Note: This is a guest post from Clay Andrews of The Path to Passion

I don’t mean to be a downer here. If you’re interested in optimizing your life and living it to the fullest, you probably have a lot of big goals and dreams. It’s important to focus on what you want and to use that as motivation to move you forward.

However, it’s also important to be realistic about the common pitfalls that people tend to get stuck in as they work toward their life goals.

Here are 5 common things I’ve seen in others (and myself!):

1. Pursue Material Success Above All Else

It is easy to get mesmerized by the thought that your life would be perfect if only you had more money, a bigger house, or a new pair of shoes.

Don’t get caught in the trap of chasing the best and brightest new thing. I’ve been there myself, and all those new toys lose their luster after a few short days or weeks.

Though those things may make you feel good for a while, it is important to realize that those good feelings of confidence, joy, and happiness come from within you, not from the object

2. Wait for “Someday”

You’re busy. I’m busy. Everyone is busy these days. Somehow it seems like a struggle just to find the time to go grocery shopping or get the oil changed in your car.

It is easy to put things off on the “someday” list, especially if taking action frightens you or you’re unclear about what the next step should be.

However, it is important to realize that unless you actively make the choice to change your situation and take control of your life, your dreams, or the direction you’re headed, you will just keep drifting on the same course you’re already on.

Living the life you want doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen because your to-do list is finally complete and you can, at long last, find the time to concentrate on what matters. The only way to get the life you want is to take action and make time for it.

Make your goals a top priority and you won’t run the risk of endlessly putting them off until they reach the graveyard of “someday.”

3. Settle for Less Than What You Want

I know it can be difficult to go after what you want. You pour all of your effort into getting that dream job, asking that special person out on a date, or getting started on that new diet only to be met with disappointments.

After a little bit of failure, it is only reasonable to think that you’ve just set your goals too high and that you should settle for something a bit more “reasonable.”

However, settling for less isn’t going to give you what you really want. It will also develop a belief in your mind that you can’t get what you really want or that you don’t deserve it. This kind of thinking will limit your motivation or the amount of action you’re willing to take to go after other things you want in life.

4. Avoid Fear and Uncomfortable Situations

I get it. It’s tough to walk into your boss’ office and demand a raise or go up to that hot girl at the bar and introduce yourself. It’s frightening. You don’t know what will happen, and there’s a reasonable chance that you may not get the desired outcome.

However, it is only through reaching outside of our comfort zone that we can begin to expand what is possible in our life.

It’s the things we have to work for and take a risk to get that we treasure the most in life.

Yes, you might experience the sting of rejection, but the courage needed for taking a chance will start to build, like any muscle that is exercised, and you’ll begin to become more bold and courageous in other things in life too.

5. Choose to Believe Discouraging Thoughts

We all have negative thoughts. There is no denying that. However, we do have the choice to believe those thoughts or not.
And it sure is easy to believe them. After all, we thought them up or someone “important” told them to us, so they must be true, right?

Keep in mind though, that just because you have a limiting or discouraging thought about your own abilities or value does NOT mean that you have to accept that belief.

You can choose what beliefs you are willing to accept and which ones you are not. Even if you’re unable to control anything else in your life, you can always control your thoughts.

***

The important thing is to not feel bad if you see yourself in any of these 5 pitfalls. Often, we may not be aware of what we’re doing so you shouldn’t feel bad when you discover something counter-productive. Instead celebrate its discovery and correct course as needed.

The journey to achieving your life goals may not always be a straight line, but finding your path amidst it all is one of the biggest joys in life.

Clay Andrews is a relationship advice blogger. He loves meeting new people, so stop by his website, The Path to Passion, and say hello.

Photo by Per Ola Wiberg

Note: This is a guest post from Michael Martel of Achieve the Green Beret Way

A manifesto, by definition is a public declaration of a person’s principles and intentions. Throughout history a lot of manifestos have been political in nature. Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto sticks in many people’s mind as an example of a manifesto. Other famous ones have been on the subjects of art or technology. However, it doesn’t have to be on a certain topic. A manifesto lays out what is important to someone and publically draws a line in the sand as to what they believe in and what they will do and not do.

