Note: This is a guest post from Mark Harrison of Effortless Abundance

First – a sweeping statement. Everyone wants success and happiness. We might not agree about what this means – each of us defines ‘success’ and ‘happiness’ in a different way – but everyone aspires to these things. Yet for so many people, happiness and success are elusive, and we can spend a great deal of time looking for the answers.

For many years I was an avid collector of ‘self improvement’ books – I have several hundred in my collection – and yet, however many I read and enjoyed, I never seemed to get closer to finding what I was looking for. I was looking in the wrong place, of course. I was looking outside when the key was within me all along.

There is nothing wrong with self-help books: they can be entertaining, inspiring and challenging. But they cannot change you. What changes you is the realization that you are in control.

What you control is your mind. What we focus our attention on grows and becomes a more important part of our experience. Many – perhaps most – people tend to focus a lot on negative things. We fret about the past, about missed opportunities, mistakes and failures, we fear the future with all its uncertainty; we worry about our relationships, our investments, and our security. We compare ourselves to others in an unfavorable light, and we fear that we are inadequate. These negative thoughts continually arise and, with attention, they grow and persist.

This kind of thinking is poison: it is corrosive, toxic, destructive, and we need to purge ourselves of it. To attract more positive experiences into our life – to become truly happy and successful – we need to eliminate the negative thinking which, for many of us, has become such an integral part of our life. It’s not so much that we need to ‘think positively’ so much as that we need to drop the habitual, negative thoughts that swirl around our head and make up so much of the background noise in our lives. I am convinced that our natural, ‘default’ state is peace and happiness, and that success comes easily if we have nothing blocking the way.

Dropping negative thinking is, in a sense, very simple. Just don’t do it any more. Take your hand off the stove. And yet we are so used to inflicting this kind of pain on ourselves that just ‘letting go’ can be extraordinarily difficult.

One of the most important and useful things to remember is that your mind is a tool. You are its master, not its servant, so you should take control. Remember that thoughts are not reality. Although we often seem to think that our thoughts are reflections of the way things are out there in the world, the reality is that our thoughts shape the way we experience things. We could say that the world we experience is an echo of our thoughts, our inner reality.

Be vigilant and be diligent in being aware of your thoughts. When you spot a negative thought, just drop it. Just stop thinking about it. Switch your attention to something else if you have to. At first, it might be difficult but, as with everything else in life, gentle persistence will bring results. With practice, you will be able to uproot the old, harmful thought patterns and catch negative thinking before it takes hold.

One of the most wonderful books I have ever read is Awareness by Anthony de Mello. The message is simply that being aware of our negative thinking will change it. Instead of identifying with the negative thoughts in our head, we can be the silent observer, watching the thoughts and deciding, consciously, what to do with them. The only sensible option is to drop them. Why let them dictate how we feel? Why let them determine our happiness?

It is possible to be at peace, to be relaxed and happy and to enjoy every situation in life. It is possible to be successful easily and naturally. It’s all about maintaining the right mental attitude and knowing how to deal with the thoughts that come into our mind. So why waste another moment on negative thinking?

Mark writes for a number of sites around the web. Check out his site and his new book, Thity Days to Change Your Life.

Photo by Kevin Tiqui

I always like to extract life lessons from seemingly unrelated ideas. This time I want to discuss an interesting article titled Why Poor Countries Are Poor. The article, which talks about the reasons some countries are poor, takes Cameroon as an example:

The average Cameroonian is eight times poorer than the average citizen of the world and almost 50 times poorer than the typical American. And Cameroon is getting poorer.

To grasp the situation better, look at the infrastructure there:

Douala, a city of 2 million people, has no real roads… Piles of rubble and vast holes mark unfinished construction or demolition work. Along the middle is a strip of potholes that 20 years ago was a road… As our car slowly bumped and lurched through the crowds, I tried to make sense of it all by asking Sam, the driver, about the country. “Sam, how long was it since the roads were last fixed?” “The roads, they have not been fixed for 19 years.”

19 years? How could that happen? Remember, Douala is a major city. Didn’t the people complain about it?

The Main Reason Poor Countries Are Poor

Economists have theories about what make a country poor:

Economists used to think wealth came from a combination of man-made resources (roads, factories, telephone systems), human resources (hard work and education), and technological resources (technical know-how, or simply high-tech machinery).

