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Steve Pavlina - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
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- Tithing for Life
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Tithing is the practice of giving away 10% of your income (tithe means “tenth”), usually to a charitable cause. Some people absolutely swear by the practice of tithing and consider it integral to the process of wealth creation. But often there is resistance to the whole concept of tithing which can be overcome by understanding the purpose of tithing on a deeper level.
- What Will Other People Think of You?
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Don’t waste a moment of your precious life worrying about what other people will think of you. No good can come of it.
The truth is that you’ll waste far more energy imagining what others think of you than those people will ever invest in it themselves. Most people are far too preoccupied with their own lives to devote considerable attention to what you’re doing. While you’re worrying about what they think of you, they’re worrying about what you think of them. Just worrying your lives away…
- Show Me Your Battle Scars
[Self-Improvement:Success] Whenever you set an ambitious goal, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll encounter some roadblocks.
There’s no reason to let that stop you though. A roadblock isn’t much of an obstacle for a human being. You can climb over it, walk around it, blow it up, get someone else to move it, or otherwise bypass it.
- How to Earn $10,000 in One Hour
[Self-Improvement:Innovation] Many books on time management recommend the practice of thinking of each hour of your time as being worth a specific quantity of money. It’s an extension of the “time is money” concept. First you figure out what your hourly rate is, and then you use that as a guide to determine where you should spend your time. If you want to earn more money, then you must first mentally raise your hourly rate, so you can start doing activities that are worth more. For example, if you currently earn $50/hour and want to earn $75/hour, then you have to do less and less $50/hour work as you shift to doing $75/hour work. Brian Tracy advocates this type of thinking in his time management programs, as do many other time management experts. I’ve used this model myself in the past.
- Jnana Yoga & Bug-Free Beliefs
[Health-and-Fitness:Yoga] In Hinduism there are said to be several paths that lead to the cessation of human suffering. These are known as the four yogas: karma yoga (action, work, service), bhakti yoga (love, devotion, worship), raja yoga (meditation, mental control, “psychic” exercise), and jnana yoga (knowledge, philosophy, enquiry). No one yoga is better or worse than any other, but individuals will tend to find themselves drawn to one yoga more than the others.
- Thought Ripples
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] I think everyone has this innnate ability to use their thoughts to create ripples in external reality, but they don’t normally notice it because they mostly use their thoughts to recreate their past in the future. Most people think the same thoughts they did yesterday, so their experience of reality appears more rigid and less flexible. I will tell you that it’s been a major challenge for me to learn how to think consciously and proactively instead of merely reacting to external reality, to choose my thoughts instead of having them dictated by my environment. It took years to be able to do that with any consistency. Reactionary thinking is a hard habit to break.
- A Dose of Caffeine for Your Consciousness
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Would your experience of shared objective reality continue to exist if you stopped believing in it? What would happen if you started to suspect, wonder, and maybe even believe that reality is at least partially created by your own thoughts?
What is this non-scientific poppycock I’m spouting? Let’s address the “scientific” objections first then, shall we?
The Pseudoscience of Science...
- Is Becoming Wealthy Inherently Evil?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Is it morally wrong to attempt to become wealthy?
It’s no surprise to me that the Million Dollar Experiment, while mostly getting a highly positive reception, has also uncovered some opposition from people who believe the pursuit of financial wealth is inherently greedy, selfish, immoral, or just plain evil.
- Do Your Beliefs Reflect Reality or Create It?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Does it really make sense to convince yourself to believe something that may or may not be true? Where do you draw the line?
What defines truth? Is truth an external quality, completely independent of the observer?
- Creating Inspiration
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] If you do any creative work, I’m sure you’ve experienced this dilemma: Should you ever work when you aren’t inspired, or should you wait for inspiration?
- Knowing Is Being
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] What do you know?
Do you know about productivity, time management, and organizing? Are you highly productive?
Do you know how to be healthy? Are you healthy?
Do you believe your life should serve a purpose? Are you living such a purpose right now...
- What Is Productivity?
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] In this post we’re going to take a deep look into the concept of productivity.
Here’s my personal definition of productivity:
Productivity = Value / Time
(productivity equals value divided by time)
- Manifesting Intentions
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] With respect to the intention-manifestation model of goal achievement mentioned in the previous post, like many others who’ve tried it, I have some difficulty applying it. When I’m at my most conscious, I’m able to focus my intentions congruently, and my goals begin to manifest with relative ease. However, sometimes I sink to a lower level of awareness and succumb to those conflicting thoughts and then have to deal with their manifestations as well. So the limiting factor seems to be my ability to keep my thoughts focused on what I want instead of putting mental energy into thinking about what I don’t want. Think of it like learning to manage mental karma.
- Cause-Effect vs. Intention-Manifestation
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] One of the key models for goal achievement is that of cause and effect. This model says that your goal is an effect to be achieved, and your task is to identify and then create the cause that will produce the desired effect, thereby achieving your goal.
Sounds simple enough, right?
- Why Study Consciousness?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Why should we study consciousness?
Your power as a human being lies with your consciousness. It is the seat of your free will, your ability to choose. If you can improve your ability to use your consciousness, you can radically change your experience of life for the better. In fact, I would say that developing your consciousness will do you far more good in the long run than any other skills you might develop.
- A Scientific Method for Exploring Consciousness
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] To what degree is it possible for us to seek and discover the “truth” as we explore consciousness itself? How knowable is our inner reality?
- Questioning Your Beliefs
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] In this post I’ll share some of my personal experiences shifting through different belief systems.
