majority of people who move here don’t last more than a couple of years. Of course, alcohol abuse isn’t the only reason a person might change their mind about living in Thailand, but in a significant number of cases it is what turns the dream into a nightmare.

Don’t Come to Thailand If You Have an Alcohol Problem

It is a bad idea to move to Thailand if you have an alcohol problem. Coming here is not going to cure you – it is more likely to kill you. I’m not saying you can’t build a life here later on, but you need to sort out your drinking problem first of all.

There is a Thai parable that sums up the situation really well. If you visit a temple in Thailand, you are likely to see stray dogs wandering around the grounds. They will sit down at a new location but then start to scratch furiously. After a few minutes they will get up and move to somewhere else. They do this all day long because they don’t understand they are bringing the flies with them. If you come to Thailand with an alcohol problem, you are going to be taking your flies along for the ride.

5:2 Fasting Diet as a Bridge to Healthy Living

I wasn’t particularly impressed by the results of my attempt at the 5:2 fasting diet last year. I starved myself for 14 days (over a seven week period), but I didn’t really have much to show for it at the end. I did lose about 4kg (about 9 pounds), but I put this all back on within a few weeks of the end of the fast. I didn’t feel good at the end of that period of fasting – I actually felt like a bit of a failure because I’d originally planned to go for 10 weeks.

Some Benefits of 5:2 Fasting Diet Are Only Temporary

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just commit to clean living for a few weeks and then look forward to a lifetime of good health. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. It takes a constant effort to keep the body in good condition – especially if you are over 40.

Like most things in the universe, our health is subject to decay – this is just the natural tendency for things to move from a state of order to disorder. We have been fighting the forces of entropy since the moment we were born. It’s a battle we can’t win, but we can delay our defeat by constantly working hard to stay as healthy as we can.

I’m now almost at the end of my third week of the 5:2 fasting diet (today is my sixth 24-hour fast). I’ve definitely lost some weight, but I’ve no idea how much because I’ve decided not to weigh myself until the end. I don’t want to get too focused on my weight because it would be all too easy for me to put it all back on again.

5:2 Intermittent Fasting as a Bridge to Healthy Living

I see this 10 weeks of 5:2 intermittent fasting (and the fifteen days of juice fasting that came before it) as a bridge to healthy living. I’m taking this massive action because I want to get completely out of my comfort zone. I’m disrupting all my old eating habits, so I can begin to introduce some new healthier habits.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be adding healthier food choices into my diet. This means that at the end of the fasting period, my diet will have completely transformed without me hardly noticing. After my fast days I’m happy to eat anything so this is the best time to introduce something new. I’m also continuing to slowly increase my exercise regime so this is solidly in place by the end of the 10 weeks.

Change Yourself to Change Your Life

Sitting around waiting for your life to improve is the strategy of a fool. I know because I tried it long enough. Waiting for the universe to shower us with goodies is incredibly lazy – worst of all it doesn’t work. If we want out life to be different, we have to become a different person.

Have You Ever Considered the Possibility You Might be a Bit of a Gobshite?

I remember years ago sitting in a pub and complaining to one of the other barflies about my bad luck with women and friends. I kept on meeting the wrong type of person, and it all seemed so unfair. My drinking associate listened patiently enough, but when I stopped talking he had this to say – “did you every consider the possibility you might be a bit of a gobhite?”

I felt so angry with this guy for suggesting I might be full of shit. I’d opened my heart to him in the hope of a bit of encouragement, but he’d used my hard luck story as an opportunity to insult me. If I hadn’t been such a coward, I probably would have hit him. The thing that stung me the most was the knowledge he did have a bit of a point.

I also remember this friend of mine in London who kept on getting beaten up. He seemed to be incredibly unlucky until I began spending more time with him. It turned out these attacks had nothing to do with him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real cause of this string of bad luck was his habit of insulting complete strangers for no reason.

I’m not going to pretend there is no unfairness in the world – bad things do happen to good people. Overall, I’d say we mostly get back what we put into our life. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to stay in our comfort zone yet keep getting more and more. If we remain the same, we can expect life to keep serving up similar experiences.

You Don’t Have to Become a Different Person Overnight

There are plenty of wise old saying but ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ isn’t one of them. If this were true, millions of us would be better of going for a long walk on a short pier. You can create dramatic changes in your life, and it can all begin by just making some minor tweaks.