But the author argues that the picture is incomplete. There is an important part missing. The missing part explains why a poor country couldn’t build those necessary resources in the first place. Here it is:

Government banditry, widespread waste, and oppressive regulations are all elements in that missing piece of the puzzle… During the last 10 years or so, economists working on development issues have converged on the mantra that “institutions matter.”

Having bad institutions is the main reason poor countries are poor. How do you know whether or not a country has bad institutions? There’s a clear characteristic:

…self-interested and ambitious people are in positions of power, great and small, all over the world. In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and democratic opposition. Cameroon’s tragedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check.

That’s it. There’s nothing to hold self-interest in check. As a result, everyone just looks for ways to benefit himself without ever thinking about what the consequences might be for other people or future generations. There’s no mechanism to restrain short-sighted behavior.

A Life Lesson for Individuals

I know that an individual is much less complex than a country, but I do see a parallel here. To succeed, especially in this era of globalization, you need to have good resources. Having good infrastructure, knowledge and technology is tremendously helpful. But, above all, what you need to be successful is good “institutions.” It’s good “institutions” that enable you to use your resources effectively and even build them in the first place. Without them, your self-interest will rule:

1. You will only do things that give you short-term benefits.
2. You won’t do the painful things necessary for long-term good.
3. You might cheat to get something for yourself at the expense of other people’s interest.

Good “institutions” help you prevent this short-sighted behavior.

The question is: what constitute good “institutions” at individual level? What are the things that hold self-interest in check? The answer, in my opinion, is your values and self-discipline. These are the foundation upon which you can build many other things necessary for success. They help you develop your potential and use your resources in the best possible way.

Let’s look closer at both of them:

1. Self-discipline. Self-discipline pushes you to do things that are painful in the short-term but good for you and other people in the long-term. Self-discipline makes you do the deliberate practice necessary to master a skill. Self-discipline makes you do your work even if you don’t feel like to.
2. Values. Your values fuel your self-discipline. They ensure that you have the internal motivation to do the right things rather than external motivation (like fear of punishment). They ensure that you can stay disciplined in the long run. Furthermore, they keep you from doing things that are harmful to other people or future generations.

Though they are different, the core of what makes a country successful is also what makes you successful. You need something that holds short-sighted behavior in check. You need something that makes you do painful things today for the sake of long-term good. You need to have strong values and self-discipline.

Photo by DraconianRain

I’m currently reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0 by Thomas Friedman. The book mainly discusses the ecological crisis we are facing, but the first three chapters also discusses the 2008 financial crisis. Ecological crisis and financial crisis may seem unrelated to each other, but Friedman argues that they actually have the same cause:

The way we were creating wealth had built up so many toxic assets in both the financial world and the natural world that by 2008/9 it shook the very foundation of our markets and ecosystems. That’s right, while they might not appear on the surface to have been related, the destabilization of both the Market and Mother Nature had the same root causes… The same recklessness undermined all of them.

Friedman explains the causes in more details, but they actually come down to just one thing: greed – the desire to get as much as possible for oneself without thinking about how things would be for other people or future generations.

Greed is the reason why people made irrationally risky investment in subprime mortgage assets. Greed is also the reason why people are depleting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. They want to increase their quality of life without thinking about whether or not they do it in a sustainable way.

The problem is people usually aren’t aware of the coming danger until everything is too late. Greed blinds them. Here’s what they might think:

1. Nothing could go wrong. We have done this for years and nothing negative happens. Besides, the probability that things could go wrong is small so there’s no reason to stop doing it.
2. Everyone is doing it. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t enjoy the rewards that everyone else is enjoying.

The scary thing here is this kind of thinking also caused the collapse of many civilizations throughout the history. The book Collapse by Jared Diamond has many such stories. Here’s one of them:

The overall picture for Easter is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world: the whole forest gone, and all of its tree species extinct… The further consequences start with starvation, a population crash, and a descent into cannibalism.

But why did the deforestation happen? Here it is:

… competition between clans and chiefs driving the erection of bigger statues requiring more wood, rope, and food.

This, again, is greed at play. Greed made the people exhaust their resources despite the apparent danger. Didn’t they realize that exhausting their resources would cause their civilization to collapse? Greed had blinded them, obviously.

The same thing applies to individuals. A greedy person may become obsessed with money or prestige at the expense of his health or relationships. Greed blinds him to the coming danger until everything is too late.

This is an important reminder for all of us. Beware of greed. Here is a simple rule:

Where there is greed, there is a silent danger.