At the age of 17, I first began to seriously question my beliefs about reality. In my case it had a lot to do with the religion and culture in which I was raised. I was Catholic at the time, about to begin my senior year in high school. My consciousness had finally reached the point where I was able to start asking some questions in search of what I felt was the truth. It began with sort of a nagging feeling that what I was being taught simply wasn’t true for me. It began to feel wrong. By “wrong” I mean that it didn’t feel quite real to me anymore.
- Where Do Goals Come From?
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] What gives rise to your goals? What determines whether you even set goals at all?
I believe the answer is your context. Your context is your collection of beliefs about reality. It’s the soil in which your thoughts grow.
- Trial and Error, Ego and Awareness
[Self-Improvement:Success] One of the most tried and true methods for problem solving is the trial and error method. Despite its lack of sophistication, sometimes it’s the most efficient choice, especially because it can succeed where other methods fail. With trial and error, you’re always guaranteed a learning experience, and you’ll often identify multiple solutions as you experiment.
- Visualization-Meditation Exercise: Go To Your Room
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Wouldn’t it be great if your subconscious mind could leave you messages the same way someone might leave you a message on voicemail? How valuable would it be to receive a direct message from your subconscious or higher self? What if you could not only get a message but have a back-and-forth conversation with your subconscious mind?
- Overwhelming Force
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] When you want to make a change in your life, especially a big one, you’ll typically meet resistance along the way. An effective strategy for rendering such resistance powerless is the strategy of overwhelming force. This is a military strategy of course, but we can co-opt it for our own personal development as well. Instead of merely dipping your toes into the change you’d like to make, you dive into it headfirst. Instead of undercommitting resources, you overcommit.
- Risk vs. Reward in Human Relationships
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] In the previous post, we identified some fears that hold people back from taking more social risks, including the fear of others forming a negative opinion of you and the fear of hurting others through social interaction with them, fears that would be eliminated if you were dealing only with computer-generated characters in a simulation instead of real-life human beings.
I think these points are valid to a degree. You would incur less social risk with a simulation as opposed to real humans.
But consider an alternative viewpoint...
- Improving Social Skills
[Self-Improvement]
I think the best advice I can give for improving social skills is simply: Practice. You can study techniques like matching and mirroring to build rapport, and you can memorize cutesy acronyms like SOFTEN (Smile, Open posture, Forward lean, Touch, Eye contact, Nod). But I don’t think those are all that helpful. I think they’re likely to make you even more self-conscious. If you’re in the right frame of mind to begin with, you’ll naturally perform the correct actions like smiling and mirroring — if you have to think about them, you’re in the wrong mindset.
- Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] Here’s a true story of some very bad luck, which ultimately became a positive memory...
- How to Go From Introvert to Extrovert
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] As a child I was very introverted, often spending my time on the computer, reading, playing video games, or pursuing other solo hobbies. I’d spend time outdoors biking, exploring the nearby fields and hills (which today are filled with houses), or shooting hoops, but I’d usually favor doing these things alone or with people I knew very well. I never felt too comfortable around strangers, and I never cared for big family events. Psychological tests like the Myers-Briggs pegged me squarely as an introvert. Anyone who knew me would have described me as an introvert without a second thought.
- Awareness and Resistance
[Self-Improvement:Motivation]
If you want to become more conscious, one of the best places to start is with your resistance. By noticing the areas of your life where you can easily be made defensive and resist ideas emotionally, you will see the places where you have tremendous opportunity for growth. Imagine for example a couple you may know whose relationship seems lifeless. If you try to raise the issue with them, they may practically boot you out the door — you meet with strong resistance. For that couple their relationship is an area where they have high potential for growth. Where we most resist change is precisely where we must change.
- How to Find the Best Diet for You
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] What type of diet will give you the greatest amount of energy, health, and mental clarity?
- The Great Protein Myth
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] When I tell people I’m vegan, often the first question out of their mouths is, “Ok, so where do you get your protein?”
As soon as I hear this question, I do my usual eye roll and immediately know that I’m dealing with… well… someone who doesn’t know very much about plants. The idea that plant foods are somehow devoid of protein is nothing but a myth.
Myth #1: Plants are low in protein...
- How to Win an Argument
[Relationships] That original post sets the context for this article, so if you haven’t read the original article, you should definitely do that first. Otherwise, you won’t likely understand the context for this post. If you expect this will be an article about how to out-debate your co-workers, you’re coming at it from the wrong context. Read the original post first.
How do you handle the situation where the other person continually sucks you into an argument that you never seem to be able to win?
- What Is Your Value?
[Business:Careers-Employment] Last Thursday I turned the subject of the article “The Medium vs. the Message” into a 20-minute speech, which I delivered to one of my Toastmasters clubs. At the beginning of the speech, I had everyone in the audience create a fake business card with their name and their current career listed on it. Then at the end of the speech, I had them do it again, and of course the results were different because people were thinking differently about their careers.
- Dealing With Difficult Relatives
[Relationships] With regards to the post on Dealing With Difficult People, several commenters asked follow-up questions on how to deal with difficult relatives, such as an overbearing parent or in-law. The original post was written in terms of dealing with difficult people with whom you have a professional relationship, such as your boss or a co-worker. But if the problem person is a relative and your relationship is personal instead of professional, that’s a whole different beast.
- My Favorite Meditation
[Health-and-Fitness:Meditation] Here’s a simple but powerful meditation exercise you may enjoy. Teaching you the basics of meditation is beyond the scope of this blog entry (maybe someone can post a comment with a link to a meditation primer for those who’ve never done it), but if you’re already familiar with it, I think you’ll find this one interesting and valuable.