Manifestos have gotten bad press lately. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber had his own manifesto. Manifesto can be for good or evil. The Declaration of Independence is essentially a manifesto. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright had one. So does present day marketer Seth Godin. Organizations have manifestos; Apple has one.

Personal Manifestos

It is a great thing for people to have their own manifestos. Much of the modern world is lived in shades of gray. There isn’t a right or a wrong in modern society. Family norms have been established by reality TV. Ethical standards are eroded by the activities of political leaders. People can have standards for themselves. These standards create the foundation stones of our lives. A manifesto establishes this foundation and declares it to everyone, “This is who I am and what I stand for.”

You Don’t Have to Get It Perfect, Just Get Started

You might feel a little daunted at the task of writing a manifesto. You needn’t worry. All you need is something you feel strongly about. It doesn’t really matter what the topic is. It can be whatever you want to make a statement on – politics, your work, the environment, or a social issue or cause. It could even be about sports. The important thing is to be bold. Manifestos throw your intentions into the arena for others either to agree to or not. You don’t want to just make a list of things you like or don’t like. Make a declaration as to why this is something you would go to battle for.

The mechanics of writing a manifesto are simple. First, decide what you want your manifesto to be about. Your first manifesto doesn’t have to be War and Peace. Keep it short and sweet by focusing on one topic. Is it healthy living? Is it football officiating? Is it what kind of job you will take or not take? Make a list of a couple topics. Let them sit for a couple days while you let it brew around in your mind and then settle on one.

Next step for writing your first manifesto is to lay it out on paper. Pull up your favorite word processing software and get it going. Remember you don’t have to get it perfect. You just need to get it started. For your manifesto, I suggest a format of introduction, background, discussion, declaration. The before mentioned Declaration of Independence has the same format.

Your manifesto’s introduction should establish what your target is and why you are taking aim at it. You might talk in generalities why this is important to you and why it needs to be addressed. Don’t spend too much time on the introduction, the real meat comes next.

The background of your manifesto is the hook for your reader. People want to know why this is important to you. Personal stories are what draw the reader. They want to know what motivates you, thereby bringing them into the rationale. Also this is for yourself to explore why this gets your blood boiling and why you feel the attraction to it. The background isn’t just for the future readers. Even if you don’t intend to ever show this to another living soul, be honest in the background of your manifesto. If there was some element of abuse, emotionally or physically, try to write about it. This is a good place to talk about perceived slights, snubs. Every time you reread it, the background will bring you back to why this is a passion for you.

Manifestos Are Gritty

The discussion is where you make your case. Manifestos are gritty. This is not the place to dance around and try not to antagonize anyone. Simply say why you believe what you believe. Some will agree and some won’t. You will upset some people if your manifesto is bold. Don’t use a pro and con approach. Take that attitude that what you believe is the only approach and work from there. Go ahead and attack counter opinions and say why they don’t make sense. Most of all, state why this is important to you and it is important enough to make it a manifesto.

Finally, make a declaration in your manifesto. What will you do as a result of the manifesto? What will you not do as a result of it? Are you going to stop watching television? Are you going to seek out another line of work? Make a declaration that reflects what you stand for.

You Finished It, Now What?

Once you have your first manifesto finished, take a deep breath of satisfaction. You have placed yourself above the mob. You are one of the few who actually know what they stand for in life. You are not letting the winds of public opinion blow you around like a rudderless sailboat on the waves. Men are meant to be the captains of their own ships.

Take this further if you dare. Share your manifesto with family and friends. Encourage your friends to write one of their own. Write a couple more on other single topics. After a while when you have a few manifestos under your belt, write your life manifesto. Establish your values and how you will live according to them. This is the stuff legacies are made from. You deserve this.

