30 good habits

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

30 Habits that Will Change your Life

Developing good habits is the basic of personal development and growth. Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve.

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The following is a list of 30 practical habits that can make a huge difference in your life.

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You should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. This way you will have the time to fully absorb each of them, while still seeing significant improvements each month.

Health habits

Exercise 30 minutes every day. Especially if you don’t do much movement while working, it’s essential that you get some daily exercise. 30 minutes every day are the minimum recommended for optimal health.
Eat breakfast every day. Breakfast is the more important meal of the day, yet so many people skip it. Personally, I like to eat a couple of toasts in the morning along with a fruit beverage.
Sleep 8 hours. Sleep deprivation is never a good idea. You may think that you are gaining time by sleeping less, when in reality you are only gaining stress and tiredness. 8 hours are a good number of hours for most people, along with an optional 20 minutes nap after lunch.
Avoid snacking between meals. Snacking between meals is the best way to gain weight. If you are hungry, eat something concrete. Otherwise don’t. Update: for clarification, I mean don’t eat junk food between meals, but eating real food it’s ok.
Eat five portions of fruits and vegetables every day. Our body and brain loves getting vegetables and fruit, so I highly recommend eating as much of them as possible. Five portions is the dose that’s usually recommended by many health associations.
Eat fish. Fish is rich of omega 3 and other healthy elements. At least one meal per week of fish should be enough for getting all these nutrients.
Drink one glass of water when you wake up. When you wake up, your body is dehydrated and needs liquid. Make the habit of drinking one glass of water after you wake up in the morning. Also, drink more during the day.
Avoid soda. Soda is often one of the most unhealthy beverage you can find. Limit your consumption of soda as much as possible and you’re body will be grateful for that.
Keep your body clean. I don’t advise spending your day in front of the mirror, but a minimum of personal care does never hurt.
If you smoke, stop it. There’s no reason to smoke anymore, and quitting is possible.
If you drink, stop it. Same as above. Don’t think that alcohol will solve your problems. It never does. The only exception is one glass of wine per day during meals.
Take the stairs. This is just a hack that forces you to do a minimum of exercise. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs.

Productivity habits

Use an inbox system. Make the habit of keeping track of all the ideas and things that comes to mind. You can use a notebook to do this, and then sync everything on your computer.
Prioritize. If you have a list of things to do, where do you start? One way is to prioritize your list. If you are in doubt, ask yourself: “If I could only accomplish one thing today, what would it be?”
Plan, but not too much. Planning is important, and you should decide in advance what you are going to do today or this week. However, planning for more than a few weeks is usually inefficient, so I would not worry too much about that.
Wake up early. Waking up early in the morning is a great way to gain extra time. I personally like to wake up at 5 am, so that by 9 am I have already accomplished what otherwise would have taken me many days..
Check your email only twice per day. Email can easily become an addiction, but it’s usually unnecessary to check it every 10 minutes. Make an effort and check your email only once or twice per day, see if the world will still rotate as before after you try this.
Eliminate unimportant tasks. Being busy all day does not mean you are doing important stuff. Eliminate every activity that’s not important, and focus on what really matters.
Clean off your desk and room. Having a clear room and desk is important to maintain focus and creativity.
Automate. There are a lot of tasks that you need to perform every day or every week. Try to automate them as much as possible.
Set strict deadlines. When you do something, decide in advance when you’re going to stop. There’s a rule that states that you will fulfill all the time you have available for completing a task, so make an habit of setting strict deadlines for maximizing your productivity.
Take one day off per week. Instead of working every day, take one day off per week (for example sunday) where you are not going to turn on your computer. Use that time for doing recreational activities like going for a walk.

Personal Development habits

Read 1 book per week. Reading is a good way to keep your brain active. With just 30 minutes per day you should be able to read one book per week, or more than 50 books per year.
Solve puzzles. Quizzes, word games, etc. are all good ways to exercise your brain.
Think positively. You are what you think, all the time.
Make fast decisions. Instead of thinking for one hour wherever you are going to do something, make your decisions as fast as possible (usually less than 1 minute).
Wait before buying. Waiting 48 hours before buying anything is a tremendous money saver, try it.
Meditate 30 minutes per day. A great way to gain clearness and peace is through meditation. 30 minutes are not a lot, but enough to get you started with meditation.

Career habits

Start a blog. Blogging is one of the best way to put your word out. It doesn’t have to be around a specific topic, even a personal blog will do.
Build a portfolio. If your job is creating stuff, building a portfolio is a great way to show what you are capable of. You can also contribute stuff for free if that applies to your work.

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The Strangest Secret

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

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Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today?” The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”

It’s about this that I want to talk with you. We live today in a golden age. This is an era that humanity has looked forward to, dreamed of, and worked toward for thousands of years. We live in the richest era that ever existed on the face of the earth … a land of abundant opportunity for everyone.

However, if you take 100 individuals who start even at the age of 25, do you have any idea what will happen to those men and women by the time they’re 65? These 100 people believe they’re going to be successful. They are eager toward life, there is a certain sparkle in their eye, an erectness to their carriage, and life seems like a pretty interesting adventure to them.

But by the time they’re 65, only one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, and 54 will be broke — depending on others for life’s necessities.

Only five out of 100 make the grade! Why do so many fail? What has happened to the sparkle that was there when they were 25? What has become of the dreams, the hopes, the plans … and why is there such a large disparity between what these people intended to do and what they actually accomplished?

THE DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

First, we have to define success and here is the best definition I’ve ever been able to find: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

A success is the school teacher who is teaching because that’s what he or she wants to do. A success is the entrepreneur who start his own company because that was his dream — that’s what he wanted to do. A success is the salesperson who wants to become the best salesperson in his or her company and sets forth on the pursuit of that goal.

A success is anyone who is realizing a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what he or she decided to do … deliberately. But only one out of 20 does that! The rest are “failures.”

Rollo May, the distinguished psychiatrist, wrote a wonderful book called Man’s Search for Himself, and in this book he says: “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice … it is conformity.” And there you have the reason for so many failures. Conformity — people acting like everyone else, without knowing why or where they are going.

We learn to read by the time we’re seven. We learn to make a living by the time we’re 30. Often by that time we’re not only making a living, we’re supporting a family. And yet by the time we’re 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in the richest land that has ever been known. Why? We conform! Most of us are acting like the wrong percentage group — the 95 who don’t succeed.

GOALS

Have you ever wondered why so many people work so hard and honestly without ever achieving anything in particular, and why others don’t seem to work hard, yet seem to get everything? They seem to have the “magic touch.” You’ve heard people say, “Everything he touches turns to gold.” Have you ever noticed that a person who becomes successful tends to continue to become more successful? And, on the other hand, have you noticed how someone who’s a failure tends to continue to fail?

The difference is goals. People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going. It’s that simple. Failures, on the other hand, believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances … by things that happen to them … by exterior forces.

Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take — it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.

Now let’s take another ship — just like the first — only let’s not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach — a derelict. It can’t go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance.

It’s the same with a human being. However, the human race is fixed, not to prevent the strong from winning, but to prevent the weak from losing. Society today can be likened to a convoy in time of war. The entire society is slowed down to protect its weakest link, just as the naval convoy has to go at the speed that will permit its slowest vessel to remain in formation.