- End Goals vs. Means Goals
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] A common goal-setting mistake (in my opinion) is to confuse end goals with means goals. End goals define outcomes where you’re unwilling to compromise — they describe exactly what you want. Means goals, on the other hand, define one of many paths to reach your end goals.
Here’s a simple example:
- You Need People
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] If you’re stuck living a life you wouldn’t have consciously chosen if you had it to do all over again, what can you realistically do about it?
- The Light at the End of the Tunnel
[Business:Careers-Employment] If you found yourself unemployed today, would you want the job you have now? Would you be eager to apply for it?
What about your career as a whole? If you’d never worked in your current industry, would you consciously choose to work in it now?
- 80% of New Employees Fail Within the First 5 Years
[Business:Careers-Employment] Have you heard the statistic that says, “80% of new businesses fail within the first five years?” That seems to be a favorite one for people to cite when attempting to discourage their friends or co-workers from starting a new business (with the best of intentions of course <- yes, this is sarcasm). Sometimes you’ll hear variations on this statistic like 75% or 90%. I heard another one that said that of the 20% of businesses that don’t fail within the first 5 years, 80% of those fail within the next 5 years. So that puts us down to only 4% that last 10+ years (20% x 20%).
- Your Superpower and Your Kryptonite
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] How has your greatest strength served you thus far? Do you simply take it for granted, or have you been using it deliberately and consciously? What’s the downside?
- How to Decide When to End a Long-term Relationship
[Relationships] Relationships are among of the most complex aspects of our lives, particularly long-term relationships such as marriage. Your relationships can elevate you to new heights or drag you down into the dumps.
But what if you’re somewhere in the middle?
- Get Involved Anyway, Even if You Think It Won't Help
[Business:Networking] Many years ago I was listening to one of Brian Tracy’s audio programs where he recommended getting involved with some kind of trade organization, so you could surround yourself with potential mentors. He went on to tell his story of getting involved with his local Chamber of Commerce and how massively it catapulted him forward in business.
And upon hearing such advice, I prompty ignored it.
For years.
- Life Lessons From Poker
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Since I received positive feedback on Life Lessons From Blackjack last week, I thought I’d share some lessons I learned from poker as well.
Background
Again, feel free to skip the background story if you just want to read the lessons part. I only include this for the curious.
- How to Predict Your Future
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] How many times have you seen a friend in a relationship that was going downhill, and you could just tell it was going to end badly, yet your friend was oblivious to it?
It’s hard to get past our own biases and see where our own path is likely to lead, but we can often seem to predict where other people’s paths are going.
A simple predictive exercise
- How NOT to Build a Successful Online Business
[Home-Based-Business] Darren Rowse of Problogger.net recently posted a case study of a blogger who decided to quit blogging after six months due to poor financial results: Blog Case Study - Is it time to Quit?
Darren’s post is a great read for anyone who runs an online business, not just for bloggers.
Interestingly, the points Darren raises in his post are similar to those from an article I wrote in 2002 called Shareware Amateurs vs. Shareware Professionals.
The blogging “mistakes” Darren notes are common to other online businesses.
Three of the most frequent mistakes I’ve seen include:
- Freeing Mental RAM
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] It’s been said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. But how well do you actually follow this advice?
Every day we generate new information, and effectively capturing and organizing it is a challenge. Fortunately, software makes it easy to do this, so I encourage you to dump more of your personal information into digital form to get it out of your head.
- Videotape Your Performance
[Self-Improvement:Coaching] One of the best pieces of advice for improving at public speaking is to videotape yourself and then watch the video, looking for ways you can improve. This technique is commonly used by the best speakers in the world.
But this idea can work for any kind of performance, not just public speaking.
- Saying No
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Saying no isn’t easy, but it’s a required skill if you wish to have any degree of focus in your life. If you say yes too often, you’ll likely fall into the common trap of saying yes to the good while simultaneously saying no to the best.
There is no unconditional yes. Whenever you say yes, you’re also uttering a background no. Whenever you allocate time to one pursuit, you say no to everything else you could have done with that time.
- Life Lessons From Blackjack
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Casino-Gambling] Having played a fair amount of blackjack (I learned card counting when I was 21), I’ve noticed some interesting patterns in the way people play the game that seem to reflect larger life patterns.
- Who Do You Want to Be When You Die?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] “How shall we live?” is a challenging question. But an interesting variation is to ask: What kind of person do you want to be when you die?
When I think about the kind of person I want to be when I die, the question that is most pressing to me is this: Did I do my best?
To me this means two things:
- Unraveling the Mortality Conundrum
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Having lived in California for most of my life, I’ve been through several earthquakes. The two strongest ones I recall were the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (7.0) and the 1994 Northridge quake (6.7).
- Overcoming Negative Emotions and Boosting Motivation
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] A negative emotional state can really ruin your day. Prolonged stress, depression, or anger are clearly not conducive to high levels of performance. And the worst part is that these emotional states tend to be self-perpetuating. Working while overly stressed can lead to even more stress. Depression and worry can cause you to avoid taking the kinds of actions that will help you escape the pit of negativity. And anger can lead you to take unproductive actions you may later regret.
- You Have the Right to Be Wrong
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] “You have the right to be wrong” was a common expression of an old high school history teacher of mine. Some students hated this teacher because they thought he was lazy and a bit sadistic. He never lectured, nor did he ever seem to have a lesson plan prepared. He’d just sit back in his chair, sometimes putting his feet up on his desk, and then he’d ask probing questions and insult whoever attempted to answer them (usually for their lack of individual thought).
