Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up .

What is this loyalty thing anyway? Merriam-Webster teaches us that loyal means:

unswerving in allegiance: as

• a : faithful in allegiance to one’s lawful sovereign or government
• b : faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due
• c : faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product

Faithful in allegiance to the lawful sovereign

Let’s say there’s this king, King 1, ruling over a prosper and happy kingdom. Our friend John Doe 1 is a soldier in this king’s army, loyal to his king. He’s grateful that this king rules so well that his family and all families have bread, cheese, bacon and onion every day, and there’s never a shortage of whiskey in the tavern. The smoke from barbecues often clouds the Sun. Oh. My. God. That’s a happy nation if I ever saw one. Such abundance wouldn’t be possible without the king’s diligent management. John Doe 1 is proud to be in his king’s army, and his loyalty is 100 on a 1 to 10 scale. He’ll happily die right now to save his king’s life.

Now then, this kingdom has its neighbors, which are not so good at administering their resources. They work hard, but they’re poor because of high taxes and King 2’s bad management. They always drool and sigh when the Eastern Wind brings to them the smell of fresh barbecue from Kingdom 1.

King 1 pities the poor neighbors living under the dictatorship of King 2, so he decides to release them, in the name of democracy (in his kingdom, the people chooses the king by vote). He summons his army and makes a grand speech about freedom, democracy, abundance and human rights, therefore lighting the flame of justice in his army’s heart. And to war they ride.

But wait! John Doe 1 feels (as do most of his comrades) that something’s wrong. He doesn’t want to kill the soldiers from Kingdom 2. Why should they pay with their lives for… err… what are they paying for? This is bullshit, he thinks. But he and his peers are bound by loyalty and honor to serve King 1. Should they be loyal, or just drop it? Maybe the king should try some more diplomatic solutions. What are the diplomats getting paid for anyway? But, you see, he must remain loyal. In a disciplined army, a disciplined soldier will obey the order, not discuss or think twice about it. His king has ordered, and so it will be done, for it is the right thing to do. Or is it? Loyalty sounds a bit like cowardice in this particular scenario, doesn’t it?

Faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due

OK, so if that didn’t convince you, here’s another loyalty scenario. John Doe 2 and Jane Doe 2 are very much in love. The romance they live is so perfect, they are so happy, that we are all gathered here to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony. They swear loyalty to each other, for better or worse and all that. As the years go by however, the romance slowly succumbs to convenience. John Doe 3, her fitness instructor, asks her out one day. Shyly she refuses. John Doe 2 also must contain his impulse to ask his secretary if she’d like to be more than his secretary. Loyalty “saves” their marriage, but it takes its toll: their freedom. Bound by loyalty, they refuse new intimate connections which would bring them joy, renewed love and wonderful sensations. After all, why should two people break free and be happy, when they can stay unhappy and be loyal?

Faithful to a cause or ideal

This one is almost too easy . Inquisition is loyal to the church. Doctors advertising meat consumption are loyal to public health (though all recent serious studies show that meat and dairy cause cancer, heart failure and all other diseases). Mafia members are loyal to their cause to “protect” the neighborhood. Death to the infidels: kamikaze bombers are loyal to their faith. It. Is. Obvious: loyalty has no place in this world.

Conclusion

Loyalty often means to hurt and/or get hurt, to kill and/or get killed. There is always another way, but because it requires some courage which people lack, it is dismissed in the name of loyalty. Some will say that loyalty requires courage (see some examples in the paragraph above), but they actually confuse courage with ignorance and/or cowardice. It is therefore safe to say, my friends, that loyalty is highly overrated nowadays; q.e.d.

“Whoever has, will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”
(Mark 4:25)

Now, what’s that supposed to mean? God is supposed to be all fair, this principle can’t be true. Oh, but it is, my friend: the rich get richer, money draws money. The poor get poorer, buried under piles of bills, credit cards, mortgages etc. So, where is God’s fairness?

Everybody heard of the Law of Attraction, right? (if you haven’t, it’s about time you should ) Well, this bible verse proves that the Law of Attraction was discovered a very long time ago, and Jesus Christ had it figured out. And I will demonstrate this.

Whoever does not have…

Imagine someone, John Doe 1, who lives in a small rented apartment, has a job that he doesn’t like and doesn’t pay that much either. He barely has enough money to pay all his bills, and his landlord has to “remind” him to pay the rent all the time. He can’t afford to eat out, go to the movies etc. He thinks: “When will things be right for me? Why can’t I get a raise? I never have enough money. I can’t ask a girl out, I can’t go on vacation, I’m trapped. I work so hard and my boss gets rich, nobody appreciates me.”