For 20 years, Michael Martel was a Green Beret in the US Army. He now works with people to put Special Forces like effectiveness into their lives and businesses. Go to Achieve The Green Beret Way and learn about his book Get ER Done: The Green Beret Guide to Productivity.

Photo by Ben Fredericson

Note: This is a guest post from Mike Reeves-McMillan of Living Skillfully

I spent a lot of my life with no sense of progress.

Now, I didn’t say that I wasn’t making progress. In fact, of all the many jobs I’ve done – youth worker, book editor, technical writer, corporate trainer, systems analyst, business consultant and hypnotherapist – not one has been a waste or failed to teach me something important which I still use today.

But my sense of progress comes from what a friend of mine calls “retrohension” – comprehension that only occurs in retrospect. I had no plan.

Even now, I have only the most skeletal of plans, and it’s subject to revision at any time. I know from experience that life throws curveballs.

What’s more, I take this lack of planning into my therapy room. I’m a client-centred therapist, and I’ve adopted the motto, “No plan should survive first contact with the client.” Real people are complex, and what works for one won’t work for another.

So how do I work without a plan? There are five things I can think of that are better than a plan, and here they are.

1. A sense of purpose

Deciding what you want to achieve should come before any discussion on how to achieve it. All too often we start with what we can do or what we know how to do and then figure out what we want to do. That’s what I did after university – I had a degree in English (because I was lazy and that came easiest), and I didn’t want to teach, so I decided to be a book editor.

The most successful people turn that round the other way. They find their purpose first, and after that figure out how to achieve it – even if nobody else believes it can be done.

What is the thing you want to achieve more than anything else?

2. A direction

Once you have a goal, you automatically have a direction: Head towards the goal!

Of course, you may not know exactly what direction the goal lies in. So: Head in the direction that looks like it will take you closer to the goal than where you are now, and closer to the goal than the other possible directions. (Here’s where you also get that important sense of progress.)

I use a system I came up with for myself called “two-level goals”. I have big long-term goals that don’t change much, and in the shorter term I come up with smaller to-do-list-sized goals that contribute towards the big goals. (And if something on your to-do list doesn’t contribute to your goals – why are you doing it?)

What’s the next step towards the thing you want to achieve?

3. A moral compass

But wait. Not every direction is one you will ultimately be glad you walked down. And many times, you can figure out which paths not to take in advance, based on your own sense of what’s right. If you want to achieve world peace, yet the path immediately available to you involves harming people who get in your way… do you take it?

It’s important to be clear on your moral and ethical standards, and to stick with them. Otherwise, reaching your goals will be a hollow, self-betraying and disappointing experience.

What actions are you ruling out in advance?

4. Awareness of opportunities

If you have a plan that you’re following rigidly, your risk is that you’ll overlook opportunities to head in a new (and maybe better) direction. If you have a goal, though, and you’re pursuing it flexibly, any (ethically acceptable) path to that goal becomes available to you. You just need to keep an eye out, recognise opportunities when you see them, and be prepared to add them in to your short-term goals if they serve your long-term goals – or let them go if they don’t.

What opportunities have you been overlooking?

5. A range of tools and techniques

When all you have is a hammer, even if not everything you encounter looks like a nail, you don’t have much option but to treat it as if it is. To take the opportunities that arise, and to deal with the challenges on the way, needs skillful resourcefulness. And if you’re reading this, you have more access to more resources than all the great achievers of previous centuries. You just need to use them.

What life skills, tools, techniques and resources can you pick up to help you towards your goals?

One of Mike Reeves-McMillan’s key goals is to help people increase their skills and resources for dealing positively with life, finding purpose and reaching their worthwhile goals. One of his main tools for this is his blog, Living Skillfully: Change Your Life.

