Angels in the Snow: Actions Make Us Who We Are

“When I was a child growing up in Michigan, we used to make angels in the snow.

We would find a fresh, untouched patch of snow and lie on our backs in it. Then, flapping our arms, we’d leave the impression of wings in the snow. We would then get up and admire our work. The two movements, lying down and flapping our arms, created the angel.

This memory of Michigan in the winter has come back to me a lot in recent weeks. It first happened when someone asked me what the connection was between self-motivation and self-creation.

While answering the question, I got a picture of snow. I had a vision that the whole universe was snow, and I could create myself any way I wanted by my movement. The movement of the actions I took would create the self I wanted to be.”

A story related by author Steve Chandler, author of “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself” on how actions make us who we are.

100 Ways to Motivate Yourself by Steve Chandler

Our personalities are created every moment

“You have no personality.” This is a shocking idea to me, because I always believe that we each have a personality that we have built up all these years. We might be extroverts, friendly and talkative, or we are introverts and are reserved. We are sporty and like the outdoors, or we are homely and prefer a good show or a novel in the comfort of our homes rather than meeting up with friends.

Chandler explained that having the idea that each of us has a fixed personality is self-limiting and denies us our power of continuous creation. “Who we are is up to us every moment.”

In retrospect, there is truth in the sentence. When we are in a happy mood, we tend to be friendlier and more vocal. When we click with someone, even an introvert will behave like an extrovert and chats endlessly. When we are troubled, we prefer quiet and peace even when we are party lovers.

Since our personalities are never fixed, why not try something that you usually don’t do today?

Growth equates happiness

That takes us to the topic about growth. If you are doing the same thing every day, there is no surprise, no excitement. You might feel that you have stagnated. For those who chase happiness, poet William Butler Yeats says it best, “Happiness is just one thing. Growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

So how do we grow? Here are 5 ways that Chandler gave to help us to grow, every single day.

5 ways to grow every single day

1) 5% more purpose into what you do today

Dr Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist and author of the book “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem” uses a “sentence stem” and asks his clients to quickly complete 10 endings to “If I bring five percent more purposefulness into my life today …”

Change is difficult. And if 5% is too much a change a day, how about 1% more effort, more thinking or more action today? In just 100 days, you will be a 100% more fulfilled person than you are now, and that’s just 3 1/2 months of your time.

Remember, whether you like it or not, time moves forward. Isn’t it cool to be a 100% better you in a few months’ time?

2) Do something badly

It is likely that most of us procrastinate and don’t start on something because we are afraid of failure. Starting is always the most difficult. Listen to your inner talk. We tend to give ourselves excuses like “now is not the best time to start”, “I’m too busy”, “I’m too tired”, “I don’t have the skills” etc.

So, who says we are not creative and imaginative? When it comes to finding reasons or excuses, we don’t usually have to think too hard.

There is never a best time to start. Instead of letting the fear of failure paralyse us, give the idea that “anything that is worth doing is worth doing well” a twist. Just decide to do it badly.

Yes, that’s right. At the start of doing something that you have no motivation of, tell yourself that you will do it as slowly as you can and as lazily as you can. Just give it your worst shot. Now, your excuse of “I can’t do it well” no longer exists. As you have decided you are not aiming for excellence, not even for an average rating, it takes the stress out of performing. Aim for action, not perfection.

3) Do it like a game

Remember when we were kids, we never got tired when playing. Our parents had to remind us to eat our meals and nag at us to go to bed.

But why does work feel so tiring, boring or even depressing?

It is because for many, work is no fun.

Chandler explains that people believe fun jobs are always somewhere else. They think that “If only I had been a ____”. Fill in the blank with whatever you think is a job that is fun – actor, professional footballer, food critic, tour guide?

Let’s see. Are you sure when you are in THAT job, it will be fun? Chandler says that fun can be found in any jobs and recommends that we introduce game-playing elements into our jobs to make it fun.

We can make it into a competition, like when Chandler shared how he used to hate tests in high school, until he and his friend decided to make it into a game. They came up with mock tests, which were much more difficult than the actual school tests, and had fun trying to answer each other’s mock test paper. Each had fun trying to outsmart the other in coming up with ridiculously difficult mock tests. In the end, attempting the actual tests became a breeze with all the practices they had.

If you think of it as a game, you’re unlikely to get stressed up and depressed if you don’t meet your expectation. Unless there are monetary or other consequences in the game, it is unlikely that you would take yourself seriously when you lose. Remember, it is all in the name of fun. If you lose this round, just play another round. Most important, have fun while doing it.

4) Enjoy all your problems

“Every solution has a problem.”

So, why do we have negative connotation of the word “problem”? It is because we are fearful, we think we are not able to overcome the problem, and that problems are roadblocks to our success and happiness.

Instead, we should think of problems as challenges and approach it with a spirit of play. For Chandler, when he is faced with a seemingly hopeless problem, he asked himself “What would be a hilarious solution?”

Richard Bach, author of “Illusions”, shares that “Every problem carries a gift inside it.”

To find the gift, we need to view the problem as an opportunity, the opportunity to break free from the shackles of the fearful mind and the opportunity for personal growth and development.

5) Achieve your process goals

Want your day to align to your long-term goals? Then set as many small goals as you can for the day so that you are in control of your day.

We are always told we need to put our long-term goals down so that we can achieve them. What do we want in 5 years’ time, 10 years’ time for our career, our personal life or financially? These are what author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi terms ‘outcome’ goals. There is another type of goals, called ‘process’ goals, which are small goals such as daily goals.

Although we need to know what our long-term goals are, Chandler advised that small goals that we set during the day works better than long-term goals as small goals are within our immediate control and achievable today. The small wins during the day will keep us motivated to move us forward towards our long-term outcomes.

Chandler reminds us to check the progress towards the outcome goals at the end of each day and to adjust process goals so that it is in line with our outcome goals.

Steve Chandler shares many more ways to motivate our lives. There are 100 of them in the book and these are just 5 ways that I have selected which can help us grow daily.

Be the angels that we are and create a magical life of our own.