- What's the Deal With Fluoride?
[Health-and-Fitness] Like many Americans my age, I grew up with a positive association to fluoride. Toothpaste commercials told me that fluoride helped prevent tooth decay and that I should brush my teeth with fluoride toothpaste, so I used it every day. The dentist gave me fluoride treatments for my teeth. Fluoride was also added to municipal water supplies, so drinking tap water (and anything made with it) gave me a daily dose of fluoride too. Like most other people, I assumed it must be healthy. Otherwise, why would people add it to toothpaste and water?
- How To Never Lose Your Keys Again
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] My wife used to spend an inordinate amount of time hunting for her keys. Each time she came home, she’d toss her keys somewhere different, and then she’d forget where she left them and have to search for them later. Sometimes it would take her 30 minutes or more to find them. At first I became skilled at sensing where she left them, but then I figured my time was better spent elsewhere.
- Saving Time With Your Microwave
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] The ubiquitous microwave oven is an appliance used daily, both at work and at home. And yet so few people possess the knowledge and skills necessary to reap the maximum productivity from this modern time-saving device.
Here are several tips for optimal microwave oven usage:
- Playing Follow the Follower
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] If it doesn’t work so well for sheep, why would you expect it to work for people?
Yet how many people live their lives in precisely this manner — playing follow the follower? Do you keep on keeping on, not concerning yourself that the path may be leading nowhere (or worse)?
- How Selfish Are You?
[Self-Improvement] Several readers have informed me they’re experiencing tremendous difficulty with the issue of selfishness vs. selflessness. Deep down they want to live a live of greater service to others (STO), but they note that their current lives are designed almost entirely around service to self (STS). This in turn often leads to feelings of guilt, but usually the guilt isn’t enough to spur action.
- How to Get From a 7 to a 10
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] A frequent question I ask when trying to improve some area of my life is: If I were to rate this area’s current performance on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the worst imaginable and 10 being the best imaginable, where am I right now?
- Lessons from Star Trek
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] One of the best examples of the fulfillment of human potential can actually be found in the Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry was more than just a TV producer — he was a futurist who spoke at NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, and many universities. His vision began to take root in the original series but became far more mature in Star Trek: The Next Generation. After Roddenberry’s death in 1991, the other series and movies drifted from his original vision. So my comments will be focused on the Next Generation series, which originally aired from 1987 to 1994.
In case it isn’t already obvious, I’m a trekkie. But what I liked most about the show wasn’t the technology or the aliens but rather the vision of humanity’s future that Roddenberry developed. Despite the fictional elements, it’s actually a compelling model for thinking about where the pursuit of personal development might take us.
- Working in Unusual Places
[Self-Improvement:Creativity] I recently read that Malcolm Gladwell wrote most of his book Blink while away from his desk. He wrote at coffee shops, restaurants, and other public places.
I’ve only done a little of this myself, but I’ve always found it a valuable practice. If I feel stuck in a creative rut, working in a public place is a great way to get new ideas flowing.
- Trust Yourself, Not the Experts
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Time and time again, I’ve seen people rely on expert advice and find the advice doesn’t work for them. Then they beat themselves up that they must be incompetent because “it should work.” Almost every week now, I receive at least one email telling me such a story, often ending with a line like, “Am I just too stupid / broken / antisocial / undisciplined / weak?”
- How to Give Up Coffee
[Food-and-Drink:Coffee] Caffeine is the modern drug of choice in the work world, easily accessible, socially acceptable, readily affordable, and of course perfectly legal. As for the health effects, I’ve read evidence both for good and ill, so right now I don’t fall strongly on either side. One thing is clear though — caffeine is addictive. And this addictive nature is what leans me towards the negative side.
- Working From Home
[Home-Based-Business] Yesterday I was working in my home office, and my son Kyle was playing on the floor next to me, mostly trying to reorganize my bookshelf. Kyle stood up and pointed to an apple I was eating and said, “thash an apple.” Then he took about 5 steps towards me without holding on to anything — his very first steps. I quickly grabbed my wife, and with some encouragement we got him to do it again for her.
- Passion vs. Self-Discipline
[Self-Improvement:Personal-Growth] How important is passion as a success factor?
Some people believe it’s the single most important factor, painting passion as the fuel that drives success.
I disagree.
- Reducing TV Watching
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] Socrates believed that knowledge and morality were one. In other words immoral behavior is due to a lack of knowledge or understanding. If you’re aware of all the facts of a matter — the real facts, not the assumed ones — you could expect to behave morally and rationally. To Socrates immoral behavior was caused by ignorance.
- Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] One way to overcome fear of public speaking is to be afraid and speak anyway. As stupid as this seems, it’s possibly the most reliable way to gain confidence in speaking. Be afraid, be nervous, be hesitant, but do it anyway.
- Personal Quotas
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Just as salespeople might have monthly sales quotas to meet, you can apply the concept of quotas to your personal productivity as well. I use this technique often and have found it highly effective for certain types of projects. Here’s how it works:
- The Rudder of the Day
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] It’s been said that the first hour is the rudder of the day. I’ve found this to be very true in my own life. If I’m lazy or haphazard in my actions during the first hour after I wake up, I tend to have a fairly lazy and unfocused day. This kind of day might begin by lingering in bed to cuddle the wife, being pounced by my daughter, stretching a bit, getting dressed, shaving, having a leisurely breakfast (the kind that takes me 20 minutes to prepare and another 20 minutes to eat), unloading the dishwasher, discussing the day’s plans with my wife (we both work at home), etc. Then I might start the workday by checking email, writing a blog entry, and doing a few other minor tasks. By this time I’ve usually been up for several hours, and by that time those early hours have already predisposed me to having an uninspired day. On a scale of 1-10, my overall energy level rarely tops a 7 on this kind of day.