Obviously, John Doe 1 does not have. So, even what he has will be taken from him. Every month he’ll be more depressed. He’ll blame the economy, the authorities, the politicians. His scarcity can only deepen. Where do you think he’ll be in five years?

Whoever has…

Now, imagine someone else, John Doe 2. This guy also lives in a small rented apartment, also has a job that he hates and is also underpaid. He also lives paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to go out. But this guy thinks: “Wow, I am so lucky! I have a steady flow of money, even if it’s not much yet, and I have a place I can call home. I might have been fired with this crisis thingy and whatnot. I might have been sick with this swine flu thingy and whatnot. I am truly blessed. Now, let’s see what’s to be done if I want to ask the new copy girl out.”

Obviously, John Doe 2 has. So, he will be given more. He will figure out a way to get more money for a date with the copy girl. And he will always be grateful. His abundance can only thrive. Where do you think he’ll be in five years?

Conclusion

Although apparently John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 have the same situation, same health, same income, one of them has and will be given more, and the other doesn’t have and he will be taken from.

This is the very essence of the Law of Attraction, concentrated so very nicely in this Bible verse, q.e.d.

But first, be aware that this is in no way a replacement for proper exercise.

This is meant just to keep you going and maybe get you motivated to start for real. That being said:

• Step 1: Set a recurrent reminder to pop every one hour.

• Step 2: When the reminder pops, tense your legs as hard as you can for 5 seconds (or more if you feel like it), while continuing to write that email or work on that report or talking to that customer on the phone or whatever you were doing. Then tense your arms. Your back, your chest, your abs, your buttocks.

That’s it. Continue doing whatever you were doing, and do a little exercise in the same time.

Now, if you have some time to continue reading, here’s some additional tips:

1. You can do this during meetings. Nobody will notice. You’ll feel you spend your time efficiently .
2. Gradually increase the duration. Take it easy the first few days, or you’ll get sore muscles.
3. In order not to get bored, make some sort of schedule. Like, in the morning, work on the upper body, afternoon - lower body. Or alternate days, one for legs, one for arms, one for chest / back / abs. Or whatever works for you.
4. Find some additional ways to tense certain muscles. For example, put your right fist in the palm of your left hand (or vice versa), arms horizontal, and push. Or make “hooks” with your fingers and hook your hands together and then pull. Or try to lift the (heavy) desk with your foot. You get the point. Find ways to tense your muscles.

And here’s some info to motivate you :

1. In time you will feel some muscles need more “work” - you’re on the right track, your body is communicating with you.
2. In time, you’ll discover new muscles that want to be tensed - always nice.
3. You will feel more grounded, more confident, and you’ll be able to concentrate more easily.
4. Work will be less boring.
5. If you don’t like your job, it will make the time pass faster and 5 o’clock will seem to come sooner
6. It’s good for health - not as good as going to the gym and doing proper training, but better than nothing.

And I’m going to close on the same note as the tip above, by encouraging you do find time and do real exercise. Everybody is making such a fuss about exercising, there must be something to it.

Other people think they have a good job, but when they get bored, they come up with a lot of reasons for it. They can get quite inventive, but most of the time they are wrong.

Some of the common reasons they come up with are:

• Work isn’t “challenging” enough

  So, if you had more challenging tasks, you’d start working on them immediately, right? OK, make an effort to finish your work for the day. A tip to do this when you don’t feel like working: work in bursts and don’t overdo it. Set a 10 minutes timer and work for 10 minutes, trying to progress as much as possible and get it done. Take a short break, rinse and repeat. If it’s not working, tough luck, you probably still have to do the work before going to the next step, which is: go to your manager and ask for a more challenging task. Chances are, he’ll have something for you, and chances are, you’ll get bored of that task sooner or later too. And you’ll get bored of asking for more challenging work as well. If that’s not the case (highly unlikely though), good for you: you switched from a boring job to one that’s not boring .

• Too much routine

  Some say you need to automate the tasks to decrease the routine, which supposedly removes the boredom. Yeah, right! Let’s say you have to create an Excel report for your manager at the end of the day with the sales figures. It takes you one hour to gather the data from various systems and produce the report. You perceive this routine as being the cause of your boredom and your reluctance to work. So one day your friend in the IT department writes a small program for you that queries the databases and does other technical stuff, then generates the report, all in 10 seconds at the press of a button. You’re so happy! But after two or three days, you find that you’re still bored at work, and you still don’t like your job, even if the routine is gone now. Even if all routine was automated, you’d still be bored because routine is not the real cause.