That’s why it’s so easy to make a living today. It takes no particular brains or talent to make a living and support a family today. We have a plateau of so-called “security.” So, to succeed, all we must do is decide how high above this plateau we want to aim.

Throughout history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement — the key to success and the key to failure is this:

WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT

This is The Strangest Secret! Now, why do I say it’s strange, and why do I call it a secret? Actually, it isn’t a secret at all. It was first promulgated by some of the earliest wise men, and it appears again and again throughout the Bible. But very few people have learned it or understand it. That’s why it’s strange, and why for some equally strange reason it virtually remains a secret.

Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said: “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

Disraeli said this: “Everything comes if a man will only wait … a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”

William James said: “We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief.” He continues, ” … only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”

My old friend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way: “If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results.” George Bernard Shaw said: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

Well, it’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? We become what we think about. A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn’t know where he’s going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing … he becomes nothing.

AS YE SOW — SO SHALLYE REAP

The human mind is much like a farmer’s land. The land gives the farmer a choice. He may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care what is planted. It’s up to the farmer to make the decision. The mind, like the land, will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant. If the farmer plants too seeds — one a seed of corn, the other nightshade, a deadly poison, waters and takes care of the land, what will happen?

Remember, the land doesn’t care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants — one corn, one poison as it’s written in the Bible, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn’t care what we plant … success … or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal … or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety, and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

The problem is that our mind comes as standard equipment at birth. It’s free. And things that are given to us for nothing, we place little value on. Things that we pay money for, we value.

The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that’s really worthwhile in life came to us free — our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.

But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace.

Our mind can do any kind of job we assign to it, but generally speaking, we use it for little jobs instead of big ones. So decide now. What is it you want? Plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life.

Do you want to excel at your particular job? Do you want to go places in your company … in your community? Do you want to get rich? All you have got to do is plant that seed in your mind, care for it, work steadily toward your goal, and it will become a reality.

It not only will, there’s no way that it cannot. You see, that’s a law — like the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, the laws of gravity. If you get on top of a building and jump off, you’ll always go down — you’ll never go up.

And it’s the same with all the other laws of nature. They always work. They’re inflexible. Think about your goal in a relaxed, positive way. Picture yourself in your mind’s eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you will be doing when you have reached your goal.

Every one of us is the sum total of our own thoughts. We are where we are because that’s exactly where we really want or feel we deserve to be — whether we’ll admit that or not. Each of us must live off the fruit of our thoughts in the future, because what you think today and tomorrow — next month and next year — will mold your life and determine your future. You’re guided by your mind.

I remember one time I was driving through e a s t e r n Arizona and I saw one of those giant earthmoving machines roaring along the road with what looked like 30 tons of dirt in it — a tremendous, incredible machine — and there was a little man perched way up on top with the wheel in his hands, guiding it. As I drove along I was struck by the similarity of that machine to the human mind. Just suppose you’re sitting at the controls of such a vast source of energy. Are you going to sit back and fold your arms and let it run itself into a ditch? Or are you going to keep both hands firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific, worthwhile purpose? It’s up to you. You’re in the driver’s seat. You see, the very law that gives us success is a doubleedged sword. We must control our thinking. The same rule that can lead people to lives of success, wealth, happiness, and all the things they ever dreamed of — that very same law can lead them into the gutter. It’s all in how they use it … for good or for bad. That is The Strangest Secret!

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Do what the experts since the dawn of recorded history have told us to do: pay the price, by becoming the person you want to become. It’s not nearly as difficult as living unsuccessfully.

The moment you decide on a goal to work toward, you’re immediately a successful person — you are then in that rare group of people who know where they’re going. Out of every hundred people, you belong to the top five. Don’t concern yourself too much with how you are going to achieve your goal — leave that completely to a power greater than yourself. All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord, and at the right time.

Start today. You have nothing to lose — but you have your whole life to win.

30-DAYACTION IDEAS FOR PUTTING THE STRANGEST SECRET TO WORK FOR YOU

For the next 30-days follow each of these steps every day until you have achieved your goal.

1. Write on a card what it is you want more that anything else. It may be more money. Perhaps you’d like to double your income or make a specific amount of money. It may be a beautiful home. It may be success at your job. It may be a particular position in life. It could be a more harmonious family.

Write down on your card specifically what it is you want. Make sure it’s a single goal and clearly defined. You needn’t show it to anyone, but carry it with you so that you can look at it several times a day. Think about it in a cheerful, relaxed, positive way each morning when you get up, and immediately you have something to work for — something to get out of bed for, something to live for.

Look at it every chance you get during the day and just before going to bed at night. As you look at it, remember that you must become what you think about, and since you’re thinking about your goal, you realize that soon it will be yours. In fact, it’s really yours the moment you write it down and begin to think about it.

2. Stop thinking about what it is you fear. Each time a fearful or negative thought comes into your mind, replace it with a mental picture of your positive and worthwhile goal. And there will come a time when you’ll feel like giving up. It’s easier for a human being to think negatively than positively. That’s why only five percent are successful! You must begin now to place yourself in that group.

“Act as though it were impossible to fail,” as Dorothea Brande said. No matter what your goal — if you’ve kept your goal before you every day — you’ll wonder and marvel at this new life you’ve found.

3. Your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render. Most people will tell you that they want to make money, without understanding this law. The only people who make money work in a mint. The rest of us must earn money. This is what causes those who keep looking for something for nothing, or a free ride, to fail in life. Success is not the result of making money; earning money is the result of success — and success is in direct proportion to our service.

Most people have this law backwards. It’s like the man who stands in front of the stove and says to it: “Give me heat and then I’ll add the wood.” How many men and women do you know, or do you suppose there are today, who take the same attitude toward life? There are millions.

We’ve got to put the fuel in before we can expect heat. Likewise, we’ve got to be of service first before we can expect money. Don’t concern yourself with the money. Be of service … build … work … dream … create! Do this and you’ll find there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance that will come to you.

Don’t start your test until you’ve made up your mind to stick with it. If you should fail during your first 30 days — by that I mean suddenly find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts — simply start over again from that point and go 30 more days. Gradually, your new habit will form, until you find yourself one of that wonderful minority to whom virtually nothing is impossible.

Above all … don’t worry! Worry brings fear, and fear is crippling. The only thing that can cause you to worry during your test is trying to do it all yourself. Know that all you have to do is hold your goal before you; everything else will take care of itself.

Take this 30-day test, then repeat it … then repeat it again. Each time it will become more a part of you until you’ll wonder how you could have ever have lived any other way. Live this new way and the floodgates of abundance will open and pour over you more riches than you may have dreamed existed. Money? Yes, lots of it. But what’s more important, you’ll have peace … you’ll be in that wonderful minority who lead calm, cheerful, successful lives.

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How to Rewire Your Brain For Success

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

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In this article I’ll show you simple practical steps which you can do to rewire your nervous system connections to bring the desired change you want. Rewiring means to reprogram your mind, we all operate on some kind of software installed by ourselves, others or by other factors. We can model our body as a robotic system where the hardware part consists of all organs including brain while the software part consists of nervous system connections inside our brain. These connections are the core of our beliefs, emotions, memories, habits etc. For operating our body efficiently we need to run efficient programs and the way to install new programs is by overwriting the old inefficient ones.

