We are living beings. We receive and produce our mental energy using water, air, sun, food, laughter; let alone, we are cultural beings who consume energy from the books we read, social relations, journeys and video games.

Here is Melisa’s review of the main energy resources for refreshing and increasing the power of your mind.

1. Drink water for necessary body hydration

Water is the main source of mind’s energy and is the first step on the way to mental energy improvement

There was an interesting research study back in the year 2012 with London students’ participation…

It was found that students who were drinking water during an exam, increased their scores on average by 5%, compared to those who were not drinking any water.

Keep that piece of advice in mind whenever you are getting ready for an exam.

2. Practice cognitive breathing techniques

We are able to supplement mind’s energy with our breathing. For example, if you feel anxiety, stress or melancholy, breathing will help you to restore self-control.

Practising this technique, you will notice that cognitive breathing is able to prevent mental energy loss in critical situations.

3. Use daylight as a natural source of mind’s energy

Internally, daylight causes metabolic energy increase, it is a natural source of vitamin D (which affects the connection speed between neurons) and ‘switches off’ sleeping neurons, causing a feeling of sleepiness within us.

Have you ever noticed how your mental and physical energies increase in the summer season and decrease closer to the autumn season?

It happens because direct and intensive light makes us more active, increases motivation and working ability. For example, it is easier to bear a long, hard working day when it is light outside.

Have you noticed what happens in a darkened room instead? Our body feels relaxed; we speak quieter, slower and less.

In accordance with data of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the light stimulates the right brain hemisphere which gives obviously positive effects on mental processing: thoughts become deeper and purposeful, plus creative abilities are stimulated.

4. Receive a mental energy boost with the help of diet

Keep a balanced diet choosing products which contain necessary nutrients. It is obvious that we receive the greatest part of our energy from food.

There are certain food products which are recommended for those of us who are wanting to take good care of our brain health and who strive to keep its functioning healthy.

Food that contain a big number of omega-3 fatty acids, vegetable oils, B vitamins, folic acid, and especially vitamin D, antioxidants or phosphorus.

A right diet may help you prevent Alzheimer’s disease and premature ageing of the brain.

5. Laughter stimulates your positive mental energy

They say that there is no better medicine than laughter. Laughter plays a necessary part in the the formula for physical health (for example, reducing blood pressure), let alone good psychological health (our mood and emotions) and feelings of social connection (improvement of relations with other people).

Some studies show that laughter brings mental processing about that counteracts psychological problems such as depression or insomnia.

6. Reading books help you to grow and are healthy

The process of reading apart from the joy we receive while reading is able to stimulate and considerably develop our brains.

Read a book, a novel, a poem… oftentimes, it helps us to understand reality better, takes into account points of view which are different from ours and gains us new knowledge.

7. Personal relationships are a source of emotional energy

From the perspective of personal relationships, quantity does not matter. Quality of our relationships makes the greatest difference.

Studies about friendship in social networks show that many online friends is perceived by our ego as having social advantage. Giving us a feeling of belonging, of greater social support and confirms a higher social status. Do you really have that many friends?

8. Journeys refresh your mind and renew your mental energy

Meeting new cities, countries, and people is a way to open new boundaries and escape for some time from the everyday.

New faces, new clothes, new buildings, new landscapes… your brains rejoice with the new attractive drives and actively creates new neuron connections.

Moreover, journeys develop your personality and help you to feel more satisfied, happier and confident.

9. Daily walking gives mental energy bringing you closer to environment

Walking on foot more often and using public transport such as a car or the metro less, helps take care of our physical health and gets our juices flowing, to the point where our risk of heart disease reduces.

If you got used to walking around the city on foot, it is going to be easier for you to stay positive during a day. Unlike people who spend too much time driving their car through stressful traffic daily.

Based on Dutch studies, which were published in the year 2015 in Geographic Journal and dedicated to problems of human interaction with environment and its influence onto our feeling and psychological health, a conclusion can be made that people who were walking through a city every day felt more autonomous, were open for interaction with other people and felt themselves more integrated into surroundings.

10. Brain games increase mind’s energy and power

It is no surprise what an important role our active participation plays in the process of cognitive functions and mind’s abilities development.

As a matter of fact, we can train and stimulate our brains in order to increase its energy.

That way, our brain can increase its capacity and information processing speed, to improve plasticity, flexibility, ability to renew information and its speed of response.

Author:Melisa Marzett is positive by nature so it does not take much for her to stay positive.
 
She believes that bad thoughts cause bad things to happen while good thoughts make something good happen, which is why it is highly important to think positive.
 
Melisa writes for Custom Essay Writing from Smart Writers, and strongly believes in impact theory.
 
Her works are entertaining and thoughtful in relationship to any topic with which she is engaged.

In my late 20s, I can still remember how I waited for months before my much-awaited job appraisal.

Every passing day in that timeframe was all about checking my inbox, hoping that elusive congratulatory message will pop up somehow.

For majority of those times, it didn’t. I was frustrated. It’s like me being undervalued and underpaid when I’ve been results-driven all of my working days.

Indeed, my main motivation driver was financial rewards and recognition. Without those, my driving force to excel at work plummeted. It was at an all-time low.

The crazy is thing is that I went to work with a sluggish outlook, and somehow ended up energized and lively at my shift’s peak hours.

How was that possible?

It was all thanks to my highly competitive and cheerful colleagues. They reminded me every day how work – and life – should be done.

Our brains are inclined to imitate the expression of others.

That’s the reason why you frown (and your eyebrows stiffen) when someone tells you their unpleasant experiences.

That’s also the reason why stressed people in comedy bars laugh hysterically at the joker’s antics and facial expressions.

It’s because emotions and expressions are contagious. The competitive drive of someone can be transmitted too.

What are the odds of an average student on pursuing excellence when he’s grouped with bright and hard workers? Skyrocketing, right?

Now what do you expect when he’s teamed up with slackers and complacent folks? Exactly what you think.

Deep down our core, we’re all adaptive beings. We relate with other’s feelings, and end up absorbing their emotions.

Choose the people you associate with.

There’s sufficient rationale in the saying, “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are”.

Your immediate friends and colleagues highly influence your level of motivation, since they’re the ones whom you spend majority of your daytime with.

When you’re in a company culture that fosters team synergy, camaraderie, and positive vibe, it’s hard to try and resist pursuing excellence.

You’ll likely be challenged as you don’t want to be the weakest link among the group.

Meanwhile, negative colleagues who do nothing but complain with work quotas and deliverables are nothing but distractions.

They make you question if it’s really worth working, and further drags your motivation levels.

Choose folks who remind you of the joys of giving it your all, not ones who tolerate slacking.

The mundane things count too…

Ever saw a happy family in the park as you travel home?

What about those lovely daffodils springing from its buds?

Perhaps you saw a vagrant who’s surprisingly enthusiastic?

Such are the little joys in life that can motivate you too.

Pay attention to those, and you’ll surely have a dose of inspiration to be all-out for that day.

What’s amazing is life’s way of giving us little things too cheer about, at times it’s daunting and depressing.

As a concluding thought, it’s just plainly impossible to feel reinvigorated and motivated all the time. We can feel tired, stressed, or burdened, that’s why it’s important to hinge on the positivity of others for the sake of ours.

Who knows if what all you need to jumpstart your day is a light chit-chat or a beaming smile from your seat-mate? Go find it!

Author:

Wade S. Lang is an essayist at wedoessay.com He incorporates nature’s beauty in his writing.
 
Besides excellence, he puts his lovely wife and two kids at the center of his craft for he considers them as the most precious creations in this world.
 
He is fond of physical contact sports and considers South America as a haven for tourists.
 
In fact, he has helped a lost family of Asian tourists in his city one time to whom he has remained in contact with up until now.
 

You might also enjoy this video with 5 things motivated people do different…

Each morning, use these 9 simple, yet powerful, winning tips to turn your life around. They worked for me. They will for you, too.