There are other reasons people might find to justify boredom / reluctance to work, like “there’s too little communication in my team / company”, “I don’t like my colleague / my colleague doesn’t like me”, etc.

Most of the times these are just pretexts that our mind fabricates. Think about it: why are you really bored at work? Would you rather be doing something else? What is that? Most times, the answer is that yes, you’d rather be doing something else, something you’re passionate about. Your real passion could be photography, gadgets, writing, sports, even watching TV shows . The key to not being bored at work is to work on something you’re passionate about. It may take a while to find ways to actually turn that passion into money, but anything is possible, if you put in the hours.

I didn’t write up “watching TV shows” in the previous paragraph for nothing. Unlikely as it may sound to some people, I just saw a job ad that dailypixel is hiring TV show bloggers. This ad was on ProBlogger job board and it’s something like this (quoting here since the link will be gone in some days):

We are on the hunt for bloggers who are avid watchers and followers of popular primetime TV shows like CSI, 24, Heroes, Lost, Idol, Grey’s Anatomy and more.

We are looking for bloggers who can blog about show news, news about the cast members, and also episode recaps, insider info etc.

If you want to blog about your favorite TV show, please get in touch with us. Please state what show(s) you want to blog about.

* This is a paid blogger position. Inquire for details.

There are more opportunities out there than you might think. It takes some time, and it takes some work, but it’s definitely worth the effort. You must find the right job for you and do that job with passion. It’s the job where you don’t count the days until the weekend, where you don’t dread Monday mornings, where work is something you actually look forward to.

Stop wasting time in a job you find boring, and start thinking of ways to make a living doing something you’re passionate about.

I don’t believe in short term remedies for boredom. They’re only as good as a way to pass / waste time. Let’s say you’re bored. You think to yourself I’ll get online and play some yahoo / flash / silly game, and you do. After playing for a while, you’re bored again. What you just did:

• you temporarily avoided boredom
• maybe you had some fun (bored fun, which is not the same as fun fun)
• you spent / wasted some time of your life

What you just didn’t do:

• you didn’t find out why you were bored in the first place
• you didn’t find a way to avoid boredom in the future

People don’t get bored because they don’t have anything to do. Many bored people have plenty of things to do. Boredom is the lack of interest toward anything. Kind of like laziness, but a little different. If you don’t have anything to do, you may think that is the cause of boredom, but it actually isn’t.

The real cause of boredom

Boredom always bares some excess energy. You feel you have energy, you’d like to do something, but can’t find anything interesting . Boredom itself is the result of this unchanneled energy.

So, in order to get rid of boredom, you must find a way to channel the excess energy. You need to find a good purpose, or goal, for yourself, and to start working towards that.

The real cause of boredom is the lack of a good purpose or goal.

Good is mandatory. It’s not enough just to have a goal and work towards it, it has to be a good one. If it’s just a goal, you’ll channel some energy to it, but eventually it will become boring too.

Finding a good purpose

Definitely, having a good purpose is the long term cure for boredom. But you need to put some time into finding it. It’s not too difficult. Use your intuition to find a goal that resonates with you. Here’s some examples:

• get fit physically
• earn six figures (or seven)
• become healthy
• become happy

Your own goal or purpose could be something totally different though. Choose something that you’re passionate about - you will channel a lot of energy towards it. Some people say that when you find your purpose, it will be so very obvious that you’ve found it: your feelings will be so strong that it will make you cry. If you smiled condescendingly (nice word, isn’t it? ) when you read that last sentence, it means you’re either stubborn (which is good most of the times) or very depressed (or both). Either way, it will take you a little more time to find it, because you’re sabotaging yourself. But you’ll find it for sure, if you spend some time thinking about it. How much time is needed depends on each person. Some need as little as 20 minutes, while others need two hours or even more.

After you’ve defined your purpose, you’ll never be bored again (unless you chose a purpose that you’re not really passionate about, that needs to be changed). You’ll use your time and energy to find ways to get there.

• Mind clarity

  As you write down your thoughts, you start to become aware. You realize what are the things that bother you, what you like doing etc. You might say yeah, but I already know what bothers me, I don’t need to write it down. Yes, you already know what bothers you, but I don’t agree you don’t need to write it down. When you do, some process takes place in your mind. You gain clarity. You start looking into the root causes of things. Journaling makes you realize what you could have done to prevent something. And here’s the good part: it also makes you realize that there’s always something that can be done to change things, if you really want to. Things are constantly changing anyway, you might as well influence their course a bit.