Photo by NeoGaboX

Note: This is a guest post by Josh Lipovetsky of Film Insight

Ralph Waldo Emerson. A literary pioneer. Not only did he find the basis of Transcendentalism, or Bright Romanticism writing; he made great contributions to the field of personal development, and gave us some great practical ideas about living, that we will ponder upon for centuries to come. He valued the individual over society, and had many works of literature to enforce his views. In his works, there were many inspirational quotes that reflected what an individual is. Emerson’s highest values were: courage, peace, and the power of the individual.

I have selected 6 quotes, which represent Ralph Waldo Emerson’s views on life. Each quote has its own meaning, and its own method of practical application.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

Isn’t it true? Every opportunity, every chance that you take in life, is the sacrifice of another opportunity. By choosing to become a writer, you are sacrificing the opportunity to be something else, like an accountant. So what is the point of it all? The point is to stop worrying about missed opportunities, because you have no idea what could have been. Maybe if that milk hadn’t been spilled in the past, you would be in a better present situation? On the other hand, you might also be in a much worse present situation. Opportunities come and go; it is up to you, the individual, to make the best decision for yourself. Weigh the pros and cons of each decision, and know that you are giving up another opportunity. It could be better, it could be worse. It’s all part of the human being experience.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Let’s face it: There are always going to be certain people, that don’t want you to succeed. People who look at you weird when you do something right. Too many people act like robots in today’s society. They do what is expected of them, get their rewards, repeat. Expectations, Rewards, Repeat. Emerson could not stand this repetitive cycle. He believed that society turned people into something that they weren’t born to be. And as a person got older, it was harder and harder to break free from the strong grasp of society. What does it take to be yourself? For one, it takes a lot of courage, one of Emerson’s most favorite traits. Whenever someone goes against society standards, they will take a lot of heat for it. This resistance from others is just a sign that you are doing something right. No one said that being yourself was easy. Difficult? Yes. Rewarding? Extremely. In the end, the people that are able to go against the grain of society are the truly great people in our world.

“We are always getting ready to live, but never living”

When I get my promotion, I’ll really start living! When things have settled down, then I’ll do it! These are common phrases that you hear from people. Will the dust ever settle? No. Will you ever get the promotion? You might, but then you’ll come up with another excuse not to take action. The truth is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of excuses you can make not to take action. There is always a little voice inside your head, afraid of failure, and afraid of success. Your ability to truly live is dependent upon your ability to ignore that counterproductive voice inside your head. What you’re hearing is the voice of complacence. The moment you stop listening to it, is the moment you begin your real life. Until then, you will always be getting ready for a change in your life. But getting ready for something, and actually doing it, are two different things entirely.

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

Life is all about learning new skills. Once you have acquired these skills, you must constantly seek to improve them. In your industry/job, there will always be people who are up-and-coming. These people will surpass you, unless you are constantly seeking to improve yourself. Like my former teacher once told me: “The moment you are satisfied with what you have, is the moment that someone else will take your spot in the race of life.” Emerson believed that life is about growing, and there was no point in living if you don’t constantly grow. No matter what you know, or how many skills you possess, there is always more to learn about your respective interests. You can always do a better job, regardless of how good you are at what you do.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

Destiny is overrated. Yeah, I said it. There are too many people attached to the idea of ‘fate’, and ‘destiny’, that they believe they can lay back, do nothing, and their fate will take over. Well I have some bad news to those people: Your destiny is not looking very good! Is there any wildly successful person, off the top of your head, who got to where they are by doing nothing? No. People who are truly great don’t rely on the concept of fate/destiny. There is no proof/evidence to support its actual existence. So here is one of the keys to life: Live life like fate and destiny don’t exist. Decide what you want to be, pick out your future, and make your own destiny. After all, whoever we think we are, we become!

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself”

Perhaps Emerson’s most powerful quote. Ultimate power to the individual. Who else but yourself can bring peace into your life? It hurts to say this, but horrible things happen every day. Murder, kidnapping, rape, you name it. It happens to amazing people. The external world is never peaceful. But you don’t have to suffer at the hands of other people. Until the day you die, you can choose to be at peace with the world. You can let go of your surroundings, and be one with nature. One of Emerson’s friends, Henry David Thoreau, believed in the peace of nature. He spent a couple of years submerged in nothing but the beauty of nature itself! Now that is how you find peace! But I’m not saying that you need to spend years in the wilderness to be at peace with yourself. I’m saying that you need to acknowledge your spirituality, and the peace that has been within you since birth. When we learn to find peace within ourselves, the world around us changes. We attract more external peace, while radiating a signal of internal peace! It’s strange, but that’s how life works. From the inside-out, not the outside-in.