As you put each step into action, you’ll feel empowered in taking care of yourself, growing and getting transformed.

Make the decision to do each tip for the next 60 days. Discipline yourself to follow through, give yourself each command and carry it out to completion.

Be laser focused. See and feel the difference!

Then, enjoy the benefits for a lifetime. Every moment matters. Your Life matters!

Here are your 9 tips for a winning mindset:

1. Before you go to bed at night, write down your wins for the day. Celebrate even the smallest accomplishments.

Write down a minimum of 3 goal achieving activities for the following day. That will give you a head start.

2. To get your winning mindset started out right, you’ll need some extra time. A great place to start is to get up by 5:30 am. This may mean you get to bed earlier.

Do this every day and soon it will become a habit.

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” -Napoleon Hill

3. As you get out of bed, say, “Thank you, for another beautiful day” and put a smile on your face.

You were given an amazing gift today, your life. You will notice a shift in your attitude about the day ahead.

Being grateful accelerates your progress.

4. Once out of bed, drink 16 ounces of warm water. This will help fire up your metabolism and hydration and flush out the toxins in your body.

Water helps your brain function better and will help you feel less drained and fatigued.

For an added benefit, squeeze at least a quarter of lemon into the water.

5. Go to a quiet place with your writing pad or journal and a pen.

Begin your writing by expressing gratitude, “I am so happy and grateful for…”. Write 3 to 10 things for which you are grateful, related to health, home, career, nature, family and friends, for example.

You can also affirm gratitude in advance for completing your goals for the day. I am so happy and grateful now that I achieved (goal) for the day.

Be grateful throughout the day. You will begin to notice good in all things.

It is very hard to be grateful and unhappy at the same time.

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” -Eckhart Tolle

6. Close your eyes and take 5 or 10 minutes to ask for guidance. Write what comes to you.

Let your imagination go into high gear! Imagine achieving your goals. How would that make you feel?

See yourself in action. Who else is with you? See the colors and details.

With practice, you will see yourself jumping up out of bed every morning, excited to go after your dreams and goals.

“The only place your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.” -Robert Schuller

Positive habits help you get ahead.

7. Send love to yourself. Acknowledge yourself for taking this time to develop a winning mindset.

Forgive yourself and let go of the past that is no longer serving you.

The potential within you is limitless. Decide to be happy. You are amazing!

8. Make your bed. This simple act, like Admiral William H. McRaven says, will give you a sense of accomplishment.

Starting your day off with an accomplishment, even this small, is a such a boost. It will give you the encouragement to accomplish another task, and another one, and another one.

It will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life do matter. How can you do the big things right, if you can’t get the small things right?

Start each day with a task completed!

9. While you are getting ready for the day, listen to audio recordings that will help you grow.

Create better understanding and awareness of the phenomenal potential you have.

“Investing into yourself will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of those around you.” -Bob Proctor

Affirm, “I am happy and grateful now that I am developing new, positive habits. Incredible opportunities are coming into my life. I always expect the best”.

I started with this more than three months ago, and I am still doing it. This simple act has changed my life for the better.

Believe me, it really makes a difference!

Author:

My name is Lysa Rich and I am a mother and wife who loves to encourage the ones around her to be a better version of themselves.
 
I loved to read since I was four years old, and it’s just seven years ago that I discovered my passion for writing.
 
My ambition is to encourage and motivate as many people as I can into becoming their better selves.
 

You might also enjoy this video with wisdom for everyday life…

Sometimes in our lives, we all have a feeling that we want to go do something or meet up with someone with which we feel unsure and uncomfortable.

From starting a new job, getting into a new relationship or moving to a new city, we hope that we like it and we can find a place to fit in and start a new chapter in life.

It can be a scary world, especially when we need do things that we really don’t want to do.

Yet, we must go through change to become a better person and to have another opportunity for what is available out there in life.

What if that procrastination is holding us back?

What is it that is holding us back from reaching out to the new potential, that is waiting for us to grab it by the horn and take over, and how do we handle it?

How can we get past it and take that next step for moving forward?

Let’s explain.

When we hold back on something, we think of and are afraid of what the outcome might be. We are afraid that the change we’ll make won’t turn out the way it is at first perceived by us. We’re afraid that the idea, the relationship or the job won’t work out because of the required effort we need to put in. We become uncertain about how well we might enjoy it and whether it actually will make us happy.

In order to get rid of procrastination, we need to begin with an open mind about the opportunity that is out there. We have to learn how to start giving things a chance, no matter how good or bad the situation might initially appear to us.

If it’s in our best interest and something that we like and enjoy, then it is definitely meant for us.

If it’s not in our best interest, and we feel that it’s not best for us, then it wasn’t meant to be. We can then move forward onto something else.

I’m going to give you an example.

When I was hired by a cleaning company, the first thing I thought of was the great pay. I’d get to work a few hours, five days out of the week, and have the weekends off for myself. So, I took a chance at the job, thinking it would be easy and something new that I thought I would enjoy and like.

However, during my first week on the job, I could already tell that the work was too hard. It was too hot inside no matter how many fans were blowing. Everything had to be set in a different order and I definitely wasn’t enjoying it.

By the third week, I still wasn’t happy and told them I couldn’t do this work anymore. It wasn’t all cracked up to be. Yes, the money was good, yet it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

They let me go, I was happy and I went back to my other job, at which I was almost making equal the amount of money that I was bringing in with the cleaning job.

In addition, when we procrastinate, we lose out on chances that might be good to us.

For example, with a girl or guy who we may find attractive and with whom we have a good connection, we hold back and think about how it may not work out so, we don’t call them and they may end up dating someone else.

As soon as that opportunity passes us by, we kick ourselves and become angry and frustrated at ourselves, about why we didn’t go for it. When we procrastinate, we soon learn the consequences of that and we see that we’ve blown an opportunity.

We must be able to stand up and be confident in going after the things we want out of life.

If you want to move to a new city to escape from a small town that has limited potential, then now is the time for you to make that change.

The longer you wait, the more missed opportunities will pass you by.

By being confident in ourselves, we can achieve and accomplish so much more of what we want out of life. It’s not too late to do something about that, and with your life.

Author:

Chris Ferguson is a self improvement sales letter copywriter who enjoys writing and help others. For over 10+ years he has developed a passion for creative writing.
 
Chris loves giving others the motivation and skills to get their life back on track. No matter who we are, we going to face some ups and downs in life and if we can help one another get back up on their feet, the reward of help someone change is one of the most greatest feelings in life.
 
When he is not working, he likes to draw, travel, listen to electronic music and loves to play with his cats.

For more than half my life, I’ve spent countless hours sitting in practice rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, storage spaces, football fields, and even by lakes with a tuba mouthpiece, guitar, or some kind of percussion instrument in my hands. From trumpet in my preteen years, to tuba for ten years (and different guitars in between).

This wasn’t only about learning how to make sense of the sounds. I also learned countless life lessons that have pushed me forward.

It didn’t matter where I was, there were always three things in my mind as I sat, practicing. I could be practicing for a high school concert, a solo for a competition, or even in front of the millions of eyes tuning into the Rose Bowl activities. It could even be practicing the guitar to impress a girl (which I also learned isn’t worth the time).

There were always three things in my mind…

1. The Key to Anything is Confidence

When you’re sitting on a stage with the lights intense blaring at you, it’s too late to practice. The conductor bobs their wand from the ready position to count a beat before the piece kicks off is and the horse takes off from the gates. At this point, the only thing left is to take the reigns and hold on for dear life.

In music, the bass instruments have to create a basis for the trumpets and flutes to play over. Without it, the music sounds empty. As a tuba player, I was always one of the few bass sounds in the band, so I had to put out more sound than many of my counterparts.

There’s no time to play timid, it’s all about playing notes confidently. In marching band, it’s all about turning, stepping, and stopping at the right time.