• Track progress

  Reading what you were thinking and doing a year, or a month, or even a week ago, you will realize how much progress you made. We are constantly changing, and 99% of the times the individual changes are very small and we tend to discard them. All those small changes sum up in bigger changes. You might think you’re in the same place you were a month ago. But actually, if you could read your journal back a month, you’d be surprised at how many changes happened.

• Motivation

  It also has a way of increasing motivation. Writing down what bothers you makes you want to change it, that is, more than if you didn’t write it. For things that make you happy - it makes you want to pursue them even more. Journaling cultivates passion.

There are many more benefits: good therapy, more honesty toward yourself, knowing yourself better, source of inspiration etc.

What would I write about?

Write whatever you feel like writing. Trust your intuition. If you feel like writing three pages, write three pages. If it’s one paragraph, then so be it. In time, you’ll learn what are the important things you want to write in your journal, and what doesn’t belong there. Don’t worry about it for now. You write for yourself. Just get started.

Tools

Everybody’s different. Some people keep their journal in files / documents on their computer. Others create a private blog. Some use Google docs (keep a document per month or year). Others like paper notebooks, and others like to use specialized software. Choose the medium you like best.

If you’re still not sure whether journaling will be a good investment of your time, consider doing a 30 days trial. If you aren’t familiar with the 30 days trial, it’s a great concept from Steve Pavlina (you can read more on the above links). Basically, for this particular challenge, you commit to spending a few minutes each day writing in your journal, for 30 days. After 30 days, you can do whatever you want. If you think it’s a good thing, keep it. If not, throw it away. I’m sure though that 99% of people who try this will find it so beneficial that they’ll decide to continue journaling in some form.

During meditation, as you advance in practice, you may start feeling light-headed. This isn’t regarded as a good thing by masters of meditation, who recommend grounding yourself if this happens.

There are many grounding techniques, I’ll just present the one that I find most simple, easy and effective.

To ground yourself while meditating, move your focus to the lower end of your spine, or under the navel, or somewhere in between, in the lower part of your abdomen. With a little practice, this will fix the light-headed sensation almost immediately. In addition, some people find it effective to visualize being connected to the earth, through some sort of roots, or light channels, that grow from their body and go deep in the earth. Drinking some water (you can do it while meditating) always helps.

After meditation: eat something, drink water, do a bit of exercise like stretching.

Wearing red is always a good idea if you want to be grounded, whether meditating or not.

From a chakra perspective (if you’re into these kinds of things), when you are grounded, the lower chakras are active, providing energy, stability, confidence. If on the other hand there’s no energy in the lower chakras, it’s easy to lose one’s energy balance, which is of course not a good thing. Ground yourself regularly to keep in good shape.

I think most people who have some knowledge on the subject would agree that learning meditation is essential no matter what path you may choose. This article teaches you how to meditate.

Why should I meditate?

I could go on for hours on the benefits of meditation, but I’ll stick to the most obvious and perhaps the most attractive ones:

• stress relief, even complete stress elimination, tranquility
• sharpening intuition
• healing
• mind clarity
• slowing down
• better decisions in everyday life
• feeling happiness and gratitude
• increased BS detection
• increased creativity and energy

As I said, there are plenty more, just ask your psychiatrist . Before jumping to it though, you should know that meditation is a skill and therefore it has all the characteristics. You need to practice it to reap the benefits. That is, you need to allocate time to it.

OK so how do I meditate?

Meditation is actually a very simple technique. And it’s not that difficult to learn either - but only if you want to learn it. One of the constraints is that you need a place where you can relax and not be interrupted, but I’m sure most people can find such a place.

It’s also very subjective. Different people prefer different techniques. However if you follow these steps you should be fine learning and adapting it to your own self.

1. Choose the object of meditation

   This must be something “good” or at least something “not bad”. Choose something that resonates with you. You could choose a feeling like love (general love for this world), peace, or tranquility. Other people choose something abstract like a bright red orange ball, golden healing light, or the “Om” sound (mantra). Or some specific peaceful place (real or imaginary): a waterfall, or a meadow in the woods. Other options are your own breath, or simply relaxing your body. Or an enlightening person like Jesus, Buddha. I don’t like and don’t recommend choosing a particular person in your life as the object of meditation. It doesn’t feel right to me. Get creative and choose something that you like and resonates with you.

