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

Do you want to live a happy life? I’ve written before about being happy, but here I want to take a different angle and look at one important cause of unhappiness: loving stuff. Many people try to fill the void within them by buying more and more things they don’t need. When new gadgets come out, they buy them. When their friend has a new car, they want it too.

But why does it happen? Why do people love stuff? The reason is they believe it will make them happy. They believe the more stuff they have, the happier they will be. Is that true?

The answer is no. Perhaps they think they are happy, but they can actually be much happier if they do it differently. This isn’t just my opinion; scientific research supports it. I will discuss it more thoroughly below, but first let’s see some disadvantages of loving stuff:

1. It makes your life cluttered. Each thing you have consumes not only your physical space but also your mental space. Acquiring one more thing means having one more thing to worry about.
2. It creates wasteful spending. Buying stuff you don’t need means spending your money unnecessarily. Wouldn’t it be better if you spend it on something that’s truly useful and meaningful?
3. It promotes materialistic point of view. The more you love stuff, the more you send the wrong message to the world. The message you’re sending is that stuff can give you happiness. As a result, more and more people around you will fall into it.
4. It isn’t a good way to make you happy. There are better ways for that. More about it below.

So what should we do? Here are some tips on how not to love stuff:

1. Realize the negative side of stuff

When you realize the negative side of stuff (as discussed above), you will think twice before introducing more clutter into your life.

2. Realize that experiences – not stuff – contribute more to happiness

Instead of buying stuff, use your money to buy experiences. Research shows that experiences contribute more to happiness:

Another theme that has emerged in similar research is that money spent on experiences – vacations or theater tickets or meals out – makes you happier than money spent on material goods… “We generally found very consistent evidence that experiences made people happier than material possessions they had invested in,” says Van Boven.

3. Avoid impulse buying

Impulse buying is one of the main causes of acquiring too much stuff. This is something I learn firsthand. Since I love reading, I used to buy a lot of books. And guess what? Many of them end up unread. Realizing this, in recent years I become more careful when it comes to buying books. I only buy books that I’m sure I will read.

The way I avoid impulse buying is by first putting the item I want to buy into a wish list. I then wait for at least one month and see if I still want to buy it. In many cases, an item could stay in my wish list for months before I buy it.

4. Think ROI

ROI (return on investment) is a useful concept to help you minimize the number of stuff in your life. When you buy something, think of it as an investment. The question is: can you get good return on your investment? The return here isn’t financial. It’s the overall value you get from the stuff. Will it make your life considerably better? Will it give you long-term happiness? Invest your money only on things that give you good ROI.

5. Give

Giving is the ultimate way to both avoid loving stuff and make you happier. Research clearly shows the power of giving:

First, they surveyed 632 Americans on their general happiness, along with what they spent their money on, and found that higher “prosocial spending” – gifts for others and donations to charity – was indeed correlated with higher self-reported happiness. They followed this up with a more detailed look at 16 workers before and after they received a profit-sharing bonus from their company. They found that the only factor that reliably predicted which workers would be happy six to eight weeks after the bonus was their prosocial spending – the more money people spent on charity and gifts for others, the happier they were.

The conclusion of the research is clear:

Money makes you most happy if you don’t spend it on yourself.

Photo by striatic

What do you think it takes to get good luck? There are many opinions on this. One popular one is to prepare yourself so that you will be in the right position to capitalize on opportunities when they come. This is summarized in a Louis Pasteur’s quote that says “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

But there’s an interesting take on it that I found recently in The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. There the author gives a simple tip to get good luck: be generous. You should be generous if you want to be lucky. In other words, you should make other people feel lucky to be around you.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Here are three reasons why:

1. The quality of the people around you reflects your quality
   Twyla Tharp is a choreographer and this is what she writes: To be a great choreographer (or teacher), you have to invest everything you have in your dancer… Without that generosity, you’ll always hold something back. The finished work shows it, and your audience knows it.
2. People will reciprocate
   Reciprocation is one of the weapons of influence described in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. The law of reciprocation is wired into us. Whenever someone does something good for us, we feel obliged to give back to her. The more you are generous, the more people are willing to reciprocate and the more opportunities will come your way.
3. You will be known as a value provider
   Not only will the people whom you help feel obliged to reciprocate, but they may also tell their friends about you. They may tell their friends about how much value they get from you. That will attract these friends to come to you. They may then tell their friends and it becomes viral. All these people attracted to you means more opportunities for you.