Let’s begin, first off all you need to create layers of core habits, simple way to do is to take a piece of paper & make basic daily routines. For example,

Night’s Sleep – Tooth Brushing – Bowel Elimination – Breakfast – Lunch – Dinner – Tooth Brushing – Night’s Sleep …

You can do anything else like reading news paper, jogging, bathing, studying etc between these, but above mentioned basic body required activities must be done in this order. For example after getting up from night’s sleep you must not go for bowel elimination without brushing the teeth. Similarly you should take lunch only after you eat breakfast & so on.

You can change the order according to your preference, for example,

Night’s Sleep – Tooth Brushing – Breakfast – Bowel Elimination – Lunch – Dinner – Tooth Brushing – Night’s Sleep …

Only thing important here is that you must stick to the order very strictly.

This daily routine is your first core rewiring which will bring your semi conscious body rhythm functions to stable level for solving common body dysfunctions like insomnia, constipation, loss of appetite etc.

Lets now create core habit for productivity, for productivity the basic rule is to give yourself credits & debits just like you handle money. Unlike money here credit means the time you spent on non productive activities usually lazy activities like internet surfing, TV watching, mobile phone usage, playing games etc

In order to increase productivity rate you need to increase alertness, memory, concentration, thinking rate etc. By constantly looking at clocks, doing mental calculations you can achieve this goal. Lets devise a simple technique which you can use to tie together all of these like productivity, leisure (lazy activities) & mental qualities like memory, concentration, faster thinking etc.

Pick out the most prominent lazy activity you do most, it can be multiple but let’s first start with single for example computer usage (all internet usage, movie watching etc all come under this).

A basic routine you can use for this is 5 min – >= * 5 min – 5 min pattern which says for 5 minutes free usage time take * 5 minutes or more break before entering into next session of 5 minutes free usage & continue along with this pattern.

* This duration can be a multiple of 5 like 5 / 10 / 20 minutes etc.

This 5 minutes can be something very specific like touching mouse / keyboard. during the * 5 minutes or more break time you need to do some productive work like reading text books or anything other (at least * 5 minutes).

For every productive activity add that much credit time so that for the next non-productive activity session you can spent 5 minutes free usage + credit you got from doing the productive work. please note while doing productive activity if some interruptions arrive like someone disturbed or you got wandered by some other thoughts then reduce that much time from your credit, which will train your mind to focus more on the productive activity.

You can accumulate credits like this by doing more & more productive work so that you can spent this credit time for doing lazy activities. In this way we are using our lazy activities as a source of motivation for the productive work.

This technique can be used for motivating productive activities & demotivating bad habits. For example,

If you find it difficult to go to night’s sleep at a particular time then you can use this credit system for motivating you to do that. For example give 20 minutes credit if you sleep between 11 – 11:30 pm to 6:30 – 7:00 am or according to your preference. Conversely you can limit bad habits by giving proper amount of negative credits.

Basic rule to follow is to give positive credit time for productive activities, no credit time for neutral activities like sleep, eating etc & negative credit time for counterproductive activities.

It’s very important to keep with this strategy very strictly as even a minor negligence can ruin the whole system so please do not go along with the lazy activity without having that much credit time in your balance.

If in any case you have spent more than the credit you have in your balance simply go back & start again but never give up this strategy completely. The best time to start again is the next day after waking up from night’s sleep.

Lets now create one more core layer, here we are installing a condition statement like in computer programs. Some of the basic condition statement we can create in our mind is to pick out the most basic things we do daily like eating, sleeping etc.

Examples

After Sleep = Productive Work

After Eating = Productive Work

After Main Lazy Activity = Productive Work

After undergoing these basic activities like sleep, eating, lazy activity (computer usage or other) first thing to do before doing anything other must be to do some productive work (at least * 5 minutes).

This technique helps to control various bad habits like over eating, excessive day time sleeping, excessive TV watching etc.

Conditioning can also be used to unconsciously install various useful programs in your mind, for example devote a chair in your study room for studying only so the next time when you study by sitting on that chair your mind will be very alert for study as you have conditioned your brain to do so.

In the same way associate bed with sleep only so the next time when you lie on that bed at night you will instantly go to a refreshing night’s sleep.

Now we have created 3 core layers of habits this when followed very strictly will transform you into a highly efficient robot doing all the necessary work without unnecessary worries, procrastination, laziness etc. Your mind & body activities will be aligned together in one direction which will help you to achieve all your goals very easily.

Strictly adhering to these strategies will improve your alertness, concentration, focus, memory, productivity etc thus improving your overall health & well being.

Rewiring or reprogramming works well when you go along with the system without making any excuses; the more duration you went along with the system more will be its effectiveness.

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40 ways to live a Happy, Meaningful Life!

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants, and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time for prayer and reflection
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.

Personality:

10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day —- and while you walk, smile.
11. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t over do; keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously; no one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Community:

25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your family and friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32. Do the right things.
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. Forgiveness heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, don’t take it for granted – embrace life.
39. Your inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

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How to Be Happy with Yourself – The Secret of Happiness

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

- by Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Are you often less than fully happy with your life? or with yourself? Do you wonder what it would take to become happier? Learn how to be happy with yourself by mastering the secret of happiness.

—–

Is there a single true secret of happiness? Maybe. There are a number of important factors in your happiness – your happiness with life, and your happiness with yourself. Here are some of the most important choices you can make to live a happier – or less happy – life. The single most important key to your happiness – perhaps THE secret of happiness – is listed last.

Have a Purpose

If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him.
- Seneca

Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
- Joseph Campbell

Your life doesn’t have a purpose until you choose your life purpose. So make that choice, and choose well. There is a very high correlation between lives of high purpose and joyful lives. There is also a high correlation between lives without purpose and unhappy lives. Create purpose in your life not as a moral dictum, but as a key element of a happy life.

Take Action – Be Bold

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
- Anonymous

Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
- George Bernard Shaw

Once you know where you are going, get started. A life of action is almost always happier than a life of procrastination and inaction. Even if you are unsure about what to do next, do the best you can. Make some progress every day, and celebrate even your smallest accomplishments.

Honor Yourself – Love Yourself as You Are

To thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare

Outer show is a poor substitute for inner worth.
- Aesop

Always be a first-rate version of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
- Judy Garland

Honor, self respect, and self love are crucial to your happiness. Don’t confuse these essential attributes with pride – in the biblical sense of pride. You have to respect and love yourself in order to stand any chance for a happy life. You are perfect exactly as you are – whatever anyone else may say about you. If you sometimes choose to make changes in how you live, great. But you never have to change anything in order to be a perfect person – a perfect creation.

Forgive Others

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
- Paul Boese

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
- A Course In Miracles

Holding on to resentments, anger, and hatred only hurts yourself – and robs your life of its joy and happiness. For your own sake – for the sake of your happiness – forgive everyone for everything that they have ever done – or failed to do – that caused you pain or upset.

It is sometimes very hard to forgive, but total unconditional forgiveness is one of the great keys to your own happiness.

Forgive Yourself

Regret is an appalling waste of energy,
you can’t build on it -
it’s only good for wallowing in.
- Katherine Mansfield

What’s done is done.
- William Shakespeare

Live with intention…
Choose with no regret…
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Why throw away your happiness on regret, guilt, or shame? Change the rules. Where did you get the idea that regret, guilt, or shame was a good or noble thing? Did your parents tell you that you were guilty and should be ashamed? Well, shame on them. How about your church? Wherever you got the idea that regret was a good thing, change the rules now.