- Dynamic Planning
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] One part of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system I’ve discarded was the idea of sorting next actions by physical context bins, such as phone calls, paper work, computer work, etc. Maybe that makes sense if you travel 200 days a year or work in a high-interruption environment where you can’t concentrate for more than 30 minutes at a time, but given that I work in a home office with virtually all of these contexts within easy reach, I find it worsens my productivity to sort actions by physical context. I get good mileage out of batching errands where I must physically go out, so I do maintain a separate errands list, but otherwise I’ve dumped this part of GTD.
- Integrity in the Moment of Choice
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Whenever you make a new commitment to yourself, such as to begin a new exercise program, you will undoubtedly be challenged. A large part of life lies outside your direct control, and one of those external influences will eventually impact you and press you to abandon your original plan at least temporarily.
- Build Fitness With Mild Interval Training
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] I mentioned this as a comment to a previous post, but I thought it deserved its own post as well. If you haven’t exercised in a long time and have gotten out of shape, mild interval training is a good way to rebuild endurance and cardiovascular fitness without killing yourself.
- Start With the Physical
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] If you have many improvements you’d like to make in your life — career, relationship, health — where should you begin? My suggestion is to start with your physical body. Improving your diet and level of fitness will produce positive results in every area of your life because you’ll have extra energy available to you every day. This means more energy to invest in your career, relationships, and mental and spiritual development.
- 30 Days to Success
[Self-Improvement:Success] A powerful personal growth tool is the 30-day trial. This is a concept I borrowed from the shareware industry, where you can download a trial version of a piece of software and try it out risk-free for 30 days before you’re required to buy the full version. It’s also a great way to develop new habits, and best of all, it’s brain-dead simple.
- Where's Your Blind Spot?
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Did you know that your eyes have a blind spot near the center of your field of vision?
It’s true. I’ll prove it to you.
- How Many Careers Would You Like?
[Business:Careers-Employment] As children we all hear the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” So we grow up, we pick a career and work at it for a while. But then what? Does the choice we made at age 20 bind us until age 65?
- Your Own Private Universe
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Can you prove the universe exists outside your perceptions of it?
Everything you experience of the universe comes through your perceptions or takes place in your imagination. Everything. All that you perceive to be scientific or logical or objective still comes through your senses and thoughts — people, places, events, dreams, … everything.
- My Reality or Yours
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] If your belief system is rooted in the concept of an objective reality which we all share, then how could you disprove the existence of other realities where each of us lives in our “own little world?”
- Take the Red Pill
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] In my last post, I mentioned that I believe there’s some kind of linkage between thought and reality that bypasses direct action. In this post I’d like to clarify what I mean by that and why I believe this.
First of all, recognize that this is a field in which we cannot apply the Scientific Method. Why not? The Scientific Method has four steps: observation, hypothesis, prediction, testing. The underlying assumption to this methodology is that the observer and the object of the experiment are separate entities. The Scientific Method pre-supposes the existence of an external reality separate from the consciousness of the observer. So it can only be used effectively within such a reality. What I’m saying, however, is that we do not live in such a reality.
- What's Your Time Horizon?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] One factor that makes a big difference in how much control you have over your life is your time horizon. In the span of a day or a week, you have a fair amount of control over your life, but it’s certainly not 100%. In any given week, just about anything can happen, and your plans can be thrown completely off by factors outside your control. Even over the course of a year, your goals can be totally sidetracked. You can be hit with an unexpected health problem or suffer a major financial setback. I’ve certainly had at least one year where everything seemed to go askew and where getting back on track took months.
- Education Kills Fear
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] A great way to overcome fear is to educate your fear into oblivion.
Consider most people’s greatest fear — public speaking. Public speaking has a lot of variables — writing and organizing the speech, delivering it with confidence, vocal variety, voice volume and pitch, gestures, body language, eye contact, visual aids, achieving the speech objectives, connecting with the audience, adapting to the audience’s response, etc. If you don’t have specific knowledge of how to do these things, it will just look like a gaping void of uncertainty and overwhelm, and fear will be the natural response.
- Cycles of Life
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] A reader suggested I write about this topic: Explore the tension between being satisfied with what you have and your accomplishments vs. the desire to do better.
Being too complacent would yield suboptimal results because you’re drifting and not getting close to your true potential. But push too hard, and you may never enjoy what you have and may burn yourself out. So it would seem the optimal solution lies somewhere in the middle between the extremes.
- Master the Basics
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] If I could say that I have a superpower, it would be that I learn very quickly. More than any other skill, this one has been the most valuable to me over the longest period of time. Even when I’m not particularly good at something initially, I’m usually able to learn it and pick it up fast. This comes from specific habits I’ve developed that support rapid learning, and the most important of these habits is this:
Begin with the attitude of expecting mastery...
- Efficient Email
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] Checking email too often is a significant productivity drain. Email by its very nature isn’t usually urgent unless it’s your entire job, such as answering customer support emails. Here are some tips to prevent email from taking too big a chunk out of your day.