2. Mentally set the duration of the meditation

   You can experiment with this as you go along. For starters, I recommend 15 or 20 minutes. When you find what works for you, it’s best to be consistent and stick to that duration for all sessions, if possible. You can use a watch to keep the time.

3. Get comfortable

   You can sit on a chair, lie down, sit in lotus position or whatever makes you feel comfortable.

4. Meditate

   For the next period of time you set, try to think of your object of meditation. The mistake most beginners do is that they try too hard. Don’t do it! Think of your object of meditation, but in a relaxed way. Don’t let your muscles become tensed, and don’t frown.

   Naturally, your mind will run in all directions. You won’t be able to keep it focused for more than a few seconds. Every possible thought starts crawling in when you try to meditate. Well, guess what? Your mind is always like that, you just don’t notice it. But the good news is, this is normal. You could be thinking of something that’s bothering you. Or something that you can’t wait. Or just random thoughts. So what do you do? Acknowledge the thought and slowly return your focus to the object of meditation. This will happen plenty of times in the beginning. You will need to switch back your focus (but remember to do it slowly, in a relaxed way) every 2 to 5 seconds. As you practice, you will find yourself getting better and better at this, holding focus for many minutes. You just need to practice, take your time, not trying too hard.

   Many people like to have some meditation music playing during this time.

   As you advance in practice, you will need to learn how to ground yourself.

5. Look at the time every now and then

   When you’re done, take a minute or two to get back to “the real world”.

Experiment your way into meditation, try different things to find out what works best for you.

Here’s the two most common mistakes beginners do:

• Trying too hard. As I said a few times already, this will only make it more difficult. Meditation is about slowing down, relaxing, taking it easy. When your mind flies away, acknowledge the thought you had and slowly return your focus to the object of meditation.

• Giving up too soon. After trying for a few minutes, or maybe a few sessions, people think “this is crap / waste of time, it’s not working”. You have to sort those things out yourself, the best tip I have is to remember that it’s a skill, and it takes some time to master it. And then it takes some time to actually benefit from it.

When will I see the effects?

It’s recommended that you practice once or twice a day. If the sessions are days apart, the effects might take much longer to kick in.

You may see the effects as early as during or after the first session. If that’s the case, you’re lucky. Normally after two or three weeks of daily practice, you’ll start noticing things around you. Like people becoming agitated and making a big deal out of an unimportant thing (or rather what you now see as an unimportant thing). You’ll find yourself very calm or careless in situations that would normally piss you off or cause stress. You’ll start to admire things and smile more often. You’ll see right through the BS people serve you or the BS propaganda on the news (like the bird flu hoax that made a few people rich). You’ll see people in a hurry to get from one place to another and realize that they forgot to enjoy their ride. You will accomplish more in less time, because your mind learns to focus on one thing. And much more. Here’s a video of David Lynch explaining the effects meditation had on him. You can find more if you search.

There might be some unpleasant effects every now and then. Meditation is for the mind what sleep is for the body. Your mind will learn to rest, and as it rests it kicks in a healing process on many levels. Unresolved issues that were buried in your mind will slowly surface and you’ll have to deal with them. Some people call this a detox, on an emotional level of course - although the detox could sometimes have physical effects as well. This means you have to be ready to face your feelings, to forgive, to learn lessons, to cut unhealthy emotional bonds etc. If you’re not ready for this, don’t start meditating. But if you want inner peace, then meditation is a good way to get there.

If you have health or sanity related doubts about meditation, talk to a doctor or, better, a psychologist or psychiatrist. Make sure it’s an honest psychiatrist, because if everybody practiced meditation, they’d go bankrupt .

What is outside?

There’s a lot of stuff: a book published; a million euro; running your own business; the trip to Japan. It depends on what you want.

On a closer look, there’s two kinds of things outside: treasures and obstacles. You can peek at the treasures, but you can’t help noticing the obstacles: the lack of time to write a book; the lack of skill, knowledge and connections to become millionaire; the lack of money to start up the business; the lack of (you name it) to go to Japan.

You move in this comfort zone, surrounded by obstacles.

When first contemplating stepping outside, the obstacles between you and the treasures will seem too big to handle. It’s discouraging. Even outrageous. There’s a good news however (isn’t there one always? ) You can get past those obstacles. You need to sharpen some skills and maybe a change of mindset. You need to toughen up. Not physically, but mentally. And the best way to toughen up is to hit some of those obstacles.