The human spirit is as strong as can be. However, society has gradually weakened it. As children, we are born with our own respective traits, attitudes, and beliefs. We are our own person. However, as we get older, we conform to society, and lose our sense of individuality. But you know what I say? No! Emerson refused to give up his right to be different, and refused to conform to society’s standard. This is what every human being is meant to do. To go against the grain, is to find your own way of life. To do it your way, like it has never been done before!

Josh Lipovetsky started his business, Film Insight, when he was just 16 years old. He started it while hospitalized, after being inspired to write about life. He incorporates the ideas from our favorite movies, and personal development. If you like movies, and learning about life, you will love his website!

Photo by iChaz

Note: This is a guest post by Mark Foo of 77 Success Traits

If you’re leading a group of people towards success, you must learn how to motivate others. If you concentrate on understanding what motivates others and you meet the needs of these people, you’ll be on the right track for a positive and enlightening experience for all involved.

Once a person’s base needs are met, they usually move on to working on certain needs of self fulfillment. For example, if someone is hungry, they won’t be able to concentrate on a critical thinking task. In this case you’ll need to make sure that this person has had lunch before the task needs to be completed. But how can you motivate them to complete certain tasks once base needs have been fulfilled?

Try one or more of the following ways of motivating people:

1. Treat People Kindly. As a leader you need to treat the people helping you with the utmost respect and kindness. Hand out praise when it’s warranted. You might not know it, but it’s a big motivation booster when people are treated right. People enjoy knowing when they’re doing a good job and enjoy working with people that treat others with kindness.

2. Give People Responsibility. If there are certain tasks that you’re allowed to delegate to others, by all means choose someone to take responsibility for that task. When people are fully responsible, they’ll be more likely to find the motivation to complete the task. This is because, as a part of a group, they may not feel like their hard work matters, but when they’re responsible it certainly matters. They also know that they’re being held accountable for the success or failure of the project.

3. Be a Good Listener. No one likes to feel like they don’t matter. Just because you have final say doesn’t mean that you can’t get some help with important decision making. People enjoy feeling like they’re making a difference. Always keep an open ear and you’ll be motivating your team to come up with solutions and creative ideas.

4. Set Stretched Goals. Think long and hard about how your goal setting abilities can teach you how to motivate others. You don’t want to set goals that are too easy. Your team might reach them quickly but they won’t be pushed to become the best they can be. On the other end, you don’t want to set goals that are unattainable either. Your team will quickly lose motivation because they’ll never get the feeling of having met their goals. You want to find a goal that would push them to achieve just a little more than they have in the past and keep going from there.

5. Get to Know People. You may not want to be personal friends with your colleagues, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get to know them as people. Keep lines of communication open and get to know your team by paying attention to their wants, needs, strengths and weaknesses. People are smart and they’ll know when they have a leader that cares and a leader that doesn’t. They’ll certainly be more motivated to work hard for somebody that cares about them.

6. Keep Everyone in the Know. Nobody likes to be left in the dark. Make sure that you’re open about your thinking and decisions with the people you’re motivating. Sure, sometimes there will be things that you’re not supposed to share. You just need to make an effort to spread the word around when you can communicate important issues.

Remember that when you’re working on motivating others, it’s definitely important to strengthen their sense of belonging. You’re leading a little family and when everyone’s happy, they’re motivated to achieve big things.

Mark Foo has brought together 48 personal development bloggers and writers to co-author The 77 Traits of Highly Successful People eBook that spells out all of the success secrets of the very successful people. This eBook is available to you FREE and you can grab your free copy now at http://www.77SuccessTraits.com.

Photo by Darcy McCarty

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

There are times in life when things don’t go as expected. Perhaps an important project of yours ended up in failure. Or you got laid off from your job. Whatever it is, it might make you depressed. But you need to get things back under control. You need to keep moving forward. For that, you need to make yourself feel better so that you can face the situation with a positive attitude.

Here are some tips to make yourself feel better when you’re depressed:

1. Calm down

Before anything else, calm yourself down. Don’t panic. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. You can only apply the tips below if you are calm.