- Hard Work
[Self-Improvement:Success] Success literature going back hundreds of years espouses the benefits of hard work. But why is it that some people seem to feel that “hard work” is a dirty word nowadays?
- Changing Perspectives
[Self-Improvement:Innovation] One problem-solving technique you should master is changing perspectives to redefine the problem.
The way you define a problem is often the key to solving it. Take a current problem from your life that you’re having difficulty solving. Then ask yourself:
- What's Your Optimism Ratio?
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] In his famous book Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman points out how our present use of language can be a fairly accurate predictor of future success. Seligman explains how he was able to predict outcomes of sporting events with reasonable accuracy by comparing the language used by the coaches and players in interviews before the event. Basically what he did was count all the positive words and the negative words in published pre-game quotes from the players and coaches, and then he calculated the ratio of positive words to negative. The team with the higher ratio was the one picked to win. There is some subjectivity in deciding whether a word is positive, negative, or neutral, but if you try it yourself, I think you’ll find that most of the time it’s fairly easy to classify words. Seligman also explains using a similar process to predict the winners of political elections.
- Thought vs. Action
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Balancing thought and action is a challenge for many people, especially those who are self-employed. How much time should you spend thinking vs. doing? We hear things like, “failing to plan is planning to fail,” implying that careful thought must govern all action. But then there are also the cries of, “Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!” pressing for immediate action.
- Living Congruently
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Do you tend to compartmentalize all the different areas of your life? Career goes there, relationship goes here, spirituality fits there, and health … well, that’s neither here nor there.
- Do You Create Plans That Would Require An Android To Execute?
[Self-Improvement:Success] Last week I read Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. I felt the book was filled with too many long-winded stories and could have been reduced in size by at least half, but I liked the overall message, which is that execution is a key part of strategy. Let me ’splain…. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
I’ll cover how this principle can be applied both for a business and for an individual...
- Are You A Failure Germaphobe?
[Self-Improvement:Success] It’s been said that if you want to increase your success rate, you should increase your failure rate. Success comes at least partially from your volume of attempts. If you want to sell more, make more sales calls. If you want more dates, ask more people out. Pretty simple principle — one that’s been around a long time.
- Post Your Goals Where You Can See Them
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] One simple tip for staying on track towards your goals is to write your weekly goals on a marker board in your office. This isn’t a to do list. It’s a list of the important items you expect to have accomplished by the end of the week. On the left side I write my primary goals for the week (maximum of 3), and on the right side I list my secondary goals (this week I have 9 of those). I setup my primary goals such that achieving even one of them is better than achieving all the secondary goals combined.
- Enjoying the Journey
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] If you work really hard to achieve your goals but don’t enjoy the journey, you’re delaying the essence of life. Committing to your goals doesn’t mean you slave away at work you dislike, celebrating only the destination. A real abiding commitment means that you love what you do each day. You are at least as passionate about the path as you are about the results. If you love the path you’re on, your passion motivates you to keep taking the next step.
- Read a Book a Week
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] In 1992 I first learned of the habit of reading one book every week (on average), with most of them being in the field in which you desire to develop expertise. This translates to about 50 books a year. Brian Tracy explains that this habit will make you an international expert in your chosen field within 7 years. Imagine if you work in sales. If you read 50 books on sales this year, will that make a difference in your success at selling? No doubt.
- Your Goal Scoreboard
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] One goal-achievement tool I just started using is a scoreboard. It’s very easy to create and maintain. You make a page to score your progress towards all your measurable goals for the year. A scoreboard is nothing more than a table with 3 columns. The first column is a list of your goals. The second column is where you are now, your current reality for each goal. And the third column is where you want to be at the end of the year for each goal. The specific time frame is arbitrary. Fill out the scoreboard for all your measurable goals, and then put it somewhere where you’ll look at it every day. Update it weekly.
- Your Personal Accountability System
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] A difficult challenge in achieving goals is simply remaining aware of them and staying on track. How many times have you set a goal, started working on it with the best of intentions, and then at some future time, you realize it somehow slipped through the cracks?
- The Best Place to Invest Your Money
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] The best place to invest your money is in yourself. The rate of return from investing in your own knowledge and skills will be much higher than anything you’ll see from stocks, real estate, or other investments.
- Purpose = Freedom
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] It’s fair to say that if you don’t know your purpose in life, you won’t be spending much time working on it. So what will you end up doing with your working time instead?
- Abolishing Annoyances
[Self-Improvement:Organizing] Sometimes when we’re focused on doing all the “important” stuff, the little stuff begins to gradually pile up. I’m not talking about little stuff that’s perpetually on your to do list that you never get around to. I mean the little stuff that never makes it onto your list in the first place because it’s so trivial. The door that squeaks when you close it...
- Why Does Purpose Matter?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Why does it matter whether or not your life actually has a purpose?
Let’s take a few steps back and creep up on this question...
- How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] How do you discover your real purpose in life? I’m not talking about your job, your daily responsibilities, or even your long-term goals. I mean the real reason why you’re here at all — the very reason you exist.
- Don't Die With Your Music Still In You
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] What if you currently live a very comfortable lifestyle and you have a lot of assets? How can you justify running off to do what truly makes you happy if it might put all your current assets at risk?
- What Do You Need To Feel Secure?
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] One value that seems to hold a lot of people back from setting and achieving big goals is the need for security. Security is a feeling of certainty that everything is OK and that all your basic needs will be provided for. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great to feel secure. Abraham Maslow lists it as one of the basic human needs. If we don’t feel secure, we can’t move onto higher levels like love and self-actualization. If we have doubts about paying the rent at the end of the month, how can we possibly go after our really big dreams? You gotta feel secure first, right?