Here are two things you should do to apply this principle:

1. Increase your value
   Before you can give to others, you need to have something you can give. You need to have something that make other people want to come to you. If you have nothing, how can people feel lucky to be around you? So work hard to increase your value. Build your expertise in the field you choose and expand your network. Coincidentally, it means that you are also preparing for opportunities. By wanting to be generous you build yourself a “prepared mind.”
2. Share without holding back
   Now that you have something worth sharing, what you need to do is sharing it without holding back. It may take practice to do that, but over time you will feel more and more comfortable to share what you know. Again, the key here is not just to give but to be generous.

Photo by wilhei55

Note: This is a guest post by Cath Duncan of Mine Your Resources

With all the personal development books, blogs, speakers, videos, teleseminars and coaches available these days, we all have access to an abundance of information, and personal development can seem like an overwhelming task. I’ve been immersed in this literature and culture for 14 years, searching for the personal development ideas and change tools that really make a difference, and these days I believe that there are only really two skills that you need to master to progress your life:

1. Getting clear on what you really want and
2. transforming the fears that are holding you back from making what you want a reality.

In fact, I find that it often boils right down to just transforming your fears, because much of the time the only reason that you’re unclear about what you want is because you’re afraid to want what you want, so your fear obscures your vision of what you want. If you know how to handle your fear, you can have, do and be everything you want.

Fear Is Universal

Don’t get caught in thinking that being afraid means you’re a wimp. We all have a part of our brains that’s colloquially referred to by neuropsychologists as the reptile brain, because it’s similar in structure to the brain of a reptile. Our reptile brain’s agenda is to make sure that we survive, so it’s concerned with watching out for potential lack and attack, and it sets off the alarm and the stress response whenever there’s any indication of potential lack or attack. This is a really useful survival response when you’re being chased by a lion or someone’s trying to mug you on the street, but the problem is that it can prevent us from thriving by being overly paranoid and holding us back from anything that’s the slightest bit scary, including new and unfamiliar experiences and uncertain future situations, which we’re all faced with when we make changes in our lives.

We can’t ever entirely switch off this part of ourselves that produces fear (and that’s a good thing, because we need it, for keeping us safe!), but what we can do is become “fear fit.” Normally, when we’re afraid, we try to avoid the situation that’s seems scary to us, because we’re afraid of feeling afraid. Becoming “fear fit” is about practicing having scary experiences, so that you’re no longer afraid of feeling afraid. When you practice having scary experiences, you’ll be come more comfortable and skilled at handling scary situations, which will increase your “comfort zone” and the number of different experiences you feel comfortable to handle. Every time you do something scary, you build more evidence that you can handle scary situations – evidence that you can rely on to boost both your confidence and your competence in future new scary situations. So here’s how to increase your fear fitness:

Exercises for Increasing Your Fear Fitness

1. Take up opportunities to try new and different things, visit new and different places, and meet new and different people. Whenever you expose yourself to unfamiliar experiences, you’ll get more familiar with the feeling of “safe fear” that your reptile brain produces in response to new and different experiences, so that you’ll grow to understand that the feeling means you’re learning and growing, and it’s perfectly safe to proceed.

2. Set yourself a few unrealistic goals. I know that the whole “S-M-A-R-T” goal-setting process says we should set realistic goals, but I also know that “realistic” is a subjective thing, and most goals are achievable if you’re willing to adjust the deadline and give yourself more time to get there. So set yourself some unrealistic goals so that you can become comfortable with the feeling of fear that comes with being unsure that you can achieve your goals.

3. Keep a log of significant fears that you’ve faced. Write down the date, the scary thing you faced, and the positive outcomes. Part of becoming fear fit is about teaching your brain to associate positive feelings with scary situations, rather than negative feelings. If you highlight and record all the positive results of facing your fears, your brain will quickly learn to associate facing your fears with pleasurable feelings. Even if it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, if you’re writing down the results, you must have survived the experience, so you can at least say that “I didn’t die.” When you’re feeling afraid of something new, you’ll be able to look back on your fear log and be reminded of your resourcefulness and the fears you’ve successfully faced in the past – achievements that we often forget when we’re feeling afraid and unresourceful.