2. Feed your mind with positive thoughts

When you’re depressed, it’s easy to fall into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts. The negative cycle makes things look worse than they actually are. It’s important that you break this cycle so that you don’t become a victim of your own thoughts.

To do that, feed your mind with positive thoughts. You may read spiritual texts, motivational books, or inspiring quotes. You may also listen to positive tapes. Listening works well when you’re overwhelmed with negative thoughts because it doesn’t require your active participation.

3. Remember good things

Our minds tend to focus on the negative and not the positive. But you should direct your mind to the positive. Remember the good things in your life. Remember the good people around you. I’m sure there are many more things that go right in your life than those that go wrong. Looking at the good things balances your perspective so that you don’t dwell in negativity.

4. Look at the big picture

An event that seems bad might not seem that bad if you look at the big picture. Put the event in context. Think of it as one mosaic piece that’s necessary to make your life wonderful.

5. Believe that everything will be all right

What you believe has a big effect on you. If you believe that things will go wrong, that would usually be the case. On the other hand, if you believe that everything will be all right, you will have a winning attitude. And, as said in this article, a winning attitude is everything.

6. Exercise

When you’re depressed, take time to exercise. Study shows that “exercise is related to positive mental health as indicated by relief in symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

7. Forgive

Sometimes one reason you feel bad is because you don’t forgive. Perhaps you had made mistakes in the past and you blamed yourself for it. You need to forgive yourself. Or perhaps someone mistreated you. You need to forgive them. I know it’s easier said than done, but as Mahatma Gandhi said:

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

So let us all be strong.

8. Take action

The only cure for grief is action.
George Henry Lewes

Things won’t get better if you just sit and do nothing. Instead of thinking about how bad things are, think of what you can do to solve the problem and take action.

9. Say something positive

Negative words have devastating effect on your confidence and motivation. So whenever you’re about to say something negative, stop yourself and take a deep breath. Reframe what you’re going to say and make it positive. For example, instead of saying “I will never make it”, say “It won’t be easy, but I know I will make it.”

10. Think about other people

One of the best ways to make yourself feel better is simply by taking the focus away from yourself. The more you think about your problems, the more difficult it would feel. So start thinking about other people and how you can help them. When you do that, your problems will no longer seem so hard.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

With Thanksgiving coming, let’s remember once again how important it is to be grateful for what we have. Don’t be so busy with your life that you never stop and count your blessings. Don’t just want more and more without ever expressing your gratitude for what you already have.

I recently read You: The Owner’s Manual, a very good book on health. There is plenty of good advice there. But reading the book also made me realize one thing: there are so many things that could go wrong in our bodies. Your body has hundreds (if not thousands) of parts and if even one of them goes wrong, you will suffer. What if you couldn’t see or hear? What if your kidney didn’t do its job? Being healthy is a great blessing but we often take it for granted.

The same thing applies to practically every other aspects of our lives. A few days ago I had a power outage. There was no electricity which meant no computer, no Internet, no television, and even no lighting. The outage lasted for just a few hours but it made me realize how important electricity is to our modern lives. I took electricity for granted and only when it was gone did I feel how important it actually is.

I can continue on and on but the message is clear: don’t take things for granted. Be grateful. Even seemingly small things matter.

Photo by Jesse Kruger

Note: This is a guest post from Mark Harrison of Thirty Days to Change Your Life

Many years ago, I came across a book by Anthony de Mello called Awareness. De Mello was an Indian Jesuit priest whose writing was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. To me, he is a great source of inspiration, and he has much to say about happiness and pain.

Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

One of De Mello’s key messages is that, by nature, life is not a struggle. Attachment – greed, craving, ambition – is the cause of all misery, and so to be detached is to be happy.

Does this mean we should have no preferences? Should we not want to achieve more? Should we not desire and seek out the good things in life? I think it would be absurd to say that we should have no preference between different experiences and conditions, but a distinction needs to be made between preference and attachment.

We are surrounded by contrast, and one can choose – and enjoy – different experiences, without being attached to them. To enjoy someone’s company without being clingy, to feel great pleasure when watching the sunset on a cool summer evening without mourning the coming of the night – we can have preferences and make choices about what we experience without craving them.

We are free to choose – and to prefer – some conditions over others. But when our preferences become cravings, then life becomes a struggle to achieve these conditions, and once we have achieved them, we start to worry about losing them.