I’ve made countless mistakes, but a mistake is forgivable. What’s not forgivable? Being too scared to make a mistake.

When it comes to stuttering, it’s very much the same. While I definitely don’t have a pretty voice, I have confidence when I talk. There is a drive and a purpose. Even if words are coming out like a CD that’s found its way under a car.

When it comes to life, sitting inside and hiding away from the world is a possible option. It doesn’t accomplish anything. Humanity doesn’t move forward when you sit at home all day and play League of Legends.

For many, especially many who stutter, talking to others is hard. Finding confidence is even harder. However, in order to move forward in life and experience all the beautiful things life has to offer, putting the face of confidence on is the best way.

Mistakes can be forgiven, but not trying isn’t an option.

2. Talent is irrelevant in most cases, hard work prevails

When it comes to who sits on stage for a concert or on the field for a marching band performance, it never comes down to has the most talent.

Without practice, Mozart never would have hit the heights that he did. Without practice, Michael Jordan might be the tallest car salesman, rather than the best basketball player who ever lived. The people sitting next to me on stage were always the ones who practiced.

If you’re unaware, a scale is a series of eight notes that are related in the same key. When I was in the Spartan Marching Band, my music major friends would spend hours on one scale – hours on just eight notes. To me, it was unbelievable. Yet that’s what it takes to be the best.

The people I performed with, in the marching band, were always better than me talent wise, however I was the only non-music major in my class who played every performance for four years. I practiced countless hours to get things just right.

When it comes to life, it’s never about the most talented.

The CEO at the company wasn’t born a CEO, they had to spend countless hours working hard. They put in 80 hour weeks just to get ahead.

People who are movie stars aren’t naturally incredible at acting. They are very devoted to transforming themselves for one movie over and over again.

Heck, I could be a public speaker if I wanted, despite my stutter. It would just take countless hours of writing speeches and giving speeches. It doesn’t matter what it is, the vast majority of people can do it. It just takes measured practice.

3. A melody doesn’t have to be beautiful

Listen to this…

That’s the final movement from Le Sacre du Printemps, otherwise known as the Sacrificial dance from The Rite of Spring. In this movement of the song, the chosen one (from previous movements) is forced to dance herself to death.

The piece premiered in Paris with a companion ballet. The Parisian crowd at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées literally rioted over the piece and accompanying ballet, because of its implications. The primal aggression and seemingly random rhythms create a sense of distress and mania.

When people think of beautiful, they think of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, not this panicky piece to accompany a pagan’s death.

This part is more personally related to my stutter than the world at large. Even in the ugly, there is still beauty to be found. My voice is my music, and without it, I’m just a lost and hopeless soul. That’s why I play it every chance I get. Anyone who wants to talk, I treat them with a rhythmic mess of stutters, but to me, it’s beautiful.

With confidence, it’s a suitable way to transmit my feelings. Even when I tense up and know a wooden block is about to make me look like a fool, I accept the booming timpani or bass drum that my heart creates and just push through.

Stuttering isn’t easy, but without it I might not be where I am today. I wouldn’t have been able to fight through the harder moments in life if I hadn’t faced adversity everyday. In fact, I’ve come out better because of it.

Author:

 Josh Drzewicki writes about various topics, including recovery.
 
In his free time, he enjoys jamming on the tuba and bass guitar, going for walks through Metro Detroit, and playing video games.

Read Rudiano’s article below. Related to this article, I found this terrific video with 20 questions that might be useful also…

Did you set a new year’s resolution this year?

By February, a lot of us have given up…

Love them or hate them, new year’s resolutions aren’t a bad idea. Far from it!

Let me explain.

According to research led by Static Brain, people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t.

Still, 42.4% fail on their resolution each year.

To top it all, other research shows that the same resolution will be set about 10 times before being honoured.

That’s 10 years!!!

Something is definitely broken.

Can the process be shortened?

Well in my experience, yes it can.

All we need to do is pay attention to the following 4 areas:

1. The why

Sometimes the reason for making our resolutions or setting our goal is pure guilt.

Say for example we set a goal of eating healthy but we don’t really feel like it. We just have that goal because we know we should.

If that’s the case then our goal is negatively driven only, but our goal should also be positively driven.

In other words, we should feel excited by the benefits of reaching our goal. We should be able to imagine and look forward to getting there.

If we can’t, it’s an indication it’s either the wrong goal for us or we need to research the potential benefits further and connect emotionally to them.

2. The how

We often expect fast results so we tend to skip planning for the long term.

However, if our goal is a long term one such as exercising, eating healthy, manage stress better, we need to plan pit stops along the journey if we are to make it to the finishing line.

For example, regular reminders of our goals, this can be set on our phone, using a free service like Habit Bull or Pep Talks.

We can even email ourselves in the future, using free service like Ten Years In The Future or Dreaminder

Research shows that we are more motivated to keep a long term goal when we see some immediate results.

Yet, you know what we can be like!

We look for the big win, and in the process overlook the small victories, the slight increase in self-control, the slight feel good factor.

We need to track these small victories, identify and celebrate them. Journaling can help do that.

3. The approach

We are generally good at going gung ho for a time then burning out. Maybe we take massive action at first but when the motivation spike subsides, we are left …well unmotivated and discouraged because we haven’t seen the results we want yet.

The best way is having a sustainable approach. Small incremental changes as part of a routine will make a substantial change in the end. Much more than a short moment of heroism.

It may strike us odd but making the journey towards the goal as enjoyable as possible may be more important than the by-product of meeting our goal.

So if we are trying to eat healthier, adding a salad twice a week (then increasing as and when we feel like it) will make much more impact than eating salad everyday from the word go then giving up.

If the goal becomes part of our routine, it will not feel so hard to reach. It will soon become second nature.

A word of caution though: at that point, WE MUST NOT fall into the temptation of making the goal harder just because it feels ” too easy”. We need to aim for consistency, not difficulty.

Again, small consistent efforts yield many more results than a short moment of heroism.

4. The where

Nature keeps teaching this to us: no matter how high the quality of the seed, it will struggle to grow in an infertile soil.

To a great extent, we are the product of our environment.

So if we are trying to eat healthy (keeping this example for continuity, but feel free to replace with any goal), it makes sense to stay away from temptation, whether physical (stash in the cupboard) or mental (favourite food programme).

A support system makes wonders too. If our off line circle isn’t supportive, then there is always an online group, forum, blog, youtuber that can provide a steady supply of mental fuel to help us to keep going.

Author:Rudiano Fiano is a self-improvement blogger who has been exploring productivity, creativity and entrepreneurship since 2010.

Rudiano combines his experience working across several industries, (as an employee as well as self-employed) with brain science. His message is that the science shows we need to rethink our approach to work, health and self.

 
He shares his insights at Rethink Entrepreneur and his online course platform The 3 video Life Changer.

Related to this article, I found this terrific video for you also:

Behind any kind of success, whether you want to make more money, create more freedom for yourself, create a family, become highly educated, whatever your goal is, behind that goal is action. The only way you’re going to get to that end goal is through repetitive action.

Here, we will get to the bottom of why we don’t take action, even when we know what we should be doing.

One of the major reasons we don’t take action is because of other people or because of how we think other people will perceive us. We are afraid to be judged, we are afraid that someone will call us stupid or someone will think negatively about what we’re doing, and to be honest it makes sense.

From an evolutionary standpoint those that are negatively judged within a group of people are less likely to have access to resources and less likely to carry their genes on, so it makes sense why our minds are wired automatically to not want to act in a way that would allow others to criticize or judge us.

Yet, here’s the thing, even though it makes sense that we think that way, it doesn’t make sense that we allow that type of thinking to control our lives.

It may be hard to admit for some of us but at the core of our fear of action is the fear of embarrassment in front of other people.