- What Is Your Career?
[Business:Careers-Employment] What is your career? Forget about how you define this to others for now, and just think for a bit about how you define your career to yourself. What does it mean to you to have a career? Is it just your job? Is it something you do to make a living? Is it what you do for money? Is it your work?
Most people would define a career as more than a job. Above and beyond a job, a career is a long-term pattern of work, usually across multiple jobs. A career implies
- Making a Quantum Leap
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Since 1992, I’ve been pursuing personal growth with a passion. I’ve attended seminars, listened to audio programs, and read hundreds of books in this field. I’ve easily spent many thousands of dollars and invested thousands of hours on such pursuits. And one thing I can tell you from all of this effort is that personal growth is very, very hard...
- Environmental Reinforcement of Your Goals
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Daily affirmations are something you’ll commonly see recommended in pop-psychology books. Each day you verbally affirm your goals as if they’re already accomplished. However, you usually won’t get any results at all with this approach — in most cases it’s an utter waste of time.
Why is this? Because every thought is an...
- Fear of Success: What Will Happen If You Succeed?
[Self-Improvement:Success] Sometimes you find yourself with a goal you think you should want to achieve, but you just don’t seem to be taking enough action to reach it. You aren’t really afraid of failure or rejection, the path to the goal seems clear enough and might even be an interesting challenge, and occasionally you’ll make some progress. But most of the time you can’t seem to get into that flow state, and you’re not sure why. This often happens with long-term goals that require intermittent action, like losing weight or transitioning to start a new business and eventually quit your job.
- Full Engagement
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] In an article I wrote a few years ago called Do It Now, I explained some time management techniques that allowed me to finish college more quickly than usual. What I probably didn’t make clear in the article was that I didn’t overwhelm myself like a workaholic to pull it off. I had a great deal of leisure time every week, including taking at least one full day off each week. I stole time for doing extra homework mainly from the inefficiencies of school itself, not from my personal time. Some classes require concentration for the entire duration, but at least 80% of them don’t. How much cumulative time during a typical one-hour class are you fully engaged in listening, writing, or doing some kind of mental or physical activity?
- Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Should we or should we not set big, hairy, audacious goals where success is far from certain (at least without the benefit of hindsight)?
I for one am grateful for the existence of people who set big goals. My country (the USA) would not exist otherwise. Nor would my city, my family, our computers, the Internet, my breakfast, this Thanksgiving holiday, or the various freedoms I enjoy today. A number of people close to me would be dead if not for the existence and drive of “unrealistic” goal setters...
- Developing a Toolkit of Problem-solving Techniques
[Self-Improvement:Innovation] Yesterday I was visiting a fellow Toastmaster, and we watched a DVD called Magic Moments II. This is a video that analyzes 30 clips from the 2001-2003 International World Championship of Public Speaking Competition in order to study some of the best practices. I saw this same presentation live at the 2004 Toastmasters International Convention this past summer (given by 1990 World Champion of Public Speaking, David Brooks), but it was certainly helpful to see it again. What’s interesting about this video is that it doesn’t just analyze the winning speeches. It takes the approach that every speaker does something right. 9 finalists compete in this contest each year, so that’s 27 people to study.
The main benefit of this broader range of study is that it allows the creation of...
- Dealing with Difficult People
[Business:Workplace-Communication] How do you deal with difficult, irrational, or abusive people, especially those in positions of authority who have some degree of control over your life?
I’ve never met a totally rational human being. Our ability to store and process information is far too imperfect for that. But our emotions are a shortcut.
- The Value of Confidence
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Last night I gave a speech called “The Value of Confidence,” which was about how to mentally put yourself into a state of confidence, feeling certain of success even when your knowledge suggests you should expect to fail. Delivering a speech like this puts an extra burden on the speaker, since it must be done with absolute confidence and certainty — otherwise the audience will easily detect the incongruency.
- Sharpen the Saw
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Sharpening the saw is actually an activity, just as the analogy suggests. Think about what it would mean to sharpen the saw of your life. Here are some saw-sharpening ideas:
- Setting Posteriorities
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] You’re probably familiar with the idea of setting priorities. You look at your list of goals or projects or tasks and sort them in order of most important to least important. Then you focus your attention on the most important ones before you tackle the less important ones. Nothing too surprising there...
- Be Proactive
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Being proactive means that instead of merely reacting to events as they happen, you consciously engineer your own events.
Most people think reactively. And reacting to certain events is all well and good. But it becomes a problem when that’s all there is to a person’s life — nothing more than instinctively reacting to stimuli...
- Optimal Thinking
[Self-Improvement:Innovation] Here’s the concept of optimal thinking in a nutshell. Suboptimal thinking is when you ask questions like, “What’s a good/great way to do X?” or “How can I solve Y?” Optimal thinking is when you ask, “What’s the best way to do X?” or “How can I solve Y in the best way possible?” It may seem like a subtle and unimportant difference, but when you start applying this rule to your life, I think you’ll see some interesting results as I have.
For example, when planning your next day, you might ask yourself...
- Timeboxing
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] Timeboxing is a simple time management technique I use often. I first learned about it in software development terms. Let’s say you have a fixed deadline for a new product you need to release, such as an annual upgrade to software for calculating income taxes. You must have a new version ready by a certain date. So you’ll probably use timeboxing for your development cycle, meaning that you do the best job you can within the time available. What new features you can implement are totally determined by the time frame. Slipping the schedule is simply not an option, so if you get behind, you must cut features.