An analogy might be going for a long walk in the country – there will be various different scenes, and each one can be enjoyed. Perhaps you have some preference for a certain view or a particular spot on the walk, and you might linger in one place for a while, but all of the different parts of the walk can be enjoyed along the way.

Happiness, it seems, is to accept the world as it is, enjoying the journey as we pass through and being appreciative of each stage on the way.

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth

Trying to change the world in a forceful way is a foolish endeavor. Changing yourself may, in time, change things around you, but to ‘take on’ the world will probably not achieve much. Force may result in change, but it will be temporary and easily reversed. Real change is the result of quiet, patient working with the natural flow of things, just as water can cut a deep valley in a landscape.

Lao Tze, the semi-mythical Taoist sage, is said to have written in the Tao Te Ching, ‘By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.‘

The only thing you can truly change is yourself. In his book Choice Theory, William Glasser writes that we cannot force anyone to do anything. We are often brought up to think that we can change other people by our own efforts, but this ‘external control psychology’ is deeply misguided and leads to untold pain and misery.

We are responsible for our own happiness, and cannot derive happiness from the outside. Many (perhaps most) people, seem to think that happiness is caused by the outside world – including other people – conforming to certain conditions. People think things like, ‘I’ll be happy when I have my degree,’ or ‘I’ll be content when I’ve got a certain level of income,’ or ‘I’d be happy if my husband/wife/son/brother started behaving better.’ But relying on something outside to bring happiness is a mistake. It abdicates responsibility for our happiness and takes away our power. The truth is that we can only change ourselves, our attitudes, our thoughts, and our own level of happiness.

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head.

If we can change only ourselves and not the world around us, it follows that we can be happier by changing our thoughts. Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor-philosopher, observed this when he wrote ‘Our life is what our thoughts make it,’ and this is a sentiment which has been echoed by countless writers. From Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent-Peale to Dale Carnegie, the vital importance of our thoughts in determining our experience of life has been emphasized again and again.

In summary, life should be easy and things can be achieved without a great deal of effort, and we can experience this ease by working with the natural grain of things, and not trying to use force. The way we think about things is the most important factor in our happiness and our achievement.

Take a look at Mark’s book, Thirty Days to Change Your Life.

Photo by Arwen Abendstern

Note: This is a guest post from David Turnbull of Adventures of a Barefoot Geek

I live in the future. No, this isn’t a McFly-moment, it’s a always-have-my-thoughts-in-the-future moment. And it’s a problem.

Living with your mind focused on the future causes you to miss out on the now and our lives are made out of moments of now, not of moments of the future. By living in the future you don’t actually live at all.

Of course, it’d be nice to live so I’m trying to enjoy the journey – the present. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Focus

Pure focus is bliss. When your thoughts, actions and emotions are all directed towards a single function you are focusing and you are in the present. You should get lost in your work. Set a deadline for yourself to finish a task and see your level of focus skyrocket.

Right now I’m using e.ggtimer.com and have it set for 20 minutes to finish this article (which I’ve pre-outlined). Perhaps the deadline is too tight, but that’s great, because it’s a challenge that doesn’t allow for procrastinations or over thinking. Set a task and do it.

Go with the flow.

2. Mastermind

Two of my friends and I meet up every now and then to talk about business, ideas, and just random stuff really. It’s fairly flexible and unprofessional, but we still label it as a mastermind.

Although the very concept of a mastermind is focused on getting results in the future I feel there’s also a sense of living in the moment, because we all just sit around a table or outside on the grass and talk. There’s no fancy technology, very little note taking and it’s just pure discussion. And perhaps most importantly: it’s fun.

When we mastermind time flies. Just a couple of days ago we spent 6+ hours just talking about stuff and it was the most enjoyable 6 hours I’ve had in a while.

Find like-minded individuals and bump your heads together (figuratively – don’t get all Pachycephalosaurus on me).

3. Take it slow

Being in a rush doesn’t give you a chance to appreciate the present. I understand the various apparent urgencies you may feel in your life. For some time I was rushing to earn an income online and although a degree of hustle is required for any form of achievement, I find taking things slower and simply being patient more rewarding.

I’ve accepted that my writing career isn’t going to explode overnight and that any side businesses I build aren’t going to be insanely popular at launch. And with that comes a sense of calm. Yes, it may take years to reach goals I’ve set, but years I have, moments I need.

Slow down the speed of life. Urgency is rarely urgency.

