Small routines and clear plans: a few questions and small contributions in each of the areas can significantly improve the quality of life. Let’s try. Vishen Lakhiani – “Code of the Extraordinary Mind”.
Vishen Lakhiani – “Code of the Extraordinary Mind”
“Code of the Extraordinary Mind” by Vishen Lakhiani is not a book that I would sincerely recommend, because I didn’t find anything fundamentally new and no depth in it: all the same well-known self-improving wisdom passed through the prism of the author’s personal experience (ayavaska, public life , ilonmaskism). It’s unnerving when well-worn truths are presented as something fundamentally new, under the sauce of outstanding spirituality. The author even managed to build and successfully sells his own “system”. Well, there is a buyer for every product, and we move on.
But there’s a good thing about this book too – it’s easy to read. So if someone likes to turn off their brains with non-fiction – this is it. If, on the contrary, you want to save time, then here it is: you are an exceptional person with your unique calling, you can build reality and achieve your true goal, but you urgently need a handful of good meditation, as Pippi Longstocking would certainly assure you.
Three questions before bed
But there’s one idea in this book that I really liked and which I took as a weapon: to add two questions to the children’s bedtime routine:
- What are you grateful for today?
- What cool thing did you do today that you can be proud of?
These are two great questions that help the child to appreciate what they have and to feel their own value. In addition, this is an opportunity for the child to talk for the day, if you don’t spend too much time together and cannot listen to all the streams of text during the day.
The value of complaining
And here my beloved Barbara Sher rushes to help, pointing out the sad fact that such a phenomenon as a complaint is undervalued. Because when I first asked the child to answer the two questions mentioned above, my son asked: when should I talk about bad things? Indeed, when? It’s logical to add a question about the bad things first, and then two positive ones, so that you don’t have to “change diapers” at night.
Barbara generally advises complaints as a tool. For example, if you are nervous before a public speech, you should imagine the worst that can happen, be horrified, sad and complain about it in advance, before the speech. If there are any fears, why not get rid of them consciously? And then go perform with a light heart. Because fears, you know, are just fears.
The ability to forgive
So, Vishen Lakhiani: this question is “about the bad things”, these fears and complaints are intertwined with the importance of forgiveness, letting go, which he stresses as extremely important for inner peace. Talking it all out in time is the first step, but it seems that it’s also a great opportunity to practice the art of forgiveness itself with the child.
Journal of achievements
And so, there is an idea to make a diary out of it: write down the child’s answers to these three questions every night – isn’t it a wonderful future material for a psychotherapist artifact for nostalgia?
In fact, this is the same adult journal of achievements that helps you monitor yourself and remember to be proud of yourself. Such a journal can be kept with an individually determined regularity: daily, weekly, monthly. I like to write down monthly and yearly summaries, it’s a great reminder that time/life is not wasted. The most reactive type of journaling.
Twelve areas of life
In this year’s new year resolution, I am trying to introduce a model taken from Vishen Lakhiani’s book, although he himself took it from somewhere else (like everything else in the book), tweaking it for himself (which is very good, let’s correct it to ourselves). The idea is to divide your life into twelve categories, rate your satisfaction with each of them on a ten-point scale, and then determine what is missing to get all ten points and set goals to go up the scale.
For Vishen Lakhiani, these areas look like this: 1) Love, 2) Friendship, 3) Adventure, 4) Environment, 5) Health and sports, 6) Intellectual life, 7) Skills, 8) Spiritual life, 9) Career, 10) Creativity, 11) Family, 12) Social life.
John Butcher, from whom Vishen borrowed the idea, has them as follows: 1) Health and fitness, 2) Intellectual life, 3) Emotional life, 4) Character, 5) Spirituality, 6) Love relationships, 7) Parenting, 8) Social life, 9) Financial life, 10) Career, 11) Quality of life, 12) Vision of life.
How about making your own 12?
By all the laws of nature, I should draw my own 12. Mine will look like this:
- Health and physical activity: a) the necessary minimum: what physical activity is enough for me to feel good? b) what would I like to change for the better?
- Internal harmony: a) what do I need for internal comfort? b) what practices may help?
- Intellectual life: a) in which areas of life would I like to deepen my knowledge? b) what skills would be good to acquire? c) what training/studies do I want to complete?
- Social life: a) what are my needs in others? b) what can I do for the local community and/or for the community to which I belong? c) do I have a “support group” and how to organize it if not?
- Relationship: a) am I satisfied with my relationship or my status? b) what needs improvement?
- Parenting: a) do I spend a certain amount of time with the children, especially outside? b) what would I like to improve in our relationship? c) what joint activity do we equally enjoy?
- Quality of life: a) am I satisfied with the conditions in which I live and work? b) what would I like to change? c) what can I change right now?
- Finance: a) what is my financial situation? b) what do I want to achieve? c) how do I achieve it?
- Work: a) am I satisfied with my work? b) am I growing thanks to it? c) what do I want to achieve?
- Hobbies: a) do I spend time on hobbies or “activity for the sake of activity”?
- Values: a) what are my main values? b) what can I do to create positive changes in the area of my values?
- Novelty: what new things do I want to try?
What remains is to establish a specific achievable goal in each area and determine the smallest steps necessary to achieve it. Not the tool-purpose matters, but the result-purpose, – clarifies Vishen Lakhiani.
The three most important questions
Vishen Lakhiani believes that there are three most important questions that a person can ask themselves. They should help in determining the purpose and setting goals:
- What experience do I want to gain in this life? (Barbarasherian “if I could do anything, there would be no obstacles for me and I would definitely succeed, what would I do?“)
- How do I want to grow? (Physically, intellectually, emotionally, relationally, career-wise, what skills do I want to acquire? How do I want to improve my inner state and living conditions? What does my ideal day look like today and in the future?)
- What do I want to share? (What do I like and do well? What are my values? What changes would I like to see in the world? What can I give to the world with the above experiences and growth?)
Determining values and life purpose tests can help to find support in building a system of goals. Analyzing what has already been achieved can help you not give up when things don’t go according to plan. Dreams can help shape the future we desire.