So how do we fix this? Well for one, stop defining yourself by the way other people judge you.

You have to define yourself authentically, and by that I mean you have to know who you are and be comfortable with that. What if the next time someone judged you for liking the Smurfs you said to them “yeah, so what, what’s wrong with Smurfs?” What’s that person really going to say to you? In the end, they will end up respecting you more because you stood up for what you believed in, and they are less likely to say anything the next time a similar situation arises.

Living in a society that breeds average, we fear that by stepping out of our bubble and experiencing new things that may seem “weird” to other people, we will be forever condemned by it. Let me ask you this, if you don’t act at all, won’t you be asking yourself “What if?”, for the rest of your life?

Before You Read On… Collect Your FREE “179 Forward Steps” eBook HERE

Stop thinking you’re a failure because other people nitpick every little thing you do wrong. Truth of the matter is, we’re human beings and we are far from perfect, I know it sounds cliché and you’ve heard that saying before, everyone has.

The one thing you have to learn how to accept is failure, and repeated failure for that matter.

You have to learn how to learn from your failures as quick as possible. You have to act, measure your action, iterate or optimize your action, and then act again. It becomes one giant loop that continuously makes you better at whatever you choose.

The real caveat is in the ability to speed up that loop; the faster you act, iterate, and learn, the faster you get better and conquer the world. Failure should drive you, not make you shy away.

You may be asking yourself how it’s possible to be OK with failure, I will admit its not as easy as it sounds. However one way to be OK with failure, is to put your confidence in the fact that everyday, you will work to improve yourself and become better at what you do.

Don’t let your confidence dwindle because some things may not go your way.

You must have what’s called a growth mindset, the mindset that allows you to see yourself for what you can become, not what you currently are. So, yes you may fail, yet as long as you make a promise to yourself to become better every single day, your confidence will not fall.

To make it short and sweet, your confidence should be rooted in your future self, not your present or past self. Don’t define yourself by the way you did things in the past or currently do things now.

Define yourself by your commitment to become better at whatever course of action you take.

One of the major things I’ve learned that helped me act on a daily basis is to not take life so seriously, because in the end, you’re only going to grow and learn from your failures.

You can make commitments and set goals all you want, but if you don’t learn how to overcome the underlying fear of failure and the fear of judgment, then you will never be able to consistently act, and therefore never get closer to the person you know that you can become.

I want to leave you with a thought… what if you were OK with totally failing? What if you were OK with completely stuttering during a presentation, or you were OK with completely failing a test? How would your perception change?

Of course that’s not the goal, but what if you were OK with that outcome? You know that each time you fail, you will only get better.

For each negative outcome there is an equal or greater seed of positivity, it’s just up to you to find it.

Author:My name is Marcello Tommasi and I am in love with self-development.

With over 100 self-development books read, I am ready to help the world become a better place.

Come listen to me at The Lean Mind Podcast

Just as we need to keep an eye on the kinds of friends we keep around us, so must we also remain aware of the circle of “friends” we keep within us, that is… our own thoughts and feelings.

Not only does the largely unseen content of our mind and heart cause us to feel attracted to certain kinds of people and events, it also serves as an attracting agent for those who want to be around us.

Personal experience proves the truth behind one of our most ancient axioms: The inner determines the outer.

It’s likely that most of us haven’t taken enough time to think through how the nature of our thoughts and feelings determines the kind of company we keep. I assure you the truth behind this idea touches our lives in ways yet unimagined.

Speaking of which, here’s another timeless truth that underscores the importance of keeping good inner company: We resemble those with whom we assemble.

Simply put, this means that both our appearance and character change according to the kind of company we keep.

In other words, never a moment passes in which we are not being acted upon by those relationships that we share with people and things in that same moment.

What we are now, and the kind of life we will come to know, is very much determined by the “interior” company we keep.

The wise ones of all ages, long called the “friends of truth”, have understood that the more time we spend in the company of truly higher ideas, the more the life of these timeless truths becomes our own.

Welcoming “friends” such as these into our lives grants us the power to “move mountains” because, with their guidance, we no longer make the mistake of building some “molehill” into an impassible barrier.

These friends go before us to make the “crooked places straight”, by lifting us above the level of mind that creates one dark corner after another with its unconscious demands.

How does one become a friend of truth? The answer is surprisingly simple. We must be willing to see the truth of ourselves, starting with this somewhat shocking revelation…

The things we put first in our life, our moment-to-moment choices in life, are a direct reflection of what we value most in that moment.

By consciously choosing higher awareness as our friend, we can’t be compromised.

This special kind of mindfulness – a willingness to observe your “Self” and to be honest about the circle of “friends” within which it runs – does two things for you at once.

By putting the wish to see the truth of yourself before the act of trying to win what you want, you soon see that most of your desires and their demands are not the friends they pretend to be.

They are a host of small powers into whose hands you’ve mistakenly entrusted the keys to your consciousness.

Choosing to keep the company of truth is the same as choosing to lose all the false “friends” who presently limit you.

[Excerpted from “The Courage to Be Free,” by Guy Finley, Red Wheel/Weiser]

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his newest book, The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. Visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 6-hour eCourse The Illusion of Limitation on 7 MP3 downloads.

Picture a man who just heard that one of his closest friends has betrayed him. How does he respond? What’s his first answer to this ordeal? Anger that includes plans for revenge.

Imagine a woman who suddenly realizes she’s going to be late for an important appointment. There’s no way to make it on time.

How does she meet the pressure of this moment? What’s her first answer to running out of time? Anxiety that includes inventing excuses she hopes will be believed.

These are different people under different circumstances, yet they’ve made the same miscalculation. They both have the wrong answer. To understand their error, let’s take a closer look at how each arrived at his or her mistaken solution.

The man who found out he’d been betrayed thinks his anger is a source of strength. He also believes his heated plans for making the score even will make him feel better. However, anger is never real strength and revenge is always self-wrecking, long before it ever touches its intended victim.

What this man doesn’t see is that the reason his heart aches isn’t because of what someone has done to him. It’s because of what he’s doing to himself, by embracing punishing, raging thoughts. He can’t see the real reason he aches is because it’s his own answer that’s hurting him.

The woman who’s late for her date is certain her anxious feelings and worried thoughts can help her find a way out of her predicament. What she doesn’t understand is that her feeling of being squeezed into a tight spot is because she’s temporarily tucked away in a darkened corner of her own mind.

What she can’t see is the pressure she feels isn’t because she’s late, but because she keeps jumping headlong into a torrent of cascading emotions. She doesn’t understand that the crushing rushing she feels is a part of her own answer.

Your answer to the challenge of any moment, and what you experience as the quality of your life in that moment, are one and the same thing.

In other words, the way you answer life’s events, and what you experience as your life, are really one.

Let’s examine how this works…

If your answer to some sad memory that floats through your mind is to just drift along with it, why should you be surprised when you suddenly find yourself being carried over the falls of deep grief? The reason you have the feeling of falling is because you and your answer are never apart.

You can’t separate yourself from what you receive from life any more than the ocean is apart from its own waves.

Within the space of each beat of your heart, you get the exact measure of the answer you gave to life the moment before. No more, no less… life is always true in this way.

Without fail, and without judgement, life speaks directly to you through your own immediate experience of it. Learn to listen for its wise counsel whenever you meet a moment. What it always says is: “Here is you back”.

Reality is a perfect mirror. It always reflects exactly what’s in it. Yet we forever distort everything we see in order to justify concealed, unconscious intentions.

This is why we must always be willing to meet life from something higher than our present consciousness.

Truth alone is the perfect teacher because its fearless nature never denies what it sees.

Your life can be light-filled and lighthearted if you’re willing to see that when there’s something sour in your life, it’s your answer that’s bitter.

Don’t be afraid to see that most of the answers you presently meet life with are the wrong ones.