The truth is we are all changing all the time anyway. The problem is that this tends to happen in a linear fashion – sort of like same shit, different day. It’s like when I moved here to Thailand back in 2002. I completely changed my environment, but my life still involved all the fun and games associated with being a drunk.

I’m not suggesting you change your life by getting a new job or moving to a different country. If you do this without changing who you are, the chances are you are still going to attract the same shit into your new life. Real change involves becoming the kind of person who gets the type of things you want.

If you enjoy the benefits of being a successful entrepreneur (as an example), you have to begin modelling the behaviour of a successful entrepreneur. This is not as simple as just acting like them, you have to be willing to do what they do and think like they think. You need to do your research and make becoming this type of person your number one priority in life.

Stop Drinking Alcohol to Become Rich and Famous

In this video I discuss some of the amazing things you can get to enjoy if you walk away from alcohol abuse. The potential inside of you can help you achieve far more than you ever imagined, but it will not be possible for you to blossom unless you quit drinking. Press play to watch the video:

How to Train Your Brain to Focus on the Positive

If you are an excessive worrier, like me, it means you are highly skilled at spotting potential threats in your environment. This ability could keep you alive if you lived in the middle of a warzone, but under normal conditions it prevents you from getting the most out of life. The good news is you can train your brain to focus on the positive.

The Amazing Results of Training My Brain to Focus on the Positive

My tendency to focus on the negative has prevented me from reaching my potential. This is why for the last few weeks, I’ve been taking concrete steps to retrain my brain. I’m already enjoying some real benefits from this effort including:

• I’m dealing much better with problems – I take action instead of just worrying.

• My sense of humor is returning because I’m not worried all the time.

• I feel far more creative

• I’m getting more work done – I’ve increased my productivity by about fifty per cent.

• I feel great because I’m achieving so much instead of complaining about my lack of opportunities.

• I’m far less self-absorbed – this means I’m not ignoring my wife and son.

• I appreciate my life like I’ve never done in the past

• It is such a great relief to feel back on the right path again

• I’m no longer worried about depression descending like a black cloud and swallowing me up.

My new positive outlook had its first major challenge last Thursday. This turned out to be a horrible day with one thing going wrong after another – the type of day where I’d normally just give up, batten down the hatches, and wait for things to get better.

This time I didn’t give up because things weren’t going my way. I not only managed to get a lot of work done, but I also created an action plan for dealing with bad days in the future. I made time to laugh with my wife and son, and I didn’t move around the house like Mr. Misery. Instead of going to bed feeling like a loser, I felt proud of getting so much from a day that seemed to be offering so little.

How I’m Training My Brain to Focus on the Positive

In a post on here last week, I talked about my new ritual for increasing my motivation. This is something I do twice a day, and it involves thinking about all the great things in my life as well as re-living my proudest moments. I then mentally picture achieving my goals in the future.

I’ve added a new training device this week, and it is already producing some impressive results. It is similar to mindfulness but instead of just trying to focus on what’s happening right now, I focus on what’s positive right now. I’m training my mind to seek out the positive and not the negative.

I can do this positive-focus exercise anywhere. I just did it a few minutes ago when I went to pick up my son from school. There are a lot of crazy drivers here in Thailand, and I’m usually fuming by the time I get to my son’s school. Today I just kept looking for positive things as I drove (e.g. the attractive temples and people smiling). I not only kept my cool, but it made me a more careful driver.

I’ve also been experimenting with a game developed by the Baldwin Social Cognition Lab at McGill University (click on the highlighted text to try it out). I found out about this when watching the BBC Horizon documentary ‘The Truth about Personality’.

The game is very simple – you just have to pick out the smiling face from a bunch of frowning faces. The goal is to train your brain to get better at focusing on the positive. I’ve only just started experimenting with this game, but it seems like a great idea.

Can You Train Your Brain to Be Positive

I don’t agree we should just learn to live with our limitations – that’s just self-defeatist bullshit. If I followed crappy advice like that, I would have died from alcoholism years ago. Anyone who accepts excessive worry as ‘just the way I am’ is selling themselves short.

We can retrain our brains to focus on the positive – the only question is if we are willing to put in the effort to do this. The life of an excessive worrier is almost as limited as that of drunk, so I’m not going to accept this limitation – what about you?