The more you try, the better you get at it. You’ll get some bruises now and then, but they’ll heal quickly. Just try, you’ll learn in the process. For example, if you want to write a book, wake up an hour earlier to work on it. After one week, either you will have made progress, or you were too sleepy to do anything than just stare at the screen. So try something else: take a 10 minute shower immediately after you wake up. After a week, if that still doesn’t work, continue to wake up an hour earlier, but go to work, leave one hour earlier and go to the library to work on the book. If again that doesn’t work, maybe because after work your energy is too low, see if you can arrange to wake up as you normally would, work on your book for an hour, go to work later and leave later. And so on. Eventually, you’ll find something that works. With each attempt, you become stronger, and you get closer to your goal.

As you hit the obstacles, you toughen up. With each issue you overcome, your resilience increases. You gain more courage, your mindset changes to “can do”. You learn some patterns and beat the obstacles more easily, getting to the treasure faster.

Admittedly, some goals are very big. To keep the analogy, your comfort zone is here and the treasure is way there on Mars - but it’s so big that you can see it shining from where you stand. Does that mean you can’t get it? Of course not. They did send the Mars Rover there, haven’t they? It only means that you will have to invest more time and passion to get it. You’ll get more bruises, more times, but the experience will make you better and better, and if there’s passion to it, your confidence increases with each step.

The problem scale

Another thing that happens as you step outside and take on bigger challenges is that the scale at which you see problems changes. Something that seemed an issue a few weeks ago is now but a trifle. It’s like when you have a problem and you’re worried about it, and then suddenly a bigger problem comes along that makes the other one seems insignificant.

For example, it’s 6 o’clock and you’re worried that you won’t finish the review until 8 when you have to email it. It’s only two hours, how could you? You’ve got a problem, but start working on it anyway hoping to finish it on time. Then suddenly, there’s a power failure. You don’t have a laptop. Now, you’ve got a problem , and you realize that the first wasn’t really a problem. You start thinking, and hope for the power to return; after 30 minutes, you get this idea, it might just work. You decide to go to the internet cafe in the other neighborhood. You get there by 7 o’clock, and you’re grateful and relieved to get the last seat available. You start working in overdrive mode, and the review is ready by 7:50. Was it a problem that you only had two hours?

The obstacles that seemed very big at first are now more manageable. What actually happens is that, as you take on a big goal, you learn to deal with the (new) problems attached. Because problem solving skill increased, the old issues are now just some small tasks that you want to get out of your way, so you can concentrate on the real thing.

One last thing to remember is to choose your goal wisely, so that you work towards it with passion. Then, getting out of the comfort zone and toughening up becomes a very enjoyable ride.

When you define your goal, you have to be careful to choose something that you enjoy. Something you are passionate about. Your goal involves a series of actions or steps. If you are passionate, then after each action you will feel good, and you will look forward to the next action, and then to the next. You will enjoy every step. You’ll want to allocate more time, because you like doing what you’re doing. When thinking of your project, you’ll feel joy, happiness. On the other hand, if there’s no passion, then you’ll hesitate to take on the next task, and when you finally do decide to do it, you’ll feel bad and you’ll want to get it over with as soon as possible. You won’t do your best, you’ll just do whatever bear minimum you can to mark the task as done. And once it’s done, you’ll dreadfully look ahead at the next action, which you dislike doing even more. You will procrastinate. When thinking of your project, you’ll feel boredom, even disgust.

The chances to succeed are close to 100% if you put in the two ingredients: time and passion. If you just put in time, there is a chance that you might still get there, if you aim low enough. But if you aim high (which you should), then time and passion are both needed. Needless to say, just passion with no time allocated will get you nowhere.

If you believe in the law of attraction, then another reason to enjoy the time you put in your dream is to attract the good outcome. Even if you don’t believe in it, you will still notice it: when you are working towards something with passion and determination, things start happening that help you get there. Guess what? Those things may happen anyway (with or without your passion), but you only notice them if you have the right mindset. You realize that one office in that fancy office building which you see every day on your way to work is perfect for you to open your beauty saloon. This fellow you have coffee with every day wants to partner with someone to start a business too. That commercial on the radio for dance classes is an opportunity to meet the supergirl. All sorts of coincidences occur, which you wouldn’t notice without the passion mindset.

Another good thing about passion is that it has a snowball effect. After each milestone on your way to your goal, if you put in passion, you will have more passion for the next step, and more chances to succeed.

Passion is the fuel that gets you there. Time spent plus passion is the recipe for achieving your goals.

Read also: Put in the Hours: Quantity.