Self-doubt, anger, denial, anxiety, aggression, worry, resentment, ambitiousness, envy, greed, self righteousness, sarcasm, one-upmanship, demands, cynicism, avoidance, recrimination, dependency, expectations, coercion: all are wrong answers that can only supply secret aches.

You may be wondering, “Well then, what’s the right answer for me? How can I be sure of making the true choice? Or even if there is such a thing?”

That’s easy! Here’s why…

Do you remember in your school days, during exams, there were some questions that came with multiple choice answers?

There were always those times when you were able to come up with the right answers, not because you knew them, but simply because you knew that none of the other answers offered could be correct?

In other words, you arrived at what was right by knowing what was wrong!

You may not have known it then, but by deliberately eliminating what was false, you were employing an ancient and wise technique to come upon what’s true. Contained right within this powerful principle is a truly amazing secret.

Each time you refuse to choose wrong answers from which to to live, you’ve just stepped that much closer to coming upon what are new and true answers for you. Then, you’ll have their reward: a quiet mind, a contented heart, and complete confidence.

Regardless of how unpleasant any circumstance seems at the moment, always remember: it’s impossible to answer any situation with negativity without casting yourself into that same self-created darkness.

There is always a higher, happier answer if you’ll only learn how to ask for it. Again, this kind of conscious self-suspension, of putting your habitual mind and its answers on hold, can seem scary at times.

One day it will be your greatest pleasure to realize that you don’t need any answers that want you to be afraid.

The more you understand about the truth, and the nature of the way it fearlessly answers life, the stronger you become yourself.

(Excerpted from “Freedom From the Ties That Bind” by Guy Finley)

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. Visit the Life of Learning Foundation site and sign up for free, to receive Guy’s 6-hour eCourse The Illusion of Limitation on 7 MP3 downloads.

It’s well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline. There is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas.

Yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that “rocks our boat”, the truth of the matter is self-evident…

Unwanted moments introduce us to parts of ourselves that would otherwise never get healed, were it not for the difficulties that first reveal them and that lead us to release their pain.

When things go “badly” for us, we’re not intended to “return” to who and what we have been.

To see the good in this idea, we must be willing to see that the pain in unwanted moments can either be a rock into which we crash time and time again, a tempest without termination or, that same suffering can be used as an inflection point, a place of real change that exists only when all seems lost.

Let me share three ideas with you about this strange and wonderful kind of spiritual goodness that seems to arrive in a package marked: “Caution! Contents under pressure!”

Welcome this light into your life and you will learn to exchange resistance to unwanted moments for being receptive to the lessons they bring with them.

Soon you will know, without taking thought, the greatest secret in the universe: All things good come to those for whom the good is all things.

1. Even though we may feel badly when we lose whatever we hold near and dear to ourselves, it is good to see that nothing in this world or that we can imagine, is permanent.

Learning to welcome events that foster this understanding helps liberate us from painful attachments to relationships, possessions, and of course, our own bodies.

What follows is freedom from all forms of false dependency and their attending fears.

2. Even though we may feel badly when our sense of self-worth is shaken by events, it is good to see in these experiences that any sense of self, derived through images, social powers, acclaim, or peer approval is not who we really are.

Learning to welcome events that reveal this truth helps free us from the impossible task of trying to be all things to all people. It strengthens our intention to realize our unshakable original self.

3. Even though we may feel badly when we run into a limitation of some kind, it is good to see that, apart from the certainty behind our own pressing demands on life, nothing else stands in our way.

Learning to welcome events that illuminate this new understanding reveals two key lessons about limitless living…

The more we resist seeing our own limitations, the greater they become!

When we realize this truth, we see that limitations are illusions. They exist only for as long as we resist going through what we must, to prove them false.

There is an old proverb that goes something like this: “God never takes anything from us without giving us something greater in return“.

The task for those of us who seek the life divine – those who seek to live from their original fearless Self – is to prove the trust of this timeless idea. Through it, we are set free.

(Excerpted from “The Courage to Be Free” by Guy Finley, Red Wheel/Weiser)

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

No anxious state exists apart from the illusion that the security, happiness, and wholeness you long for exists somewhere outside of you, “in a time to come”.

Then why do we go on embracing anxious thoughts and feelings that do nothing but steal from us our love of life?

The surprising answer to this question is the same as opening the door to a life free of anxious thoughts and feelings.

Whenever our mind imagines a pleasure – going somewhere exciting, envisioning a new relationship, or picturing ourselves more successful than we’ve been – something else comes to life within us at the same time. Right alongside our newly imagined desire is born a feeling of anxiety.

We’ve all sensed the presence of this disquieting state, even though we’re rarely conscious of it. At its outset, this fledgling anxiety remains largely unnoticed, and for good reason. Our mind’s eye, our attention, is completely centered on the pleasure we imagine will soon be ours.

Regardless of whatever we imagine – be this some new happiness or sense of wholeness – it isn’t real. If it were, we wouldn’t have to try and dream it into existence!

A closer examination of what happens to us when we place our hopes in “a time to come” reveals how we hurt ourselves without knowing it.

It’s impossible to imagine a future wholeness without feeling, in the present moment, strangely incomplete. As though we’re missing something essential!

We’ve all sensed this disquiet each time we devise some new plan to feel “better” about ourselves.

It’s a little like how much hungrier we suddenly feel when we imagine a special meal for later that day. Anxiety shadows all such expectations, as small fears tend to appear with new challenges.

As this anxious feeling of being incomplete rises into our awareness, there comes with it a kind of pressure to hurry. We feel compelled to either pursue (or protect) what’s been imagined, or risk losing our hope for peace and happiness! The deception is complete and – bang – the trap springs shut!

In the ensuing struggle to escape our escalating concern, we leap onto the merry-go-round of whirling thoughts and feelings, hoping that getting on will get us off! What happens next is too familiar.

Round and round we go, rushing through and running over anything in our way. Trying in vain to reach the wholeness we’ve imagined awaits us in time.

The only reason we ever feel trapped by anxious thoughts and feelings is that we just won’t let go of the false idea that it takes time to know the strength and happiness of our original wholeness. Our unseen belief in this illusion creates the uncertain future to which we feel we must rush.

This same illusion sits behind all of the fears that stalk us as we pursue whatever we hope will complete us.

For implied in the idea, of always having somewhere to “get to”, is the danger that if we don’t hurry up and “get there” we’ll miss out on the fulfillment we’ve imagined awaits us.

Yet, here’s the truth that sets us on the road to freedom:

Your original Self is already timeless and whole. Any part of us that urges us to look for a bigger, better, or brighter sense of Self outside the present moment is both the seed of deception, as well as its bitter fruit, anxiety.

Anxious thoughts and feelings are not there to help us reach the promised land. Instead, they keep us a prisoner in the world of their empty promises.

The courage to see the truth of this fact is the same as the courage we need to be free… To consciously walk away from these impostor powers, regardless of how convincing they are that we can’t live without them.

After all… Who clings to their captors?

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

You’ve heard it a million times—the key to happiness is learning to live in the present moment.

It’s possible this motivated you to try a mindfulness practice and carve out time to quiet your busy mind, but you still haven’t yet found that calm and centered feeling you’re seeking.

You might know what you’re supposed to do to live in the moment but you’re not sure if you’re doing it right.

What gives?

Eckhart Tolle the author of the best-selling books, “The Power of Now” and“A New Earth,” explains that it’s our thoughts that keep us from experiencing the present moment.

In one of his many interviews with Oprah, (who has frequently recommended Tolle’s books) he describes the way our thoughts get in the way of really experiencing what is happening…

“Thinking can be a powerful and wonderful tool. It only becomes an affliction if we’re totally identified with it and we derive a sense of who we are from the thinking.”

“The little person in your head who keeps talking and talking isn’t you. Recognizing that that voice is not you is the real power of living in the now.”