4. Find balance

Or “The Middle Way” as it’s known in Buddhism. Anything in excess is dangerous. Practice the art of work-life separation and strive to do everything in moderation.

When you introduce balance into your life you become mindful of what you’re doing, giving you a chance to acknowledge moments for what they are: precious gifts of chronology. Don’t let anything consume your life.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Balance your life.

5. Be certain

Where are you going? Understand what you want the future to hold and set a plan to accommodate for that. This gives you perhaps the most powerful tool in achievement: certainty.

If you believe in something, are passionate about it and can visualise the end result so clearly that you can taste it, you feel certain that it’s inevitable. You’re no longer wondering if, but when. And this is powerful.

With this certainty you can stop stressing over what may or may not happen in the future because there’s simply no wondering – you’re going to achieve it and that’s final. Achievement simply becomes a matter of doing X to achieve Y.

This may seem like a cold way to approach life, but when the outcome Y is understood, each moment X can be fully appreciated as they aren’t bombarded by self doubt or uncertainty. You can live in the present because your future becomes a predetermined (but still open to spontaneity) mass of wonderment.

Set a direction for your life and enjoy the ride.

6. Unfocus

Productiveness isn’t always beneficial. It’s great to get stuff done, but at times it’s even better to sit back and lose yourself in something that has no tangible result, something that is simply fun.

Personally I love getting fish and chips with a friend and just watching the world go by, or playing some co-op video games if I’m in the mood for fighting hordes of aliens. You don’t need to dominate your life with getting things done.

Embrace unproductivity. Do things “just because”.

David Turnbull writes about peace of mind, simplicity and geekery at his blog, Adventures of a Barefoot Geek. He enjoys long walks and writing about himself in 3rd person.

Photo by lepiaf.geo

Note: This is a guest post from Douglas Cartwright of Living Words

Recently, I was watching a television show about Dean Potter, an American ‘slack line walker’ who strings one-inch thick nylon ropes between high mountainous places and walks across them.

Whilst that’s impressive, you might think “I’ve seen tightrope walkers before.”

But Dean is different. He does it without a balancing pole, or a safety harness, and the line is, literally, slack unlike the traditional high-wire walker. So it moves in the wind as he walks on it.

That’s amazing – but what is more interesting is what he says about why he does it:

“When I’m on a slack-line the feeling that if I slip, I die, totally overwhelms me…I’m after a feeling of total control of my life…that’s what I’m after in all of my life…I’m drawn towards these obsessive goals…”

What Dean has got (whether he realizes it or not) are outrageously powerful reasons driving him for doing what he does. He fully admits he knows that his addiction could lead to his death – but he does it anyway.

What drives a man to do such things?

This is the power of intention, driven by reasons, created by values: things that are so significant and important to him that he can focus his entire mind into what needs to be done to get across that line.

What I am writing about here is focus – and one significant way to improve it using the power of intention.

Some people seem to be able to focus on their priorities at will; and some people seem not to be able to. When these latter people do – they can’t seem to maintain it for long.

Why?

We’re going to look at this and explore some of what we can do about it. But first, please settle yourself down and reacquaint yourself with some familiar (and maybe not so familiar) feelings.

Please picture this….

It’s Friday afternoon. You’re tired, winding down, and ready to chill out at the weekend. You lean lethargically over to your PC and check your email in the hope someone has sent you a decent joke.

Suddenly your boss appears by the desk and tells you he needs your sales figures (or substitute any other time-consuming report-type activity) by Monday morning, and it’s non-negotiable.

You must do it.

You hear your mouth agreeing, and your head nodding, but inwardly you hear your voice groaning and whining: “Darn! It takes ages to do these figures and I’m not in the mood – How on earth am I going to summon the energy or the focus to do this stupid thing?” You alternate quickly between flashes of anger, despair and frustration as you imagine the time it’s going to waste of your weekend putting this together.

If you work for someone else (and if you are a middle manager!) this is probably not unfamiliar to you – and if not so at work, then you can probably remember something like it happening when you were relaxing at home -someone has come to you with an urgent (to them) thing they need you to do; and you can remember the dragging resistance you felt to doing it even as you agreed.

Listen to the griping in your head. What kind of things do you say to yourself about it?

Now, clear your mind and think what your reaction would be if completing that one report (or other task) meant:

• Significant promotion or major career boost.
• An extra 20K per annum tax free. Or any amount you want.
• A new house anywhere in the world you desired.
• Health and long life.
• Being with the partner of your dreams.
• Understanding what it meant to be close to God.

