Peaks and Valleys

by Spencer Johnson

• How you feel depends largely on how you view your situation. The key is to separate what happens to you from how good and valuable you feel you are as a person. I found that you can feel good about yourself even when bad things are happening
• Peaks and Valleys are connected. The errors you make in today's good times create tomorrow's bad times. And the wise things you do in today's bad times create tomorrow's good times.
• For example, people who use a peaks and valleys approach during bad times make things better when they return to basics and concentrate on what matters most.
  
• No one can stay in one place forever. Even if you remain physically in one spot, you are always moving in and out of the places in your heart. The secret is to truly appreciate and enjoy each time for what it is while you are living it.
  
• Peaks are moments when you appreciate what you have. Valleys are moments when you long for what is missing.
  
• So if you want to avoid fewer valleys, avoid comparisons. If you enjoy what's good about the moment, you feel more like you are on the peak.
• You cannot always control external events. But you can control your personal peaks and valleys by what you believe and what you do.
• To change a valley into a peak, you need to change one of two things: what is happening, or how you feel about what is happening. If you can change the situation, that's great. If not, you can choose how you feel about it so that it can work in your advantage.
• The path out of the valley appears when you choose to see things differently
• You change your valley into a peak when you find and use the good that is hidden in the bad times.
• Between peaks there are always valleys. How you manage your valley determines how soon you reach your next peak
• While it is unhealthy to try to escape by blocking out reality, it can often be very healthy to just relax and rest and trust that things will get better. Because, after a good night's sleep or a few days' break, they often do.
• Your ego can make you arrogant on the peak and fearful in the valley. It keeps you from seeing what is real. Your ego distort the truth. When you are on a peak, your ego makes you see things as better than they really are. And when you are in a valley, your ego makes you see things as worse than they really are. It makes you think a peak will last forever, and it makes you fear a valley will never end.
  
• The most common reason you leave a peak too soon is arrogance, masquerading as confidence. The most common reason you stay in a valley too long is fear masquerading as comfort.
• I find the best way to get through a valley is by creating and following your own sensible vision. By sensible I mean a vision of a future peak you want to be on that makes good sense to you. Something as big as you can imagine that is also realistic and attainable if you want it enough. And sensible also means you can make what you imagine more real to you when you use all your five senses to create an image in such specific, believable detail that you begin to realize you can make it happen. Imagine how your future Peak will look, sound, smell, taste, and feel until it becomes so real to you that the image of getting there pulls you through your valley.
• A great way to get to your next peak is to follow your sensible vision. Imagine yourself enjoying your better future in such specific, believable detail that you soon enjoy doing what takes you there.
• The pain in the valley can wake you up to a truth you have been ignoring.
• Maybe you are always creating a vision of your future whether you are aware of it or not - either a fearful vision, or a sensible vision. And it's just a question of which vision you follow.
• My valley is fear
• Since your valleys are moments of longing for what is missing, did he fear that he would never gain or regain what was missing? He knew the bad times can continue, but if you move beyond your fear, you soon feel much better.
• Avoid believing things are better than they really are when you are on a peak, or worse than they really are when you are in a valley. Make reality your friend.
  
• A personal peak is a triumph over fear.
• He wondered about the difference between wishing for a better future and following a sensible vision. Then he realized that the difference is in the doing. Wishing leads to no action but when you truly follow a sensible vision, you want to do the things that make it happen. You don't force yourself, you just want to do so much that you find yourself doing things you never knew you were capable of.
  
• He was beginning to truly understand what the old man meant by truly following your vision. It meant staying true to what you want and doing what really takes you there - recognizing the truth! More and more, he was starting to realize that fear block you, but the truth helps you succeed
• You create a peak when you truly follow your sensible vision. Your fear fades and you become more peaceful and successful.
• I don't know if this is right but it seems to me that the purpose of the peak is to celebrate life, and the purpose of the valley is to learn about life.
  
• I remembered that a great way to get to my next peak is to create and follow my sensible vision - one that makes sense to me and is realistic and attainable if i want it enough. I used all five of my senses to imagine that I was already enjoying being on the higher peak. I imagine what I would see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. As I did, my fear faded and it gave me the energy and enthusiasm to go for it. Then I kept seeing and feeling my sensible vision until I came up with a way to get there.
• Now I'm hoping that I can experience my future peaks and valleys with more curiosity about the truth. I'll ask myself "what is the truth in this situation I am in?"
• To stay on a peak longer: Be humble and grateful. Do more of what got you there. Keep making things better. Do more for others. Save resources for your upcoming valleys.
• He decided he wanted to grow into a more loving and attractive person. He now believed that by becoming more loving himself - by replacing fear with love - he was more likely to be loved, and to attract a truly fulfilling relationship into his life.
  
• In the days that followed, the created another sensible vision. This time, he imagined himself becoming the person that a woman like her would want to be with. And perhaps more important, the kind of person he would like to be. He imagined his better self in every detail. He would become someone who didn't take himself too serously, someone who was fun to be with, yet someone who cared deeply about creating real excellence in his life and work. He would be a man who wanted to make a difference in the world - perhaps a small difference, but a significant one. And he would never take for granted the people closest to him. For a change, the young man did not talk about this to anyone. He just held this picture and feeling very clearly in his mind and hear. Then he did the things that made it happen - staring with small things. In time, he became more like the man he had imagine.
  
• You get out of a valley sooner when you manage to get outside of yourself: at work, by being of greater service, and in life, by being more loving.
• One of the most useful things he found was surprisingly simple: Whenever he got confused about how to get out of a valley, he remembered that peaks and valleys are opposites. So he looked at what he did that put him in the valley and then he did just the opposite - and he got the opposite results.
  
• The man realized that what counted was not where a person lived, but how a person lived.