You realize that the real “you” is actually the presence behind thinking, says Tolle. When this happens, you’re no longer possessed by the thinking mind. Instead, thinking should be seen as a helpful tool, not as your whole self.

Confusing your thinking with your real self, says Tolle, is the definition of ego.

Ego is more than being selfish or arrogant or feeling superior. Ego is “the self-identification with the stream of thinking”, and it’s what prevents us from really experiencing the moment at hand.

How do you know when you’re letting your thoughts and your ego get in the way of living in the present?

Here are a few warning signs:

1. You’re telling yourself stories

Spinning explanations of why something happened or didn’t happen, jumping to conclusions about what someone else is thinking or contemplating why they’re acting one way or another are all things that prevent you from experiencing what is actually happening.

2. You’re convinced that you are special

The need to be right, be better or even be the one who is suffering the most are ways in which your ego asserts itself and prevents you from truly listening to and being open to others.

3. You’re fearful of losing

Whether it’s a thing, a relationship or something else that defines you…

you’re caught up in the belief that who you are is based on your external circumstances.

4. You’re stressing

Whether you’re worried about what happened or what might happen, your anxiety is a sign that you’re thinking too much and forgetting to simply see and deal with what’s right in front of you.

5. You’re not listening

You’re not present for other people if you’re tuning them out or thinking about what you’re going to say next.

6. You’re judging

That’s your ego again. When you measure yourself against others, you’re letting your thinking get in the way of really experiencing what’s happening.

Author:Michael Weinberger is a dynamic and inspiring speaker frequently asked to speak on topics including Coping with Mental Illness and Addiction. He was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder in 1994 and has learned how to not only cope, but to thrive while living with his illness. Michael teaches individuals how to adjust their mindset to be mindful and grateful for everything their life! Michael is the founder and creator of A Plan For Living (sign up for the free app), a digital mindfulness manager and wellness platform. Everyone has problems and Michael’s approach helps people apply gratitude, spirituality and mindfulness to their daily lives. A grateful heart is a happy heart!

The way you choose to perceive “Time” is the foundation for how you see yourself and the world. Suspend your usual thinking while you read this, and really consider the picture of the universe I’m presenting here.

This article must be relatively short, so I’ll jump right in. There is no such “thing” as time. Our experience of time is merely an artifact of our conscious existence here on this earth. So…

When I speak of “Holographic Time” I really mean living in a Holographic Consciousness. When I speak of “Linear Time” I mean perceiving the world through a linear consciousness.

A Hologram is a three dimensional image made with the help of a laser. If you cut the image in half, each half contains the entire image. This is very different from a normal photograph. Every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

Our consciousness, like a hologram, is “naturally” an organic whole that refuses to be divided. If you tear a picture in half, you only have half a picture. When we tear our awareness of reality into pieces, is it any wonder that we don’t have an accurate picture?

Linear time is divided into parts. It is fragmented into past, present, and future. Time is not meant to be fragmented in this way. The “Linear Model” of time is modeled after a “Line”, which is made up of separate and discrete points in space.

When you choose to experience Linear Time, your consciousness is fragmented also. Many illusions and problems occur in our lives because we divide and fragment ourselves.

Holographic time is whole. There is only now, which can never be divided or fragmented. The meanings of the past, and the implications of the future, are all now.

When you choose to experience Holographic time, your consciousness is wonderfully whole. Incredible benefits result from the awareness, focus, and connection of Holographic time.

What are some of these benefits?

You will:

1. Clarify your thinking. Many of our thought-illusions come from fragmented linear thinking. With a holographic consciousness, you’ll simply think more accurately when it comes to decisions, values, goals, and actions.

2. Manifest your dreams in a more powerful way. With a holographic consciousness, you’ll be able to move from “blueprint” to reality more quickly. Hint – the blueprint is real too (just made of finer matter).

3. Create emotional states at will. Linear time generates victim based thinking, where you think your emotions are “caused” in you by others or your surroundings. When you understand that emotions are “ways of being in the world right now”, then you can create what you want.

4. Boost your potential and increase what you are capable of accomplishing. Your goals and desires will naturally become “larger” when in the creative holographic consciousness.

5. Obtain much more peace and centeredness in your life. You won’t be able to live in holographic time 100 percent of your existence in this life, but you can greatly increase it. While you are living in a holographic consciousness, you’ll benefit from the peace and patience. You’ll worry much less about tomorrow.

6. Revitalize your playfulness. The linear time model gives you a more static and “cemented” view of yourself and the world around you. On the other hand, the holographic model is much more flexible and adaptable. This naturally leads to a playfulness as you decide what you want to create with the “putty” of the universe.

Check out my Holographic Time App (for iPhone and iPad) if you want to learn more.

It contains the full audio of my book Realms of Joy: Time of Light (How You Can Master Holographic Time to Gain Extreme Wealth and Peace).

Here are the 14 Chapter Titles for the Audiobook:

Chapter 1. Why Should I Care About Holographic Time?
Chapter 2. What is Holographic Time?
Chapter 3. What is Linear Time?
Chapter 4. Ending Addictions with Holographic Time
Chapter 5. Holographic Time and Jesus Christ
Chapter 6. How to Overcome Fear With Holographic Time
Chapter 7. How to Create Your Desires in Holographic Time
Chapter 8. Creating Emotions at Will in Holographic Time
Chapter 9. Holographic Time and the Desire for Increased Wealth
Chapter 10. Wealth Creation, Effective Action, and Holographic Time
Chapter 11. Holographic Brain Synchronization – A Growth Tool
Chapter 12. Holographic Time and the Use of Language
Chapter 13. Holographic Time, Society, and Planetary Change
Chapter 14. The Beginning of Something Wonderful

There are also 12 exercises in the app:

These will help you to learn about and play with Holographic Time

1. Your Favorite Activities
2. The Powerful Sphere of the Present
3. Find a Present-Oriented Friend
4. Wrapping Up All Meanings in the Present
5. Instantaneous Change
6. Holographic Fear Replacement
7. Manifesting in Holographic Time
8. Let Go of the Story
9. Ten Things You Really Want
10. Holographic Guidance
11. Changing our Language of Time
12. Share the Holographic Time Awakening

The app is only for the iPad and iPhone right now.

Author:Christopher Westra is the author of I Create Reality: Beyond Visualization (how you can use Holographic Creation to manifest your desires).

He is also the author of Realms of Joy: Time of Light (a companion book about living in Holographic Time).

Christopher has several more apps available for iPhone and iPad.

Our stressful, pain-filled experiences are not caused by people or events but by our reactions to them.

Yet, if we will honestly examine the way we presently question our defeats, here’s what we see…

We are still desperately seeking answers that serve only to correct the surface or exterior conditions.

We are still blaming circumstances for crushing us.

The direction of our questions proves that we are still thinking incorrectly about our problems.

This is supremely important to grasp if we wish to change our inner and outer world. By their very nature, our old questions tend to make, and keep, us victims. They imply that someone or something outside of ourselves is punishing us.

No human being is a victim of any punishment outside of their own undeveloped life-level from which their inner reactions are seen as outer attacks.

This is why we must learn to turn our questions into tools for developing self-wholeness instead of letting them lead us off in the wrong direction.

These new questions are the power that defeats defeat. They alone assure total victory. Each time you ask the right question about an inner ache, you receive the new and right result of being released from the dark deceptions that want you to fight, with life.

Here are ten new questions that lead to self-wholeness. Use them to see the difference between how you used to think and how you will question defeat from now on. You will win!

Questions for Developing Self-Wholeness

1. Instead of always asking yourself why things always happen to you, learn to ask: What is it inside of me that attracts these painful situations?

2. Instead of always asking yourself why things had to go this way or that way, learn to ask: Why is the way I feel always determined by external conditions?

3. Instead of always asking yourself how to protect yourself in challenging situations, learn to ask: What is it in me that always needs to be defended?