Always do your best – your very best – every time. But after it is over, let it be done – whatever the outcome. Learn lessons from your failures, but never label yourself as a failure. Forgive yourself for everything you have ever done – or failed to do – that didn’t work out the way you intended.

Have Gratitude for All of Life

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
- Melody Beattie

Life is neither perfectly great nor perfectly awful – life just is. We can choose to complain about life’s seeming imperfections – from the long line in the bank, to the slow commute, the driver that cut us off, the pain in our knee, the overdue bills, our bossy boss. That is certainly one way to live – it’s not wrong to live that way, but there is no joy in living with that attitude toward life.

We also have the choice of celebrating life – all of life. We can be profoundly grateful for everything we have. However little we have, it is so much more than nothing. Our very existence is a daily miracle which deserves constant gratitude.

Make the choice to be constantly grateful for all of life, not because you are supposed to be grateful, but because you will live a much happier life if you have a grateful attitude.

Be of Service to Others

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is,
“What are you doing for others?”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation,
we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.
- Joseph Campbell

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
- Albert Pike

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

Of all the keys to happiness, Service to Others is the big one – perhaps THE secret of happiness. Without purpose we have no reason to live. Without taking action on that purpose we are impotent. What is the characteristic of a life purpose that creates satisfaction with life and genuine lasting happiness? - Being of Service to others.

There are many ways to be of service – and they are all wonderful as long as they are sincere. Being of service can be raising children with love, caring for an ill relative, volunteering with the Red Cross, or it can be developing a new pharmaceutical or even selling a product that you truly believe will greatly help people. Being of service is the attitude rather than the action. One could be a physician for the money, or one could dig graves as a service to others. Note that being of service is completely different from attempting to please everyone – which is foolish and a path to great unhappiness.

Being of service allows us to live a larger life, to live beyond ourselves, to leave a lasting legacy.

Consider including service as a key element of your statement of life purpose, and taking action on that purpose. You will be happier for it.

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Don’t Should All Over Yourself

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

Do you ever get the feeling you’re living a life you never wanted? That you’re just doing what other people think you should do?

Maybe you’re stuck in a job you hate because you thought it was something you should do. You’re not really sure who told you that you should pursue that career, but you were certain you had to do it because it was well-respected and well-paid.

Perhaps you’re in college working on a business degree. You really wanted to become a barber and own your own shop, but you thought you should go to college instead because everyone says college is essential.

Or maybe you’ve accepted a request to work as a volunteer leader at a church or a civic organization. You knew your schedule was already packed with work and family, but you felt like you should accept. Now you’re burnt out and falling behind with the responsibilities of your job and your volunteer position, not to mention neglecting your family.

If you’ve ever felt like this, then you know exactly what it means to should all over yourself. It’s not fun and it sure ain’t pretty.

Should-ing Ourselves Silly

Should-ing on one’s self comes in two forms. First, it could mean doing what you think others expect you to do, doing the “right” thing despite what your hopes, your conscience, and your gut are telling you. This first type of should-ing is rooted in a sense of guilt or in a hope of gaining approval from others. The second form of should-ing on yourself involves re-living past mistakes over and over again, saying, “I should have done this” or “I should have done that.”

I know lots of men who struggle with the first kind of should-ing (me included! more on that in a bit) and today I’ll be focusing on this part of the equation, sharing my personal story in the hopes that others can learn from my mistakes.

We’re conditioned since grade school to follow a certain pattern in order to become a mature man. You know the drill. You’re probably living it right now:

Take out massive loans and go to college —> Get a 9-5 job with a decent salary and benefits —> Get married —> Have kids —> Take on a mortgage —> Work 30 years in something you’re not terribly passionate about —>Retire, buy jogging suit, play golf, and hold up lines at the post office —> Die.

This is what most American men think they’re expected to do and for the most part they follow along. Consequently, we end up living, as Thoreau said, “lives of quiet desperation.”

Boys Do as They Should, Men Do as They Choose

When you’re a boy, your life is pretty much laid out for you. You have a bit of autonomy, but for the most part you simply do what you’re told to do. And you know what? There’s something secure and comforting about that. Doing what you should do relieves you of the burden of making your own choices and being held accountable for those choices.

Being a man means taking control of your life and being responsible for yourself. A man does as he chooses, while a boy does as he should. However, some men never make this leap; they struggle with carving out their own path in life.

So they flounder. Because they’ve never actually figured out what they really want in life, they end up picking life goals they think they should have simply because everyone around them–/society/television/family/religion–tells them they should have those goals. In short, they should on themselves.

When you do things simply to please others or gain their approval, when you act purely from a sense of guilt, you give up a bit of your personal power. And you head down a path that invariably leads to feelings of resentment, anger, and depression.

My Struggle with Should-ing on Myself

For most of my life I’ve been a people pleaser. As a boy, I loved getting the adulation of adults by following the rules and doing what I was “supposed” to do. I was the buzz-kill friend in high school who’d say, “Guys, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” when we were about to partake in some mostly harmless teenage hi-jinks. My friends, God bless them, put up with me, but they gave me an endearing nickname: Mama Brett.

To give you an idea how entrenched my thirst for approval was, here’s a journal entry from when I was 12 years old:

Today some friends brought some information about going paintballing. I thought it might be fun so I got some too.
My mom thought it was a bad idea to be going around shooting people. My dad thought so, too. He told me that when he trains for his job, he learns to shoot to protect people and himself. He also said shooting someone isn’t supposed to be fun, you only shoot someone if you have to.
I’m glad my parents aren’t letting me go. It shows me that they care about me and love me.

Face palm. My wife burst out laughing when she read this. What sort of 12 year old boy is happy and grateful that he can’t go paintballing?

I continued my quest for approval throughout high school. Growing up people always told me I’d be a good lawyer. Law seemed like a good career. It was prestigious, it paid really well (or so I naively thought), and I enjoyed Law and Order, so I figured why not? I’ll become a lawyer.

But ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve had a passion for teaching. I’ve always enjoyed helping people widen their personal and intellectual horizons. I love mentoring other people and helping them reach their potential. And I love the opportunities that teaching provides for me to learn new things myself. My senior year in high school I remember thinking that it would be really cool to be a high school history teacher and coach football. It felt right in my gut.

Then I went and “shoulded” all over myself.

Being a teacher wasn’t as “prestigious” and didn’t pay as well as being a lawyer. I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I should want was to fulfill the American Dream of being better off financially than my parents had been. I felt like I should want the “good life,” and to achieve it, I needed to be a high powered attorney, not some podunk high school teacher.

So I compromised. I told myself that I’d be an attorney for a decade or two, stockpile some cash, buy a house, retire, and then start a second career as a high school American history teacher who coached offensive linemen in the fall.

I went to college and got my undergrad degree in Classics and Letters because all the counselors said it was a good degree to prepare you for law school. I really enjoyed my classes. I got to discuss philosophy, literature, and history all day.

During college I took a break from school to serve a two year mission for my church in Mexico. While I was there I rediscovered my passion for teaching. It seemed life was trying to nudge me back to becoming a teacher.

When I got back from Mexico, I went back to college and proposed to Kate. She knew about my goal of becoming an attorney, and she was mildly supportive of it. One night we were having a talk about our future life together, and I told her of my dream of becoming a high school teacher and coaching football. I laid out my plan of practicing law for a few years, making lots of money, and then pursuing a teaching career.