4. Hang out with other people who are willing to face their fears. We all look to the people we hang out with as our reference for what’s “normal.” If it’s normal in the communities you hang out in for people to avoid doing anything scary, your reptile brain will tell you that it’s abnormal, and therefore dangerous, for you to do otherwise. And whenever you do something scary, you’ll have the added fear that your tribe will think you’re crazy, not support you, or even reject you for it. Hang out with other people who face new fears on a regular basis, and you’ll teach your reptile brain that this is a perfectly normal and safe thing to do.

5. Celebrate whenever you face a fear. This is another way to associate positive feelings with the idea of facing your fears. Have a special dinner with someone important to you, buy yourself a special gift, hold fear parties, phone your coach, or whatever else takes your fancy.

Practicing these exercises to increase your fear fitness is a lot like going to the gym. If you’ve trained regularly at the gym, over time you’ll build your ability to deal with major athletic challenges like running a half marathon or whatever other challenge you might like to take on. In much the same way, these fear fitness exercises can prepare you with the mental fortitude, stamina and skills for dealing with scary situations in the future, giving you the ability to confidently deal with whatever may come your way and use that to create more of the life you want.

Through her Bottom-line Bookclub, "Resource Miner," Cath Duncan offers accelerated learning programs for professionals who want to develop the Agile Living Strategies for thriving in these turbulent times. You can follow Cath’s blog at www.mineyourresources.com and on Twitter she’s @cathduncan

Photo by Markus_76

Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrow – it empties today of strength.
Corrie ten Boom

You need to know how to stop worrying if you want to live life to the fullest. Why? Because worry doesn’t do you any good. It won’t help you live a better life. It won’t make you feel better and more energized. Instead, it will make you less happy and less productive.

But how can we do that? How can we stop worrying? Here are eight ways:

1. Focus on what you can control

Thinking about things you can’t control puts unnecessary burden on your mind. For example, why should you worry about how bad the economy is? There’s nothing you can do about it unless you are a key person in the government. No matter how much you think about it, nothing will change. So instead of worrying about it, focus on things you can control like building your network and increasing your value. Don’t worry about things you can’t do anything about.

2. Use your imagination positively

Worry is a misuse of imagination.
Dan Zadra

Your imagination is a double-edged sword. You can use it to dream big dreams and keep your motivation high, but you can also use it to discourage yourself. People often worry about something because they fill their imagination with all the bad things that might happen. The reality is often not that bad, but it looks worse and worse because they give it too much attention.

3. Expect good things to happen

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin

Not only should you use your imagination positively, but also you should expect good things to happen in your life. Instead of expecting something to fail, expect it to succeed. Instead of expecting people not to like you, expect them to like you. You should be realistic, of course, but always expect to be a winner in life.

4. Accept responsibility

You might make mistakes in the past and worry about the consequences. In this case, the solution is to accept responsibility. Don’t let your worry drag you down. Accept the responsibility and move on. You still have a lot of great things waiting for you.

5. Be grateful

It’s easy to focus on the few things that could go wrong that we forget about the many things that already go right. That’s why having an attitude of gratitude is important. It keeps your perspective in balance. It makes you realize that for one thing that goes wrong there are many more things that go right. Just start with these simple things to be grateful for.

6. Run your own race

Stop comparing yourself with other people. Comparing yourself with others will only drain your mental energy. You have your own race to run. Instead of comparing yourself with others, focus on being the best that you can be.

7. Simplify your life

The simpler your life is, the fewer things you could worry about. So instead of doing a lot of things, focus on the few things that are most fulfilling and give you the most return for your time and effort. Find your life purpose and use the 80/20 rule to choose the few important activities to focus on.

8. Have faith

You should focus on things you can control. But what about things you can’t control? What can we do to eliminate any worry about them? The answer here is faith. You need to believe that everything will go well no matter how bad it might seem. You need to believe that everything will come out better in the end. Having faith eliminates a lot of worries in your life. It gives you peace of mind.