4. Instead of always asking yourself how to clear up your mental fog, learn to ask: Can confusion know anything about clarity?

5. Instead of always asking yourself what to do about tomorrow (or the next minute), learn to ask: Can there ever be intelligence in anxiety or worry?

6. Instead of always asking yourself why so-and-so acts this or that way, learn to ask: What’s inside of me that wants to hurt itself over how anyone else acts?

7. Instead of always crying out “Why me?” learn to ask: Who is this “me” that always feels this way?

8. Instead of always asking yourself if you’ve made the right choice, learn to ask: Can fear ever make a safe decision?

9. Instead of always asking yourself why doesn’t so-and-so see how wrong they are, learn to ask: Is what I’m feeling about that person right now good for me? Or them?

10. Instead of always asking yourself how to get others to approve you, learn to ask: What do I really want, the applause of the crowds or to quietly have my own life?

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self.

Guy’s annual Talks in the Pines workshop will be streamed LIVE into your home…

Join us from anywhere in the world, with 5 live talks and 2 live meditation sessions led by Guy.

Package includes instant replay and downloads.

Click here for full details…

The amazing possibilities that appear with each present moment are literally beyond thought. After all, as the following examples reveal, the best moments in our lives – those priceless times when we feel most alive – unfold without our taking a single thought about them. Of course!

That unforgettable sunrise we shared with someone we love; some deep heartache released and our soul refreshed on the heels of some unexpected insight; better still, a beauty beyond words when we turned a corner to find a field of yellow flowers flowing alongside a stream.

In moments like these, our sense-dominated mind comes to a full stop, because it stands in the presence of a delight beyond its capacity to contain or otherwise restrain by thought, at times like these, we are left, gratefully, in the living presence of a peace we cannot create.

This special feature of our consciousness, that allows us to be in relationship with the Presence moment, has many names, none of which really matter. For now, let’s call it “conscious awareness”.

What does matter is to see that, when we are within the field of its active light, everything we are aware of is within us in the same moment. Moreover, our awareness of the present moment is one and the same as the Presence within us that grants us that awareness.

While the great promise of this next idea may take a while to understand fully, it is nonetheless true. This revelation literally points to the entrance of an unthinkably confident relationship with life.

The nearer we come to understanding the promise of this insight, the closer we are to knowing a self-command that can’t be taken from us. Here’s why: The awareness of our living relationship with the present moment, our willingness to consciously practice its presence, empowers us to know what’s best for us without having to think about it.

This level of awareness sees what is real and what is not. Its power to command challenging moments derives from its complete innocence. Higher consciousness doesn’t “try” to control events, because its timeless nature is already a partner in guiding creation itself, so what has it to fear?

The more we place ourselves in the presence of this indwelling light, the more we will see small miracles take place before our very eyes. Quiet command over all that unfolds becomes as effortless for us as it is for the spreading light of dawn to chase away morning shadows. An upwelling confidence in the secret goodness of life replaces conflict and self-doubt.

After all, how can we fail to find the fearless life we seek when reality itself points the way!

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

Until we realize that continually identifying with our own conflicting desires about how to win peace of mind is like using a cannon blast to light a candle, we will only remain at war within ourselves, all the while blaming the world around us for its insensitive inability to grant us that imagined peace we so desperately seek!

Let’s illuminate, by example, a few of these conflicting desires and end their power to wreck the soul identified with them. Our peace will follow as sunlight after the passing storm.

One desire we all share is that we want to be loved and approved of by everyone everywhere. To accomplish this, we believe we must be worthy, which requires our becoming a bigger “success” than whomever it is that is seen as competing with us for this craved attention. What other choice have we, given the importance of our task, but to step on a few people on our way to the top?

Can we see how our initial desire causes conflict and actually creates an effect the very opposite of the one it intended at the outset? Living in fear that we won’t win the approval we seek, we have no choice but to do whatever is necessary to accomplish our end. So we hurt others by running over them to reach our goal. We destroy the very love and respect we wanted on our way to winning it!

Another example of secretly conflicting desires is how we all long to think of ourselves as being free and independent of others. Yet, unseen in this want of ours hides another (and contrary) desire to which we are also attached: we only feel like we have reached this elevated state of independence as long as others recognize what we have done! We require others to confirm our freedom!

There are many other examples of such inner contradictions worth witnessing. There is our intermittent desire to be left alone, even as we feel left out or ignored if our friends don’t call us because they miss our company. The point should be as obvious. We suffer from our own cross-purposes and find ourselves unable (at present) to see our way out from under their conflict.

These kinds of worldly desires deliver us into the hands of unseen opposing forces, a condition where the peace of mind we had planned for not only fails to appear, but whose remnants create still new forms of conflict along with their would-be rescuing desires. The truth is self-evident:

One request after another we ask, for what we believe will bring us some measure of peace, only to find ourselves either in pain over what did not materialize, or in fear of losing what we fought to gain. Surely we have seen that certain of our longings please only one small part of us while punishing the rest, like overeating or indulging ourselves with destructive addictions.

It is of little doubt that most of us have tried, in any number of ways, to let go of these deceptive and disturbing desires only to find ourselves overpowered by their overwhelming gravity. Who hasn’t thought they have let go of one problem only to find they have picked up another by mistake? Which brings us to this next important spiritual truth:

We do not have to choose which, or any, of these conflicting desires to let go of; it makes no difference. What we must now see is that whether it is wanting to be approved, acknowledged, or to feel oneself secure in another’s love, all such desires are false in that they have no power to grant us the peace they promise.

We must see that these desires are liars, even though their fires feel real enough. They do not belong to us, even though they are with us everywhere we go. I can almost hear you asking, “How can this be true?” Here is the startling answer. They are not our desires. They do not originate with us, and the will they impose upon us (to fulfill their longings) is not our own.

“Then whose desires are they, if not my own?” They belong to a world that has lost the means to know peace as was always intended, as it is given (to us) to live within. They are the contorted fragments of answers to heartaches that didn’t work in their time, and that were passed along from one generation to the next until they have become so inculcated in us we see them as our own.

All such desires are false answers to equally false aches born out of ignorance of our authentic nature. They belong to a self that has been programmed to search for a sense of success carefully outlined and defined by the values of a world lost to the influences of the Higher Life.

Whoever wins this world loses his way because he unknowingly answers the call of a socially contrived will: a nature that needs its “tomorrows” in order to feel alive today. This sense of self has no existence apart from the future it imagines in which it will be whole at last. Now to these thoughts we must add one more all-important truth:

This unconscious “will of the world” that is at work within us, that always seeks its peace in a time to come, lives in opposition to a will greater than its own. Our careful study of this last insight is pivotal in our search for true peace.

If this will of the world within us, with all of its conflicting desires, is the one true governing power that we have come to accept it as being, and it alone is responsible for one’s providence in life, then there could never arise any conflict between what one wishes for and the arrival of that sought-after state of self-peace. To the contrary, this is not how reality works.

The fact that a greater will exists is revealed to us every day, only we are unable to see it. The evidence of it rests in the very conflict we experience as we yield ourselves to the longings of this lesser will through the pull of the world within us. We could not know the lesser without the unseen presence of the greater that serves to reveal it, just as a shadow proves that a light is nearby.

Our pain in this life because of our misunderstanding of this order of reality is not a “punishment” by the greater of these wills, far from it; we are being invited to give ourselves, to surrender our self, to this greater will so that we may realize that within it already dwells the peace we seek.

Which brings us to this question: Given our present situation, saturated as we are with these worldly desires and blinded to them by their promises of better days to come, where do we find the will, the spiritual strength, to let go of them and give ourselves over to something Higher? Here is the surprising answer:

Learning to let go of the worldly will, now active within us, is not an act of power, but comes naturally on the heels of seeing where it is that we have been deceived into giving away our divine right to be at peace. It is this Higher Self-Wisdom that empowers us to leave our former self behind, that grants us peace, much as spring clouds bring gentle rains to wash everything clean.