Kate just looked at me blankly and asked: “Why are you putting off what you really want to do for twenty or thirty years?”

I hemmed and hawed. “Well, everyone has always said I’d be a good lawyer and I’d enjoy practicing law… It’s, um, prestigious… It would certainly make my parents proud…And I want to make enough money so we’re financially well off. I mean, I don’t want to buy fancy cars or have a giant house, I just don’t want to have to worry about money. I mean, shouldn’t a man want that for his family?”

Kate continued the blank stare. “Those are some really dumb reasons to pursue a career.”

That’s my wife. Always telling it like it is.

But she was right. I really had no interest in the law, nor did I know much about it as a career. I just made it a goal because I thought it was something I should do.

That night I started making a new career plan: to become a high school teacher. Kate and I were both excited and felt really good about it. Yeah, money would be tight, but with Kate teaching as well, we’d make it work. I started scheduling the classes I needed and researching the teaching certification requirements in Oklahoma.

And then it happened.

I shoulded a should load all over myself. The Should Monster paid me another visit:

“Brett, look at all your friends! They’re becoming doctors and lawyers and investment bankers. You should go for a prestigious, well paying job too!”

“Come on, Brett, you should want to take your family on nice vacations and buy them a nice house in a nice neighborhood.”

I caved. I told my wife that I was going to follow-through with my original goal of becoming an attorney. Teaching could wait. She was disappointed, but she supported my decision. I promised myself and her that if I was going to do this law thing, I would give it my all. I also promised I would try to avoid as much debt as possible to earn my JD.

For the next five years, I hustled my ass off. I graduated with my undergraduate degree a year early by taking summer school, doing classes over Christmas break, and overloading my schedule in the spring and fall semesters. In my spare time I prepped for the LSAT. I was spending close to 30 hours a week studying for that dumb test. It paid off, though. With the score I earned on the exam, combined with my GPA, I was able to get a near full ride scholarship to law school.

At the beginning of law school, I quickly learned the “shoulds” of young law students: graduate in the top 10% of your class, get on law review, and land a big firm summer clerkship that paid mega bucks. Being the consummate shoulder that I am, I made those shoulds my goals.

And I achieved them. First semester of law school, I was first in my class. My second year of law school I earned a spot on the law review. The summer between my second and third years, I landed high paying summer positions at two of the most prestigious firms in town.

Despite achieving these goals, I was miserable. But I kept on trucking.

My internships during the summer were my first real experience with the practice of law. And I quickly discovered law wasn’t for me. 60-70 hour work weeks. Billable hours. Work that didn’t interest me. However, I feigned excitement so I could convince the hiring partners to bring me on full-time because I thought I should want to work at a big firm. I explored government work and small law thinking maybe it was just the big law firm atmosphere I didn’t enjoy. But I got the same results. It was official: I had no interest in the law. Sure, I was good at law, but it just bored me to death.

My third year of law school I decided that I was going to do everything I could not to practice law. I would try to find another career that would put my law degree to use, pay off my debt, and cut my losses. It was then that I had a moment of agnorasis. I realized I had spent the past three years of my life working for something I didn’t really want simply because I thought “they” (whoever they are) said I should want it.

Let me tell you–it’s a sucky feeling to realize your unhappiness stems from the fact that you tried to conform your life to someone else’s expectations rather than following your own inner compass. I was angry at myself for not having the spine to go after what I really wanted. I felt guilty for having made Kate a law school widow for three years without a definitive purpose.

During law school, I started blogging as a creative and mental release. What was interesting was that my articles naturally gravitated towards content geared towards helping people. Blogging provided me a chance to learn new things and then share what I learned with others. Basically, blogging let me be a teacher in a less traditional mold.

My first blog was called The Frugal Law Student. I started it in 2006 and had some mild success with it. Then in 2008, my second year of law school, I started The Art of Manliness. (If you want to see why I started the site, read the about page). In just a few short months it was receiving large amounts of traffic, getting great publicity, and growing a small, but passionate community. I was spending around 20 hours a week on The Art of Manliness back then, with even more hours spent on writing our first book. This was on top of law classes, law review, and a part-time job. But I didn’t care. I loved working on the site.

By the time I graduated in 2009, The Art of Manliness was enough of a success that doing it full-time was a viable option. I was now putting at least 40 hours a week into the blog and so was Kate, who I had brought on to help me share a work load that had become far too big for one person. We would be barely scraping by, but would have enough money for a roof over our heads and food in the fridge. And most importantly, I’d be working in my vocation. I’d be happy with my work. So I decided to throw myself into building up AoM.

And then I dropped a big should on myself. Enter stage left–the Should Monster:

“Brett, you really should put that law degree to use. It’d be a waste of three years if you didn’t.”

“You should take the bar exam even though you don’t want to practice. You know. Just in case.”

“You should get a “real” job. You can’t be a blogger for a living. That’s just silly.”

“Health insurance! You’re going to start a family soon. You should get a job that has good health insurance!”

And once again, I caved.

In June 2009 I started applying for a position with a legal publishing company that I worked for as a law student. The position was actually a really sweet gig. It paid an awesome salary, it involved teaching, and my hours were flexible. Still, I knew it would be tricky. Complicating things was the fact that Kate was pregnant. Could we both work on the blog and take care of the baby while I worked a second job? But I convinced myself that I could do it all. I justified the choice by telling myself that blogging wasn’t a “real job” and that I needed a back-up plan…but really I was once again just doing what I thought I should be doing.

I got turned down every time I applied for the corporate gig for about a year, and in the meantime I kept plugging away at AoM. We even published a book during that time. Our income from the site was starting to provide us a comfortable living, but it still felt like a hobby despite the fact I was working on it full-time, seven days a week. So I kept applying for that legal publishing position.

I finally landed a job here in Tulsa. I was pumped. I had achieved another goal I had set for myself. I had a “real” job. This the spring of 2010. By this time, AoM was growing faster than ever and keeping me increasingly busy. New opportunities were showing up. We got a second a book deal. I was getting some speaking gigs. Everything was awesome.

But then Gus arrived. Late-night feedings, diaper changes, and comforting a crying newborn was a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. I kept soldiering on, but I was hitting a wall–physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was working 40 hours a week at my day job and putting in another 40 with the Art of Manliness. There was no way I could keep this up for very much longer. After five years of putting in 70-80 hour work weeks my body and mind had had enough.

Things came to a head over the winter break. I realized that I couldn’t do both things well. I had to decide: keep going with the respectable, well-paying corporate gig or take a risk with something that I was really passionate about, doing what I actually wanted to do. It was a choice between should-ing and choosing.

After 28 years of doing what I thought I should do, I finally decided to follow my heart and my inner compass.

But it was still a tough choice. I don’t like to quit things because a man shouldn’t quit things he starts. I also felt guilty for leaving my boss after only 7 months on the job. The man is an amazing manager, and I learned a lot while working for him, so leaving was hard. It took me three weeks to work up the nerve to tell him the news. I kept vacillating between should-ing and choosing. But I stuck with my choice. My boss was completely magnanimous. He congratulated me and wished me well and was genuinely excited for me.

My last day with my corporate job was this past week. I’m now devoting myself 100% to The Art of Manliness, and I’ve never been happier. It feels good to do what you want and not just what you think you should.