Photo by Kyle Kruchok

There’s an interesting talk at TED by Stefan Sagmeister titled The Power of Time Off. In the talk, Sagmeister shared his experience of how he takes one full year off every seven years to recharge his creative life. During the sabbatical year, he closes his design company and doesn’t accept any design request. It might seem strange to take one full year for sabbatical, but he argued that it gives him more than what it costs.

There are at least three things he gets from his sabbatical years:

1. He gets fresh ideas for his creative work. Referring to one sabbatical year of his, he said that all the ideas in the following seven years came out from that one year.
2. It benefits him financially. Though he didn’t accept any request for one year, the improved quality of his work allowed him to ask for higher prices in the following years. He could eventually make more money than what he lost.
3. It made his work a calling again. This is my favorite of the three. In the talk, Sagmeister talked about three levels of work: job (when you do your work just for money), career (when you pursue advancement and promotion), and calling (when you do your work simply because it’s fulfilling). Even if your work is something you love to do, the daily routine could make it a job. Sagmeister said that taking a sabbatical year makes his work a calling again.

As you can see, these three things solve three common problems that many people have at work:

• Lack of creative ideas.
• Lack of financial improvement.
• Lack of purpose and fulfillment. This one affects not just your work, but also your life in general.

If you had any of these problems, here is a simple way to recharge your life: take time off. Of course, it doesn’t have to be one full year since most people (including me) can’t afford it without any serious consequences. But taking even short periods of time off is useful. Here’s what I suggest you to do:

1. Take time off every day. You should set aside time in your day where you can be away from your routine. Cut your communication with the outside world for a while. Use the time to get a sense of clarity of your life and work. Reconnect with your life purpose and look at the big picture of your life. Are you on the right track? Are you doing the right things? You can do this by meditating, praying, walking in the garden, or any way you like. The important thing is that you to reflect on your life with a clear mind. You don’t have to spend much time on it. Half an hour is enough, in my experience. Doing this helps you live your daily life with clarity.
2. Take a few days off every now and then. During that time, try not to do your routine that might introduce noise into your life. For me that means not connecting to the Internet. Though it’s not necessary, going out of town could be helpful. I can attest from personal experience that such time is really rewarding. I often see my life and work from a new perspective. I can see the forest rather than the trees. This, of course, will happen only if you spend time to reflect on your life and work.

It reminds me of the story of two woodcutters. One of them sawed down the trees all the time without ever sharpening his saw. The other person spent time to sharpen his saw and only then did he saw down the trees. Which one do you think would cut more trees at the end?

Don’t let the busyness of your life lead you to the wrong direction. Allocate time to reconnect with your purpose and calling. Allocate time to see the big picture of your life. Taking time off helps you stay sharp.

Photo by notsogoodphotography

Today is the last day of the decade. I still remember how my day was at December 31, 1999. The whole world was waiting for the new millennium. There were big celebrations all around the world. Some people worried that the computers would crash when the new millennium began.

It’s hard to believe, but that day had been ten years ago! It’s amazing how fast time flies.

How has your life been this decade? How are you today compared with you were ten years ago? Do you think you’ve been the best that you can be?

Let’s ponder these questions as the new decade coming. And let’s make the new decade a much better one for all of us.

Happy new year!

Photo by mangloard

Persistence is important to achieve success, but giving up is also important. I’ve written about persistence before, so here I want to look at giving up.

Why is it essential? Why is it necessary to give up? Because it allows you to focus your energy on the few things that are truly important. By giving up, you:

1. Stop unfruitful effort. What’s the point of spending your time and energy on something that doesn’t work? The more you spend your time and energy there, the more you waste your resources.
2. Avoid spreading yourself too thin. There are probably many things that you want to achieve. But you can’t achieve everything you want. Your resources are limited so you need to choose and prioritize. If you try to do too many things at once you will end up achieving nothing.
3. Reduce your stress. Pursuing too many things means giving yourself unnecessary pressure. Don’t let your ambition stop you from enjoying your life.
4. Free up time for your loved ones. Don’t be so busy that you don’t have time for your loved ones. By giving up, you ease your burden and free up time to build meaningful relationships.