Photo by spaceodissey

Note: This is a guest post by Celestine Chua of The Personal Excellence Blog

When I was a kid, people would constantly speak in admiration of those who were excellent in whatever they were doing. These could be students who achieved academic excellence, successful business people, top athletes, celebrities, and so on. Envy aside, no one ever spent any time to think about why or how they were excellent. It was seemingly natural for most to just accept that certain people were meant for excellence while others weren’t.

As I grew up, I started to form personal goals which I pursued fervently. I would set different goals, generally anchored on academia and performance-related goals, since the country I lived in (Singapore) was a meritocratic society. In the process of my goal pursuit, I would experience the natural process of success and setbacks.

As I gained more experience and observed people who achieved excellence, I started to identify a certain pattern that linked up successes – a pattern of certain principles and beliefs. And when I acted in accordance to these, I would experience excellence in whatever I did – whether it was being on the dean’s list, graduating as the top marketing student in my Business School, nabbing a job offer in a Fortune 100 company against hundreds of applicants, delivering historical record-breaking results when I was working there, creating my personal excellence blog which has tens of thousands of readers after a short-span of months, getting overwhelming demand for my coaching services (which currently has a waiting list of 3 months), and so on. As long as I keep focusing on these key principles, results would be eminent.

If you have ever looked at the achievements of others and thought “Wow, if only I can do that!”, or if you have ever wished that you can perform better, earn more money, make more friends, have better health, achieve higher level of success, and so on, here’s the holler-out to you: You are capable of all of that. Everyone has all the potential in the world to do whatever it is they dream of or want. Following these key principles of personal excellence will go a long way in bringing you to excellence:

1. Have the hunger for excellence

You need to want to achieve excellence. The emphasis here is on what ‘you’ want, not what others want. Make sure the goal is something you set for yourself, because unless it is, chances are you don’t really want it. And if you don’t want the goal badly enough, it doesn’t matter what you try to do since the drive will not be there to keep you moving forward. It’s pointless to sign yourself up for something and put in a half-baked effort, because a) it’s not being true to yourself b) it’s just wasting your time at the end.This is why I always make sure I aim for the best in whatever I set myself to do.

2. Benchmark against the best

What is it you are working on? Who are the people who are the best in this area? What are the results they have achieved? Set your targets to the same level as their best results, or even higher if you are feeling up to it.

At the moment, I’m setting up my school of personal excellence for anyone who has a passion for personal excellence. My long-term vision for this school is to be as big as the Xavier’s School in X-Men. ;) (In fact, I have the picture of Xavier’s School up on my vision board since last year!) While this vision may seem far-fetched to many, it’s a vision which I’m working towards and one which I have absolutely no doubt will come to life given time and effort.

3. Believe that you can do it

Self-belief is paramount to every success. You need to first believe in yourself to get somewhere. If you don’t have self-confidence, who is going to believe in you? If you have often experience low self-belief, look back at the times when you achieved something, regardless of how big or small it was. From there, build up your confidence and leverage it as you pursue your goals. As you begin to see results, your confidence will increase over time, which will create an upward spiraling effect.

4. Build concrete strategy & plans

Every goal needs a proper strategy and plan for it to come to life. Setting a goal and not following through with proper planning is like getting into your car to drive to your destination without knowing how to get there or even having a driving license. Many people fail in their goals because they fail to follow-through with planning. The bigger your goals, the more important that you invest proper time in building your plan. I have written a 7-part Goal Achievement series on what it takes to successfully achieve goals, which includes how to devise your winning strategy, create a robust plan, execute it and review.

5. Learn from the best

Hook up with people who are the best in the field and learn from them. They have the best practices, insights and tips which will be extremely valuable in your pursuit of excellence. Rather than trying to learn everything from scratch, it’s easier to leverage on the learnings from others and build on from there. This will jumpstart your learning curve by a huge degree.

6. Do not limit yourself

Don’t be afraid to try every single thing that might take you to your goal. In fact, be more concerned about the potential opportunities you might be missing out on when you don’t try something. Opening yourself up to possibilities will enable you to pick up on things which might be fundamental to your success.