Stop Should-ing on Yourself

Learning to stop doing things out of guilt or the need for approval was a long, hard process for me. And it’s still ongoing. But here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

Find out what you want really want. If you’ve never sat down to figure out what you want out of life, do it today. If you’re a young man just embarking on life’s journey, do some soul searching to see if you’re in the right career or major. Ask yourself “Am I doing this because I want to or am I doing this because I think I should?”

If you’re a man who’s years into his career or life choices, and you feel like you’re not living the life you want, figure out what you’d like your life to be and start hatching plans to make it a reality. It might be hard to navigate family obligations and your dreams, but it’s possible.

Just say no. Start saying “no” to requests of your time and energy. I think most men who should on themselves automatically say yes to most requests because they want approval from everyone around them or they operate out of guilt. Don’t fall into that trap. You don’t have to be a jerk when you say no. Just politely and firmly say, “No thanks!” and walk away.

Replace “I should” with “I choose.” You’re a man. A man does what he chooses, a boy does what he should. Instead of saying “I should,” say “I choose.” “I choose to go to college.” “I choose not to volunteer this weekend at the company BBQ.” It’s amazing how much more powerful and in control of your life you’ll feel when you start choosing instead of should-ing.

Balancing Responsibility with Your Personal Autonomy

Now let me be clear. I’m not suggesting you become a selfish jagweed in your quest to quit should-ing on yourself. Sometimes doing what you should means doing the honorable thing. We all have duties and responsibilities we have to fulfill even when we don’t feel like it. It will take some judgment and wisdom on your part to balance doing what you should and doing what you choose.

For example, you really should be faithful to your wife. That’s a no brainer. But should you stay at a corporate job you hate out of guilt that they need you even though you have a better opportunity somewhere else? A corporation that wouldn’t bat an eye before downsizing you? Probably not.

The difference between mere “shoulds” and real responsibilities is sometimes easy to discern and sometimes very difficult. It’s something we get better at as we mature, consult with trusted friends and family, and learn to become attuned and responsive to our own inner compass.

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An afternoon nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become, according to the findings. The results support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter — a common practice at college during midterms and finals — decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation.

“Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap,” said Matthew Walker, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the lead investigator of these studies.

In the recent UC Berkeley sleep study, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups — nap and no-nap. At noon, all the participants were subjected to a rigorous learning task intended to tax the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels.

At 2 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute siesta while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day, at 6 p.m., participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. In contrast, those who napped did markedly better and actually improved in their capacity to learn.

These findings reinforce the researchers’ hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain’s short-term memory storage and make room for new information, said Walker, who presented his preliminary findings on Sunday, Feb. 21, at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, Calif.

Since 2007, Walker and other sleep researchers have established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which may have more storage space.

“It’s as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact e-mails, you’re not going to receive any more mail. It’s just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder,” Walker said.

In the latest study, Walker and his team have broken new ground in discovering that this memory-refreshing process occurs when nappers are engaged in a specific stage of sleep. Electroencephalogram tests, which measure electrical activity in the brain, indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep (non-REM) and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Previously, the purpose of this stage was unclear, but the new results offer evidence as to why humans spend at least half their sleeping hours in Stage 2, non-REM, Walker said.

“I can’t imagine Mother Nature would have us spend 50 percent of the night going from one sleep stage to another for no reason,” Walker said. “Sleep is sophisticated. It acts locally to give us what we need.”

Walker and his team will go on to investigate whether the reduction of sleep experienced by people as they get older is related to the documented decrease in our ability to learn as we age. Finding that link may be helpful in understanding such neurodegenerative conditions as Alzheimer’s disease, Walker said.

In addition to Walker, co-investigators of these new findings are UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Bryce A. Mander and psychology undergraduate Sangeetha Santhanam.

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How to Use Your Subconscious to Change Your Life

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

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“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” – Thomas Edison

Your subconscious loves to do work while your body performs other tasks that are easy. I can prove this very easily by asking you how many good ideas you have had while driving or in the shower. When you are relaxed yet slightly distracted, your mind is often at its best.

Using subconscious requests will…

Improve your motivation.
Help you become happier.
Increase your emotional intelligence.

You’ll see improvement in less than a month.

My last request was…

“Please give me more patience when commuting to work and allow me to even enjoy my time in the car.”

Within a month I was enjoying my ride to work.

My latest request is…

“Let’s find creative ways to grow my blog.”

I took this approach because it’s going to take a request to my subconscious and action in my waking life to make this happen. This request is only a few days old, but it’s already working. Instead of just asking people to help vote for my blog on social sites that rate articles such as Stumble Upon and Digg, I’ve change my communication. I now friend someone, give a compliment (only if they are worthy) and tell them that they ever need any help to shoot me a message. They are much more willing to help me out.

Mindset

My mindset is changing by setting my subconscious on a certain issue. I start to see new angles that I’ve never seen before. This subconscious request works for personal issues as well as work related concerns.

The 3 step request only takes five minutes:

Step 1: Before you turn out the light, close your eyes and take one minute to make a request to your subconscious. It can be anything. I would start small and make it open ended. I wouldn’t request to be an astronaut by the end of the month. Your subconscious is good, but not that good.

Step 2: Take two minutes to visualize yourself actually able to do this thing. Whether it is getting the motivation to jog before work or eating a healthy snack, you must visualize yourself doing the request that you asked your subconscious. Let’s say you want to jog before work: imagine yourself getting up a few minutes earlier than usual, putting on your exercise clothes and jogging shoes, and heading out into the crisp air. Then you start jogging, watching the sun rise over the buildings, the birds chirping, and you are feeling good.

Step 3: Take two minutes to imagine the feeling that will occur when you are able to accomplish this new thing. How do you feel when you walk back in your front door after a morning jog? Energized? Whatever feeling you want to achieves imagine that you have already created this emotion inside of yourself. Let it sink in, then go to sleep and let your subconscious do the rest of the work.

Your subconscious mind wants to help you improve your life; you just have to trust its vast resources and allow it to do its thing.

Action Makes Your Request Real

You may not want to go jogging after the first subconscious request, but try to visualize yourself going through the motions the first couple of weeks. Then just start putting on your exercise gear and go for a five minute walk. Taking these baby steps will set you up for your jogging routine. Then after a few weeks just go for it. Now that you have your emotions geared toward jogging it should spur you into action.

By allowing the emotional momentum to build, you can create motivation that will help you accomplish things that make you happier.

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Motivation–How to Achieve Any Goal

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Zeeshan Ahmad

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“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” - Henry Ford

One of the biggest challenges in meeting any goal, whether it be related to productivity, waking early, changing a habit, exercising, or just becoming happier, is finding the motivation to stick with it.

If you can stick with a goal for long enough, you’ll almost always get there eventually. It just takes patience, and motivation.

Motivation is the key, but it’s not always easy, day in and day out, to find that motivation.

What follows is a guide to motivation using what I’ve learned over the last few years in a series of successful accomplishments, goals and habit changes. I’ve had many failures, but also many successes, and I’ve learned a lot from all of them. Motivation has been a particularly important topic of exploration for me.

What Motivation Can Achieve
What have I accomplished using these motivation methods? Too much to mention, just in the last 3 years: running two marathons, learning to become an early riser, losing 40 pounds, completing a triathlon, becoming vegetarian, becoming more productive, starting a successful blog, writing a book, becoming organized, simplifying my life, quitting my day job, tripling my income, eliminating my debt, and much more.