In essence, here is what you need to do:

Give up the less important things so that you can focus and persist on the few important ones.

Here are several tips to help you apply it:

1. Find what matters to you

You need a way to know whether or not something is important. That’s why you need to find what matters to you. What makes you feel fulfilled? What gives you inner satisfaction? Be persistent on things that matter to you and give up the others.

2. Assess your life every now and then

Even if you already find what matters to you, the busyness of life can obscure it. As a result, you might get distracted by superficial things. So find time to reflect on your life every now and then. Look at how your life is going. Are you staying true to what your heart is saying?

3. Learn to let go

You may know that you need to give up something, but it might not be easy to let it go. This is especially true if you already spend a lot of resources on it.

This is where the concept of sunk costs is helpful. Don’t get caught in sunk cost bias. The fact that you’ve spent your resources on the wrong thing doesn’t justify spending even more resources on it. Those resources are already spent. Now you need to find the best way to spend the resources that are left.

The concept of opportunity costs may also be helpful. Holding on the wrong thing means losing better opportunities. The more resources you spend on it, the more opportunities you lose.

4. Refocus your effort

Once you’ve given up the less important things, renew your focus and effort on the few important ones. Now that you are focused, you have a chance to make a real difference.

Photo by Japokskee

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

Note: This is a guest post by Jonathan Beebe of Develop Minds

Apathy is something that most of us have experienced a time or two in our lives, and for many of us, the feelings of apathy are all too familiar. The good news is, there are ways to rid yourself from feeling the absence of passion, emotion, and excitement… and it’s a lot simpler than you may think.

But first, let’s talk about how apathy affects you and your ability to live life to the fullest. Not only do apathetic feelings ultimately leave you feeling empty and unhappy due to the lack of motivation and desire, but it can also have negative effects on your social life, your studies (if applicable), and your work. Apathy seems to heavily promote procrastination, and unfortunately, it has even been closely linked to suicide. Suffice to say, apathy is a little more than a mild issue.

Fortunately though, apathy can be cured in three easy, but important steps. So the next time you feel apathetic, just think back to this article and maybe it’ll be exactly what you need to inject a little emotion into your state-of-being.

Understand What Apathy Is

While the cause of your apathetic perception of the world may stem from past experiences, your peers, and social conditioning, apathy is actually something you have direct control over. If you are feeling apathetic, somewhere in your mind, you have chosen to see the world as apathetic.

There are many people in the world in your exact situation, yet a vast amount of those same people are not feeling apathetic, yet they live in the same world as you do. This proves that apathy is all in your head, and is ultimately how you have created the world in your mind.

Consciously choose to create a better world in your mind, stick with those thoughts, and eventually you’ll find that there is excitement and passion all around you.

Imagine this scenario. It’s a bright, sunny day and you are in a house. From where you stand, you can see two windows. One is extremely cracked and foggy, while the other is crystal clear as if someone had just cleaned it. The cracked, foggy window is labeled apathy, and the clear window is labeled joy. Which one would you choose to look through?

As overly simple as that sounds, that’s exactly the way it works in your mind. So first make the choice to start looking through the window of joy from now on.

Set Goals and Make Plans

Apathy is sometimes caused by lacking a clear purpose for your life, so an easy way to fix that is to make some goals for yourself. Make big goals and small goals. Then, draft up all the steps it takes, from A-Z, how you plan on achieving them. If you allow yourself to be overly optimistic and don’t let negative attitudes or beliefs get in your way, this could actually be a fun little exercise, and can leave you with a feeling or purpose.

Read a Book

Sometimes, mild apathetic moods can easily be cured by reading a book. Don’t like to read? Well, it definitely won’t hurt you so why don’t you give it a try? Who knows, maybe it’s not that you don’t like to read… maybe you’ve just never read a book you would enjoy. Watching movies is something I think most people enjoy, but I don’t think that would be the case if they went their whole lives watching movies that didn’t appeal to them. The same goes with books.