7. Go all out; Work really hard

With every success, comes hard work. Without hard work, you cannot achieve results. People who try to find the easy way out are kidding themselves if they think they can achieve excellence without putting in hard work. If you observe around you, the people who seek out ‘get-rich-quick’ methods are also the very people who don’t achieve much in their lives. Hard work is the universal quality that will pay off in the long-term. Once you invest the due time and effort, the results will start coming in.

8. Focus your efforts

Once you have finished trying out every single thing that you can see, now focus your efforts in the areas which bring you the most results. I subscribe to the 80-20 principle, where 20% of causes lead to 80% of effects you see in a situation. Focus your energy in the few key drivers of success which will lead you to the results you want. This way, you will utilize your efforts more effectively, which can be subsequently channeled into more value-added activities.

9. Be adaptable.

Adaptability is one of the essential pillars of excellence. As you may already know, change is inevitable – You can either cower in the face of change, learn to deal with it or even turn it into your favor. Be ready for change at all times and develop a friendly relationship with change.

This also applies to changing your plans. Don’t be overly attached to your plans and be prepared to alter them where needed. If there are certain things you are doing which are not very effective, be prepared to improvise them or drop them totally.

10. Never give up.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Elbert Hubbard

Don’t ever give up. Remember that defeat never occurs unless you accept it as defeat. If a certain problem is too big for you to handle, break it down into smaller pieces so it’s easier for you to tackle them. As long as you keep trying, you will eventually achieve your goal.

A favorite story of mine is Sylvester Stallone’s rags-to-riches story of how he overcame overwhelming odds in his life to be the international movie star we know him to be today. When he was a baby, he was born with a half-paralyzed face due to birth complications, which led to a slurred speech. This was the key reason why he was rejected thousands of times by casting agents. Because he never gave up, he finally got his big break as the star of Rocky one day – and this only came after years and years of relentlessly trying.

Work on embodying these 10 excellence principles in you and start seeing yourself soar to excellence. I’d love to hear from you personally on how they work out for you :)

Celestine Chua writes at her popular The Personal Excellence Blog for people who are passionate about achieving excellence. She has been featured frequently in press and is a highly sought-after coach. A list of her top articles among readers can be found here: Top Personal Excellence Articles.

Photo by notsogoodphotography

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
Emile Coue

Being a better person is a process. No matter how good someone is, he can’t be perfect overnight. So the important thing is that you grow every day. Make growing a habit and you will see significant progress when you look back.

Here are several things you should do to be a better person day by day:

1. Take responsibility

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.
Carol Burnett

Before anything else, you should realize that the one who is responsible for your life is you. Don’t blame other people or external condition for how you live your life. No matter how bad the situation might be, it’s you who decide how to respond to it. No matter what happens to you, it’s you who decide how it affects you.

2. Choose to grow

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot

After taking the responsibility for your life, the next thing you should do is deciding that you want to grow. Choose to grow rather than staying where you are. Choose to be a better person every day.

3. Make room for growth

If the shoe fits, you’re not allowing for growth.
Robert N. Coons

How can you grow if there is no room for it? What I mean is not physical room, of course. Instead, you should make room for growth in your mind. Believe in yourself that you can grow. Believe that you can make the changes you want. Don’t limit yourself and aim to be the best that you can be.

4. Don’t expect instant results

While you should make room for growth, you should also have realistic expectations. If you expect too much, you might get disappointed and discouraged. It takes time to grow so don’t lose heart if you still couldn’t become the person you want to be. Remember what Moliere said:

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

5. Extract lessons from your experiences

Extracting lessons from your experiences is essential for your personal growth. Those who do will outgrow those who don’t. So make every experience a learning opportunity. Open your eyes and grab every possible lesson.

6. Keep a journal

Whatever lesson you learn, write it down in a journal. Keeping a journal can save you a lot of time because you don’t have to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

7. Build positive habits

Doing small things consistently can make a big difference over time. Choose a simple activity that helps you grow and do it every day. For example, you may choose to read for half an hour every day. Or you may allocate time to pray or meditate every day. The important thing is that you do it consistently.

8. Face your fear

Your fear limits your growth. Because of that you need to identify, face, and conquer your fear. It’s not easy to do, but as Anais Nin said:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

9. Have quality input

Your input determines your output. That’s why you need to feed your mind with positive and uplifting thoughts every day. Listen to motivational audio and video programs. Read inspiring books. Read quotes by great people.