What if it meant all your dreams come true just because you got it done that evening?

Ok, I know. Now, just go along with me for a minute. I know that no one’s report is likely to mean any of those things.

But what if it did?

What if all you had to do was that one lousy report and all your problems would be solved?

How would that feel? What would your motivation be to do it then? Imagine.

Pause for a moment and clear your head. Ask yourself this: “Why would I do the report in the second case and not the first?”

Isn’t it obvious?

In the first instance the only thing motivating you is probably the fear of getting bawled out or fired.

But in the second you’ve got better or more powerful reasons to do the report.

Many or all of those things listed are what people value, what they work their lives for, what they give up their time and money for.

It is the reasons that we have for doing things that make all the difference. It is the meanings we give to the events in our lives that determine how favourably we respond to them – and how strongly we feel about doing or not doing them.

The reason (!) I told you about Dean Potter was to demonstrate that if a man can find reasons to do something that goes against almost every instinct most of us had (walking across a bendy rope 500 feet up in the air with no safety harness!) then does that not inspire you that you could find some powerful reasons to do what you need to do in order to achieve your goals?

There are some things in life that you have to do if you want to be successful and in some cases even remain solvent. There are things you have to focus on, things you have to give “regular focused sufficient attention” to – whether you like it or not.

You probably do know (some of) what you should be doing in order to ensure your success.

So why don’t you?

Could it be because your reasons for not doing it are stronger than your reasons for doing it? Could it be that although it should be, it’s just not registering on your gut-level importance meter? That you just don’t feel like doing it???

What we need is a method of producing strong and lasting motivation that will see us through our good and ‘other’ days. What we need to do is to find a way to generate feelings strong enough to overcome our resistance AND access those feelings on a regular basis so that we can do what we need to. This pattern is based on the Intentions pattern which was created by Professor Michael Hall Ph.D, creator and trainer of Neurosemantics.

THE TECHNIQUE:

You will need at least 20 minutes and a paper and pencil/pen to do this properly. It would also be good if you are somewhere you cannot be seen as you may want to stand up during the final part of the exercise.

1) First, pick an activity you know you ‘should’ be doing in order to increase or turbo-boost your progress towards your success. Pick something that in your heart of hearts you know you are resisting. Got it?

Turn your paper to portrait format.

Write the activity in the middle of the top of the page.

We will now use this activity as a reference point to explore and create your higher and more powerful mental motivations.

2) Answer the questions about ‘How is this activity important to me?’

I take it that activity is significant, right?

How is it significant?

How is it valuable?

How is it meaningful?

What else is important about that?

How many other answers can you identify about this activity?

Write your answers from left to right of the page about an inch below the activity. Basically write what looks like a paragraph of answers.

3) Take a mental step back. Well done. You’ve started to explore your mind set and ask questions about your motivations which is more than many people do.

Now, look at the answers you have just written. Your activity is important to you because of these things, right?

Now ask the following questions about your answers.

And how are these answers important to me?

What is important about having this?

And if you got these feelings and senses of value exactly as you wanted them, what’s even more important than that?

Write down the answers in a paragraph an inch or two below your previous answers.

[Please go with the question and consider your answers even if it seems a little strange to do so.]

Keep doing steps 2 and 3 until you find yourself just repeating the same sort of answers as you did in the previous paragraph.

4) When you can’t list any more answers, look at your final paragraphs and let yourself feel your response to them. It will probably be powerful. Now, (and this is important) think about your activity whilst feeling these feelings. Imagine DOING the activity whilst feeling these powerful feelings.

Doesn’t this begin to totally transform your perceptions of that?

How does this work?

The cut and dried version comes from paraphrasing the German philosopher Nietzchie (the one who supposedly said ‘God is dead’) : “A man can endure how if he has a strong enough WHY” [my italics]

Dean Potter’s why drives him to do extreme things. For the rest of us, making those business calls, building that shed, and booking that training seminar might be enough to start with!

Douglas Cartwright is a personal breakthrough and effectiveness coach and trainer. He helps self-motivated people who are ‘stuck’ get moving and start taking action. You can start to untie your psychological ‘knots’ at www.livingwords.net and pick up an outrageously powerful implementation technique for free at www.overcomingprocrastination.co.uk

Photo by John Loo