Books, however, will increase blood flow to your brain, and will help build neural connections so it’s not only good for you, but it will get your mind off of the way you are feeling because sometimes apathy only gets worse because many times those who are experiencing apathy lay around and dwell on it. So take a trip to your local bookstore and make an agreement with yourself to read at least one book.

Conclusion

So the next time you begin to feel the onset of apathy entering your day, I recommend you follow all the three steps I mentioned, though sometimes only one or two of them will be enough. It’s literally as simple as choosing not to perceive the world as apathetic, making some goals to create a sense of purpose in your life, and getting your mind off of apathetic feelings.

Remember those three things and you’ll be one step closer to living your life to the fullest.

Jonathan Beebe is the author and creator of Develop Minds, a personal development blog dedicated to providing free content aimed at helping you improve you life by increasing your consciousness, intelligence, and teaching you to fully develop your mind in a positive way.

Photo by gotplaid

There are some interesting comments in the post The Importance of Being Smart and here I’d like to discuss one of them. It’s a comment by Chew:

I have something to add to being smart. It’s about beginning with the end in mind.

The objective was to acquire 100,000 arrows, which is not the same as making 100,000 arrows. Most of us would have framed the challenge as “making 100,000 arrows” instead of “acquiring 100,000 arrows”.

No amount of smartness can outsmart the need to begin with the end in mind.

I love it. I don’t know about you, but I often find myself in such a situation. When I need to achieve a goal, I often frame it as achieving the goal in a certain way. As a result, I exclude other ways to achieve it.

This, I’m afraid, is a common problem. When people need to get a task done, they tend to do it in the most obvious way or the way that most other people do. This is a bad idea because by definition following the crowd means being average.

That’s why it’s important to begin with the end in mind. Instead of taking the most obvious route, take a step back and get a complete picture of the goal. Then ask yourself: what are the possible ways to achieve the goal? Notice that the question is not whether or not there is other way because there are always other ways. The question helps you find new possibilities you might never think of before.

You can take the concept further by questioning the goal itself. Why? Because a goal is just a way to achieve an even bigger goal.

Just take acquiring arrows as an example. Acquiring arrows is a way to achieve the bigger goal of winning the battle. So you should ask yourself: is acquiring arrows necessary to win the battle? What are other ways to win the battle? Thinking that you need to acquire arrows without considering other options means that you don’t begin with the end in mind.

You can still move further because winning the battle is a way to win the war, but you get the idea.

Applying this principle in your life will give you interesting insights. Just look at something that you do and ask yourself the bigger goal you want to achieve through it. By keep questioning you will eventually find the ultimate goal of your life. You should then work backward and find the best way to accomplish your goals at each level.

Here is an example:

• Q: Why do I need to do this job?
  A: To make money
• Q: Why do I need to make money?
  A: To be able to buy what I want.
• Q: Why do I need to buy what I want?
  A: To make me happy.

Let’s stop at this point. You should now work backward by asking this question:

• What are the possible ways to make me happy?

From your answers you might realize that you don’t need to buy stuff to be happy. Instead, there are other possibilities. Let’s say that the best answer you find is giving. Then the next question is:

• What are the possible ways for me to give?

This way you begin with the end and move backward to the point where you are now.

Beginning with the end in mind is important. Not only will it help you find more creative ways to achieve your goals, but it will also help you find the right goals in life.

Photo by muha

A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To be successful in your life, you need to have a life plan. Without a plan, many of your dreams will only be dreams. A life plan, on the other hand, will help you turn your dreams into reality. It works because it gives you not a just a destination, but also a way to get there.

A life plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It should answer just two questions:

1. What is your destination?
2. How will you get there?

Let’s look at them one by one.

What is Your Destination?

You should know where you are going. Not knowing your destination is a mistake because you may end up in the wrong place. You need to know where you want to go so that you don’t waste your time and effort.