That’s not intended to sound like bragging, but to show you what can be accomplished (just to start) if you find the right motivation.

How Does Motivation Work?
Before we get into specific methods, it’s useful to examine what motivation is, what it does, and how it works.

Motivation is what drives you toward a goal, what keeps you going when things get tough, the reason you get up early to exercise or work late to finish a project. There are all kinds of motivations, of course, from positive to negative. Having a boss threaten to fire you is motivation — you’ll likely work harder to complete a project with that kind of pressure. But I find that positive motivation works better — if it’s something you really want to do, you’ll do a much better job than to avoid something you don’t want (such as being fired).

So motivation, in its best form, is a way for you to want to do something. There may be times, for example, when you don’t feel like getting up early, and in those times you may seriously just want to sleep in (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But if you have a reason to want to get up early, something you really really want to do, you’ll jump up out of bed with excitement.

The best motivation, then, is a way for you to really want something, to get excited about it, to be passionate about it. Remember that, as there are many other types of motivation (especially negative), but in my experience, this is the kind that works the best.

There is only so long that you can go trying to motivate yourself to do something you don’t like to do, something you don’t want to do. But if you find ways to really want to do something, you can sustain your effort for much, much longer.

8 Ways to Motivate Yourself From the Beginning
I’ve found that it’s important to start out with the right motivation, because a good start can build momentum that you can sustain for a long time. If you start out right, you have a much better chance of succeeding. Here are some tips for starting out:

Start small. I’ve said this before, but that’s because it’s one of the most important tips in motivating yourself toward a goal. Don’t start out big! Start out with a ridiculously easy goal, and then grow from there. If you want to exercise, for example, you may be thinking that you have to do these intense workouts 5 days a week. No — instead, do small, tiny, baby steps. Just do 2 minutes of exercise. I know, that sounds wimpy. But it works. Commit to 2 minutes of exercise for one week. You may want to do more, but just stick to 2 minutes. It’s so easy, you can’t fail. Do it at the same time, every day. Just some crunches, 2 pushups, and some jogging in place. Once you’ve done 2 minutes a day for a week, increase it to 5, and stick with that for a week. In a month, you’ll be doing 15-20. Want to wake up early? Don’t think about waking at 5 a.m. Instead, think about waking 10 minutes earlier for a week. That’s all. Once you’ve done that, wake 10 minutes earlier than that. Baby steps.
One goal. Too many people start with too many goals at once, and try to do too much. And it saps energy and motivation. It’s probably the most common mistake that people make. You cannot maintain energy and focus (the two most important things in accomplishing a goal) if you are trying to do two or more goals at once. It’s not possible — I’ve tried it many times. You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely. I know, that’s hard. Still, I speak from experience. You can always do your other goals when you’ve accomplished your One Goal.
Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought … and write them down. If you have loved ones, and you are doing it for them, that is more powerful than just doing it for self-interest. Doing it for yourself is good too, but you should do it for something that you REALLY REALLY want to happen, for really good reasons.
Really, really want it. This is essentially the same as the above tip, but I want to emphasize it: it’s not enough to think it would be cool to achieve something. It has to be something you’re passionate about, something you’re super excited about, something you want deeply. Make sure that your goal meets these criteria, or you won’t stick with it for long.
Commit publicly. None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we’ve said publicly. For example, when I wanted to run my first marathon, I started writing a column about it in my local daily newspaper. The entire island of Guam (pop. 160K) knew about my goal. I couldn’t back down, and even though my motivation came and went, I stuck with it and completed it. Now, you don’t have to commit to your goal in your daily newspaper, but you can do it with friends and family and co-workers, and you can do it on your blog if you have one. And hold yourself accountable — don’t just commit once, but commit to giving progress updates to everyone every week or so.
Get excited. Well, it starts with inspiration from others (see above), but you have to take that excitement and build on it. For me, I’ve learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful (seeing the benefits of the goal in my head), I get excited about a goal. Once I’ve done that, it’s just a matter of carrying that energy forward and keeping it going.
Build anticipation. This will sound hard, and many people will skip this tip. But it really works. It helped me quit smoking after many failed attempts. If you find inspiration and want to do a goal, don’t start right away. Many of us will get excited and want to start today. That’s a mistake. Set a date in the future — a week or two, or even a month — and make that your Start Date. Mark it on the calendar. Get excited about that date. Make it the most important date in your life. In the meantime, start writing out a plan. And do some of the steps below. Because by delaying your start, you are building anticipation, and increasing your focus and energy for your goal.
Print it out, post it up. Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra (”Exercise 15 mins. Daily”), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator. Post it at home and work. Put it on your computer desktop. You want to have big reminders about your goal, to keep your focus and keep your excitement going. A picture of your goal (like a model with sexy abs, for example) also helps.

20 Ways to Sustain Motivation When You’re Struggling
The second half of motivation is to keep yourself going when you don’t feel the same excitement as you did in the beginning. Perhaps something new has come into your life and your old goal isn’t as much of a priority anymore. Perhaps you skipped a day or two and now you can’t get back into it. Perhaps you screwed up and got discouraged.

If you can get yourself excited again, and keep going, you’ll get there eventually. But if you give up, you won’t. It’s your choice — accomplish the goal, or quit. Here’s how you can stop from quitting, and get to your goal:

Hold yourself back. When I start with a new exercise program, or any new goal really, I am rarin’ to go. I am full of excitement, and my enthusiasm knows no boundaries. Nor does my sense of self-limitation. I think I can do anything. It’s not long before I learn that I do have limitations, and my enthusiasm begins to wane. Well, a great motivator that I’ve learned is that when you have so much energy at the beginning of a program, and want to go all out — HOLD BACK. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do. Only let yourself do 50-75 percent of what you want to do. And plan out a course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example, if I want to go running, I might think I can run 3 miles at first. But instead of letting myself do that, I start by only running a mile. When I’m doing that mile, I’ll be telling myself that I can do more! But I don’t let myself. After that workout, I’ll be looking forward to the next workout, when I’ll let myself do 1.5 miles. I keep that energy reined in, harness it, so that I can ride it even further.
Just start. There are some days when you don’t feel like heading out the door for a run, or figuring out your budget, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do that day for your goal. Well, instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. I have a rule that I just have to put on my running shoes and close the door behind me. After that, it all flows naturally. It’s when you’re sitting in your house, thinking about running and feeling tired, that it seems hard. Once you start, it is never as hard as you thought it would be. This tip works for me every time.
Stay accountable. If you committed yourself publicly, through an online forum, on a blog, in email, or in person … stay accountable to that group of people. Commit to report back to them daily, or something like that, and stick to it! That accountability will help you to want to do well, because you don’t want to report that you’ve failed.
Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This is one of the most important motivation skills, and I suggest you practice it daily. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.
Think about the benefits. Thinking about how hard something is is a big problem for most people. Waking early sounds so hard! Just thinking about it makes you tired. But instead of thinking about how hard something is, think about what you will get out of it. For example, instead of thinking about how hard it is to wake early, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done, and how your day will be so much better. The benefits of something will help energize you.
Get excited again! Think about why you lost your excitement … then think about why you were excited in the first place. Can you get that back? What made you want to do the goal? What made you passionate about it? Try to build that up again, refocus yourself, get energized.
Read about it. When I lose motivation, I just read a book or blog about my goal. It inspires me and reinvigorates me. For some reason, reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. So read about your goal every day, if you can, especially when you’re not feeling motivated.
Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (running, dieting, finances, etc.), see if they’d like to partner with you. Or partner with your spouse, sibling or best friend on whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to be going after the same goals — as long as you are both pushing and encouraging each other to succeed. Other good options are groups in your area (I’m part of a running club, for example) or online forums where you can find people to talk to about your goals.
Read inspiring stories. Inspiration, for me, comes from others who have achieved what I want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. I read other blogs, books, magazines. I Google my goal, and read success stories. Zen Habits is just one place for inspiration, not only from me but from many readers who have achieved amazing things. I love, love, love reading success stories too.
Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success — celebrate the fact that you even started! And then did it for two days! Celebrate every little milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step. Add 2-3 minutes to your exercise routine, for example. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step really, really small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your tiny steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.
Just get through the low points. Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal, ask for help, and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.
Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. When I decided to run my marathon, I had the help of friends and family, and I had a great running community on Guam who encouraged me at 5K races and did long runs with me. When I decided to quit smoking, I joined an online forum and that helped tremendously. And of course, my wife Eva helped every step of the way. I couldn’t have done these goals without her, or without the others who supported me. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.
Chart your progress. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar, or creating a simple spreadsheet, or logging your goal using online software. But it can be vastly rewarding to look back on your progress and to see how far you’ve come, and it can help you to keep going — you don’t want to have too many days without an X! Now, you will have some bad marks on your chart. That’s OK. Don’t let a few bad marks stop you from continuing. Strive instead to get the good marks next time.
Reward yourself often. For every little step along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward. It helps to write down appropriate rewards for each step, so that you can look forward to those rewards. By appropriate, I mean 1) it’s proportionate to the size of the goal (don’t reward going on a 1-mile run with a luxury cruise in the Bahamas); and 2) it doesn’t ruin your goal — if you are trying to lose weight, don’t reward a day of healthy eating with a dessert binge. It’s self-defeating.
Go for mini-goals. Sometimes large or longer-term goals can be overwhelming. After a couple weeks, we may lose motivation, because we still have several months or a year or more left to accomplish the goal. It’s hard to maintain motivation for a single goal for such a long time. Solution: have smaller goals along the way.
Get a coach or take a class. These will motivate you to at least show up, and to take action. It can be applied to any goal. This might be one of the more expensive ways of motivating yourself, but it works. And if you do some research, you might find some cheap classes in your area, or you might know a friend who will provide coaching or counseling for free.
Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. So, you missed one day … now the second day is upon you and you are feeling lazy … tell yourself NO! You will not miss two days in a row!
Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, will feel, will smell and taste and sound like. Where are you when you become successful? How do you look? What are you wearing? Form as clear a mental picture as possible. Now here’s the next key: do it every day. For at least a few minutes each day. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.
Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them. We all have urges to stop, but they are mostly unconscious. One of the most powerful things you can do is to start being more conscious of those urges. A good exercise is to go through the day with a little piece of paper and put a tally mark for each time you get an urge. It simply makes you aware of the urges. Then have a plan for when those urges hit, and plan for it beforehand, and write down your plan, because once those urges hit, you will not feel like coming up with a plan.
Find pleasure again. No one can stick to something for long if they find it unpleasant, and are only rewarded after months of toil. There has to be fun, pleasure, joy in it, every day, or you won’t want to do it. Find those pleasurable things — the beauty of a morning run, for example, or the satisfaction in reporting to people that you finished another step along the way, or the deliciousness of a healthy meal.

“Never, never, never, never give up.” - Winston Churchill

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How to Live in the Moment

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Zeeshan Ahmad

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Living in the moment is all about living like there’s no tomorrow. It takes practice but in the end, you’ll lead a fuller life. To do this you must realize beauty in every moment, and in everyday activities. This is your life, now live

Take notice of the world around you. No matter what you’re doing, try to find something beautiful around you. Maybe on your way to work or school, you go over a beautiful bridge, or you get a view of the sunrise behind the city buildings. Realizing these small things can bring life and happiness even to the most boring or routine days. Be thankful for those little things.

Focus on whatever you’re doing. Even if you’re just walking, or wiping the counter, or shuffling cards – how does it feel? There’s probably some kind of commentary spinning through your mind, and it probably has to do with something other than what you’re doing. Let those thoughts go and focus on what is (not what was, or what could be). In Buddhism, this is referred to as mindfulness. Pay attention to your senses – touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. Pretend it’s the very last time you’ll ever experience whatever you’re experiencing. Have you ever been so engrossed in something that it seemed like the rest of the world just disappeared? Living in the moment is about creating that state of mind at any time. Slow down, and try to savor the present.

Smile when you wake up. You can set the tone of appreciation and awareness for the next 24 hours by simply waking up and smiling^. Don’t wake up with a groan and a smash of your alarm clock. There’s scientific proof that the expressions that you make with your face can actually influence how you feel. In particular, true happiness is most closely tied to a Duchenne smile which involves smiling with your eyes, as well as your mouth.

Commit random, spontaneous acts of kindness. Whether it’s donating 1 dollar to a fund at the pharmacy, picking up litter, or helping victims of natural disasters, keep alert in every moment of your day for some way in which you can make the world a better place. Even the smallest thing, like complimenting someone, can bring joy. It’s the most spontaneous and unexpected acts of kindness that produce the greatest impact, and you can’t be sensitive to those kinds of opportunities unless you’re living in the moment.

Minimize activities that dull your awareness of the moment. What are you doing that tempts your mind to run away from the present? For most people, watching television puts you in a passive state of mind, and time slips right by. Daydreaming and getting lost in a good movie or book isn’t bad, but it’s not living in the moment because it places your concentration on something that isn’t right here, right now; it’s a form of escapism. Don’t zone out; zone in. Do things that are active, and that encourage you to look around and engage the world in that moment. Gardening, playing a game, knitting, and playing an instrument are all activities that lend themselves to mindfulness. So get off the computer after reading this article!

Be Thankful for what is. When you find yourself wishing for something you don’t have, or wishing your life would be different, start your quest for your wish by being thankful for what is already in your life. This will bring you back to the present moment. Make a list of what you are thankful for right now even if all you can think of is that you are alive and can breathe. You don’t want to miss the gifts right in front of you, because you are always looking beyond what is in the present moment to what once was or what might be. If you are thankful for what is, you’ll be happy to be in the moment instead of some place else.

Tips

Play with kids! Children don’t worry about the future; they play and enjoy every moment for what it is. They haven’t yet learned to think ahead, or mull over the past, so take the opportunity to learn from them.
Forgive. Many of us carry grudges with us that haunt us, and those grudges also prevent us from opening our hearts to others because we’re scared of getting hurt again.
Watch your breath, by noticing your breathing pattern your mind naturally quiets and pays more attention to the present moment.
Listen to music and enjoy it. Express yourself by dancing to it or singing along.
Participate in active conversation and engage in the subject matter with another human.
Think about how happy your good deed could make someone!

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How to Be Happy with Yourself – The Secret of Happiness

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Stop Should-ing on Yourself

Balancing Responsibility with Your Personal Autonomy

An afternoon nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity

How to Use Your Subconscious to Change Your Life

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Motivation–How to Achieve Any Goal

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