10. Be around positive people

The people around you have great influence on you. They can make or break your life. I’m lucky to have a lot of positive people around me that encourage me to grow. They act as a source of energy and inspiration for me.

11. Find role models

It’s much easier to achieve something if you have role models that become examples for you. Instead of having a lot of abstract ideas of what you want to be, you have concrete examples in front of you. So find people with positive traits you admire and let them inspire you.

12. Find mentors

Mentors are even more important than role models. You usually don’t have personal relationships with your role models, but you do have personal relationships with your mentors. A mentor is someone who can guide you through the walk of life. Mentors can help you grow much faster because you don’t need to repeat the mistakes they have made. No longer do you need to find the right path yourself. No longer do you need to find truth the hard way.

Photo by ewen and donabel

Note: This is a guest post by Adam Curren of Character Development Blog

Life can be a grind…. in fact, most of the time it is. In between working 40-50 hours a week, mowing the lawn, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, taking the kids to soccer games, well..… you get the idea. At the end of it all, we’re toast! The body reacts negatively to consistently high levels of stress and many times lead to things such as burn out, anger, depression, and even physical illness. The body wasn’t made to go “Indy 500” all day long.

Our bodies need to regenerate as well as our minds and spirit. Many people are drinking 3-5 cups of coffee a day just to get by. Our culture tends to treat the symptom and leaves the root of the problem alone. The result is never fixing the problem and in many cases, making it worse. Illness can generally be traced to one or more of three sources: environment, diet or genetics. Stress lowers the immune system, making you more susceptible to disease. Combining this with a poor diet and toxic environment could potentially create a disaster!

Improving the quality of your life increases your return from it. It also has a direct impact on our relationships, how we perform at work and our health and well being. I challenge you to inventory the different aspects of your life in order to determine its quality. Here are 10 Simple Ways to Reduce Stress and Improve the Quality of Your Life…..Today!

1. Evaluate: your current situation. Most situations that we perceive as stressful really aren’t a serious threat; if we reassess our situation we can reduce our stress significantly.

2. Breath: When our bodies become tense, we temporarily stop breathing. Our bodies naturally regulate the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide it needs by breathing naturally. Become conscious of this and take longer rhythmic breaths; this will both calm your body and help to focus your mind. Take 15 minutes each day to close your eyes and clear your mind.

3. Expenses: Lower them and consider working one less day per week. Imagine that! :)

4. Exercise: Do at least one if not two cardiovascular workouts per week. I like to swim and bike, because I’m fairly sure my running days are over.

5. Debt: Think of debt as in-laws that’ve been at your house for a month; it’s something you should consider getting rid of. If you don’t have the money, don’t spend it. This is the simplest way to stay out of financial trouble. Learn to use cash and keep a credit card for emergencies only. Build an emergency savings account if you don’t have one already.

6. Diet: Consider it and choose a healthier one. A trick that I use is to plan my meals in advance; this way I have a plan and it’s easier to stick to it. I also eat raw foods for one meal every day. For example: at least one meal every day consists of raw vegetables, fruit, or nuts. Your body’s getting more nutrition and it’s easier for your digestive system to break down, giving you more energy.

7. Relationships: Like your bones, you want em’ strong and healthy! We were built for relationships. A void is created when we aren’t investing in healthy relationships. Key word being healthy. As a result we fill that void with things like work, sports, pornography.…you can fill in the blank.

8. Passion: If what you’re doing every day from 9-5 isn’t your passion, consider making a change. If you’re not sure what it is you’re passionate about, create a little time and figure it out.

9. Love: Probably my favorite one. Give and receive love, know and be known, real, true, unconditional love; it’s the Greatest Power on Earth.

10. Spiritual Life: Cultivate one and learn to connect to the source of life, something greater than yourself.

I’ve been writing and editing since April 2008 and I specialize in Personal Development/Educational Articles. My goal is to improve the quality of life for my reader through the written word. Please feel free to view more of my work through the following links: http://charactergrowth.com/ —– http://www.ehow.com/ —– www.christianmagazine.org