Here are some tips related to finding your destination:

1. Create your life map

To see how your life will be in the future, it’s helpful to see how your life has been in the past.  By creating a life map, you can see patterns in your life that help you find out where you should go.  Look backward, connect the dots in your life, and project them into the future.

Further reading:

• Examine Your Life with a Simple Life Map

2. Find your life purpose

Your life purpose gives you meaning in everything you do. It helps you do what matters to you and makes your life fulfilling. Without a purpose, you may achieve much but feel empty inside. Take the time to find your purpose in life.

Further reading:

• 37 Lessons to Help You Live a Life that Matters
• A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose

3. Discover your big dreams

The size of your dreams has a lot to do with living in mediocrity. If your dreams are small, there is no reason for you to move past mediocrity. It’s easier to just live a comfortable life. On the other hand, if your dreams are big, you have to move past mediocrity to make your dreams come true. So discover the big dreams in you.

4. Make short-term goals

You should know what your final destination is, but you should also have milestones along the way. These milestones help you stay on track. They help you know whether or not you are on the right path to reach your destination.

You create the milestones by breaking your long-term goals into short-term ones. What do you want to achieve this year? What do you want to achieve this month? What do you want to achieve today?

5. Keep refining

Knowing your destination is a process. If you are like me, you will refine your destination over time. It’s like zooming in a picture. At first you see the big picture, but after zooming it in you can see its details. Similarly, perhaps you can only see the big picture of your destination now. That’s fine. Follow it. Along the way, you will find clues that make the picture clearer.

How Will You Get There?

After knowing your destination, you need to know how to get there. Here are some tips related to it:

1. Find and communicate your personal brand

To achieve your goals, you need to market yourself. You need to find the unique value you can provide to others and communicate it. This way people know that they can come to you to meet their needs.

Further reading:

• Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition
• The 10 Immutable Laws of Personal Branding
• 12 Things You Can Do Today to Strengthen Your Personal Brand

2. Have some guiding principles

There are a lot of distractions along the way to your destination. To prevent yourself from being distracted, you need to have some guiding principles. You need to identify the value you believe in. These principles help you stay true to yourself in everything you do.

3. Find your deliberate practice

Doing deliberate practice is important if you want to be remarkable. Deliberate practice is the kind of practice that stretches the boundaries of your capabilities. A good rule of thumb is you need about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become a world-class expert in a field. Find out where you should invest that 10,000 hours.

Further reading:

• Finding Niche: Where to Invest Your 10,000 Hours of Practice
• How to Have an Expert Mind

4. Use tacking strategy

The world constantly changes so you need to constantly adapt. That’s why tacking – a term taken from the world of sailing – is a good strategy to apply. With tacking you set a short-term objective, work hard to achieve it, evaluate your performance, and adjust accordingly.

Further reading:

• Tacking: A Strategy for Personal Success

Executing Your Life Plan

After knowing your destination and how to get there, you need to execute your plan. Here are some tips on executing your life plan:

1. Focus

There is no question that focus is essential to achieve your goals. Without focus, you will spread your effort and attention too thin and eventually achieve nothing. Be careful though. You should be focused but not obsessed.

Further reading:

• How to Focus: Five Levels of Mental Focus You Might Not Aware of
• The Danger of Being Obsessed and How to Overcome It

2. Be persistent

You should be persistent because failure is inevitable on your way to success. Without persistence, it’s easy to get discouraged in the face of failure and stop before reaching your destination. Have faith and keep pushing forward.

Further reading:

• 7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure
• 7 Sure-Fire Ways to Develop Persistence

3. Build relationships

Nobody can succeed alone. You need the support of other people to succeed. So build your network before you need it.

Further reading:

• 106 Tips to Become a Master Connector

4. Start now

A good plan vigorously executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.
George S. Patton

Don’t wait until your plan is perfect before you start. Don’t wait for the perfect time. Start now. You will learn more by doing than by waiting.

Photo by Tjeerd