- Modeling
[Self-Improvement:Coaching] One of the most effective concepts in personal development is modeling. Modeling simply means that you find someone who’s already getting the results you want in some area, learn what they did to get those results, and then basically just do the same thing. It’s a lot like following a recipe to re-create a meal.
- How to Become an Early Riser - Part II
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] If you’re doing stimulating activities before bed, you’ll be able to stay up later and stave off sleepiness for a while. In college I used to participate in poker games that went until dawn, and then we’d often go out to breakfast afterwards. I can easily stay up later than my normal range of bed times if I work, go out with friends, or do other stimulating activities.
But this isn’t what I meant by noticing when you’re sleepy. I mentioned the test of not being able to read more than a couple pages of text without losing concentration. This doesn’t mean...
- How to Become an Early Riser
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I rarely went to bed before midnight, and I’d almost always sleep in late. I usually didn’t start hitting my stride each day until late afternoon.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high correlation between success and rising early, even in my own life. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my...
- Effective Online Forum Usage
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Forums] Online forums, message boards, and newsgroups are now ubiquitous. These powerful communication tools offer many strong benefits. However, forum participation can also become a destructive addiction, where the benefits are overshadowed by negative side effects.
- Getting Organized
[Self-Improvement:Organizing] Years ago my family and I moved from a cramped two-bedroom apartment into a spacious house. Instead of having to squeeze my home office in half a room, I finally had a nice 10' x 12' room all to myself. Since I was accustomed to working in less than half this area, I knew I'd have plenty of room to work with, so I wanted to intelligently organize it in a way that would allow me to work efficiently on a variety of projects without creating a cluttered mess. While browsing a local bookstore before the move, on a whim I bought a book called Organizing From the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. It contained many great organizing tips and adroitly explained where people normally go wrong when trying to get organized. I'd like to share with you what I learned from reading this book and organizing my home office from scratch.
- The Medium vs. The Message
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] This article is designed to get you thinking about your life from a new perspective. For the sake of clarity, we'll focus primarily on your career, but by the time you're done reading, you should be able to apply these ideas to other areas of your life as well.
- Cultivating Burning Desire
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Take a moment to think about the goals you've set for yourself. (You have set goals, haven't you? If not, go read the article on setting clear goals.) How committed are you to achieving these goals? Under what conditions would you give up? What if you could significantly increase your desire to achieve these goals? What if you wanted them so badly that you knew with absolute certainty that you would absolutely, positively never ever give up? When you are truly 100% committed to reaching your goals, you move from hoping to knowing. If you want something badly enough, then quitting is simply not an option. You either find a way or make one. You pay the price, whatever it takes.
- The Power of Clarity
[Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Bunker Hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in the 1970s, was once asked during a TV interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful. He responded by saying that it's not terribly difficult to be successful and that only two things are required. First, you must decide exactly what it is you want to accomplish. Most people never do that in their entire lives. And secondly, you must determine what price you'll have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.
- Triple Your Personal Productivity
[Self-Improvement:Organizing] Have you ever had the experience of looking back on your week with the sinking feeling that you didn't get as much done as you'd hoped? When building a successful career or a business of your own, your time is perhaps your most valuable asset, and your income is a direct result of how you spend your time. You cannot buy any more time than you're given, and the clock is always ticking. A few years ago, I discovered a simple system that allowed me to nearly triple my productivity, and in this article I'll share some very practical ideas you can apply right away to increase your effectiveness without working any harder than you do now.
- Marketing From Your Conscience
[Business:Marketing] Years ago I learned a simple yet powerful marketing secret: You must become so convinced of the benefits of your product or service that you feel you'd be unjustly depriving people by not doing everything in your power to get the word out.
I was infected by this attitude from Jay Abraham. Jay has an absolutely brilliant way of thinking about marketing. For example, if you're an accountant, and you're skilled at saving people money on their taxes, Jay might ask how much you save your average client. Say it's $500 per year. And then Jay would ask how much you charge. Say it's $200. Then Jay might take you through a conversation like this:
- Living Your Values, Part II
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Once you know and understand your personal values, you can consult them whenever you need to make a key decision. Should you accept the new job you've been offered? Should you pursue a new relationship now? How much time should you spend with your family? These can be tough decisions without a clear right or wrong answer. You may choose to answer them differently at different points in your life.
- Living Your Values, Part I
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] I've read many books that stress the importance of understanding your personal values, getting clear about what's most important to you in life. But at the time of this writing, I haven't yet come across a source that covers this incredibly useful concept with sufficient depth. Most of the values coverage I've read takes you through a process of eliciting your current values and then leaves it at that. But I want to take you much deeper into this rich subject and show you how to intelligently connect your values to your goals.
- The Courage to Live Consciously
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] In our day-to-day lives, the virtue of courage doesn't receive much attention. Courage is a quality reserved for soldiers, firefighters, and activists. Security is what matters most today. Perhaps you were taught to avoid being too bold or too brave. It's too dangerous. Don't take unnecessary risks. Don't draw attention to yourself in public. Follow family traditions. Don't talk to strangers. Keep an eye out for suspicious people. Stay safe...
- Overcoming Procrastination
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] Procrastination, the habit of putting tasks off to the last possible minute, can be a major problem in both your career and your personal life. Missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, stress, overwhelm, resentment, and guilt are just some of the symptoms. This article will explore the root causes of procrastination and give you several practical tools to overcome it.
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