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

We human beings are born with an indefinable longing to grow beyond ourselves, to penetrate and illuminate the mysterious depths of our own heart. The ideal and pursuit of perfection is literally seeded into our soul; it pervades our very being.

Our longing to walk among the stars does not seem out of reach; the wish to be eternal goes with us everywhere.

In more down-to-earth terms, if we wish to live without resentments that linger in our hearts and rid ourselves of fear with all of its debilitating limitations, we must shed the skin of our selfishness. We must learn what it means to consciously suffer ourselves without complaint and have compassion even toward those with whom we disagree.

Nothing can stop us from receiving the Niagara Falls of celestial impressions whose light not only serves to reveal the still in the dark character of our undeveloped nature, but also pours into us, all that is needed to evolve beyond it. Now all we need is to learn, and practice, the specialized part we must play in our own transformation.

Say that we’ve worked hard to be more aware of ourselves in the Now, and that for this effort we catch a glimpse of how quick we are to judge others, to criticize them for their “failings.” This pain that strains us, and those we touch with it, is itself a creation of a false sense of our own perfection.

Our awareness of its punishing presence within us is the same as our invitation to transcend the negative nature that is responsible for it. So, if we want to realize the higher level of Self that reveals the need for further transformation, then we have work to do. We must actualize this new level of ourselves by acting from our new understanding in a whole different way.

In each instance where we see that we still have more to understand about ourselves, we must use our lives to become a living example of those qualities of character that we need to learn. In other words, in order to transcend what we have seen as limiting us, we must teach, by example, what we would further understand.

Following are four ways to teach the truths that transform the world we live in, even as we ourselves are transformed by our own actions. It is vital for us to remember that these suggested practices are designed to help us achieve an enhanced spiritual balance in ourselves, even as, through these same actions, we teach others around us about the possibility of living from a whole new order of self-understanding.

1. We teach others when we do not react in alarm to some potentially frightening news or event. The world around us receives the lesson that those events, in themselves, do not have the power to make or break the awakened soul.

Our lesson, if we will teach it, is to see that we need not ride along on our own three-alarm nature that loves getting set off.

2. We teach others when they can see us laugh at our own mistakes. The world around us receives the lesson that there is a big difference between making a mistake and thinking of oneself as being a mistake.

Our lesson, if we will teach it, is to see that any compulsive wish to be seen as perfect in the eyes of the world is a punishment that can never be a part of our true peace and contentment.

3. We teach others around us when we won’t give voice to complaint. The world around us receives the lesson that there are superior ways to handle times of discomfort or disappointment that do not include expressing negative emotions.

Our lesson, if we will teach it, is to see that we can use passing dark states to awaken to and realize an interior wisdom that knows how to use everything for its own growth.

4. We teach others whenever we refuse to psychologically defend ourselves, be this against simple sarcasm or even vicious slander. The world around us receives the lesson that what is true needs no defense and that what is false cannot be defended.

Our lesson, if we will teach it, is the realization that people only feel the need to attack what frightens them and that we need never live in fear of any frightened person.

Our real spiritual development is under invisible laws: To grow, we must learn. To learn, we must teach. To teach we must lead. To lead, we must make mistakes. Making mistakes tills the ground of us, making it receptive to new and higher lessons, and thus the positive spiral completes itself, even as it rises above its original starting point.

Take these suggested exercises and work with them to teach the truths that transform the world around and within you. Make up your own exercises based on the lessons you know that life is asking you to learn. Always strive to remember that anything we work to change in ourselves cannot help but change everything. What can be more promising than that?

Author:Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

Productivity stems from actionable decisions during times of negative thought. Whether a tough client at business, or a rough relationship it’s challenging to be able to pull productivity out of your back pocket. This is especially the case when one’s mind is preoccupied with thought.

Being able to conquer these thoughts is how we evolve as human beings. This evolution comes from a focus on solutions and making progress.

Recognition, acceptance and appreciation are key to being productive.

Let’s dive into this

Recognition without judgment is the first point of understanding. Being able to separate emotions from pure description is something we must all learn.

Take this short story as an example:

You are in line at a store waiting to check out. A woman, clearly rushing, goes right up to the counter, even though it is your turn to pay. You now have thoughts racing to your head. “How rude” or “Who does she think she is” or a “How inconsiderate” flutter in your head.

Recognition

Recognize that this woman’s actions are affecting your thoughts. This is not self-control, for she has taken over your thoughts and you are judging her by calling her rude and inconsiderate. To move past this, we must consider that we do not know the scope of the situation, so judging it does not make sense.

It is okay to have thoughts about why she cut in front, but taking the judgment out is essential to having self-control. You have no idea whether she did that with malicious intent, or she is trying to solve a time-sensitive issue. So, what makes you think you can judge the situation at all.

Taking the time to judge a situation skews one’s thoughts to be non-productive.

Acceptance

Acceptance can come at many times. For some, acceptance may come when one realizes that the woman was going out of her way for her sickly husband, and all she needed was 15 seconds of asking how to deal with the situation. If that information is what you need to relax, then take the information without judging yourself for questioning.

Productive people assess a situation and immediately make a decision.

They refuse to wallow in wondering if they should accept a given situation. They accept it and rapidly move forward. Focusing the mind on another stimulus is a trick to overcome any thoughts. Pull out your phone, check your email, check your calendar. Realize that instead of spending time thinking about this woman, you can be doing something more productive for yourself.

Appreciation

At this point, you appreciate the woman; she is doing a good deed for her husband. She is taking care of someone she loves, and the power of love will make us do anything.

A person who has developed mindful self-control may or may not even question why she jumped the line in the first place. This person will recognize what happened with no judgment, accept the moment for what it is and appreciate life and love all around.

As one waits in line, there is a choice of how to act instead of yelling profanity or something aggressive. One can simply relax, smile and waits for his or her turn, marveling at the world around.

Appreciation can help us with productivity.

The less we focus on negative thoughts, and the more we appreciate the positive ones, the clearer our thinking, and thus the more productive we can be. Being productive comes down to one thing; decisions. If you wallow in thought contemplating and speculating about something, you are wasting your time. Allowing another persons actions to effect your decisions is not a quality of a productive person. Productive people will refocus their energy on something that matters to them, like family, work or even hobbies.

As a mindfulness consultant it is tough to say that even I am cool, calm and collected in every moment. There are times when emotions get in the way, and we act out, in ways that make us unrecognizable to friends, family and even ourselves. I have been the person who yells out his window at someone who cut him off, I have been the person who allows that to bother him the entire ride home.

Through learning about mindfulness I have begun putting thought redirection practices into effect. I realized my time could be better spent. I have overcome my thoughts many times when my inner thought has led me astray from who I am and who I want to be.

Since practicing mindfulness techniques, I have been more productive, less worrisome and overall happier. Remember, you are the most important person in your life, and keeping on track with what matters to you is essential to being productive.

Take some of the solutions and practices mentioned in this post and apply them to your life. Remember, it is all about decisions, and deciding to focus thoughts on yourself rather than speculating about a situation makes you more in control of your thoughts and thus more productive with your time.

As the saying goes, “Keep Calm and Carry On”.

Author: Max is a consultant for Point Above, a mindfulness and leadership consultant agency that aims at helping people and businesses with development into a more focused and productive entity. Through various courses and seminars, any person or company can be a more mindful leader.

Making mistakes in life is one of its inevitabilities, as it’s impossible to transcend any individual limitation without first agreeing to meet it. Such encounters are the path we must walk if our wish is to fulfill whatever may be our divinely dispensed possibilities.

However, the more awake we can be, the more mindful of the whole of ourselves we are before we start moving toward any aim in life, the less likely we are to find ourselves feeling stressed, angry, or fearful over where we end up.

Use the following twenty-one unseen blessings of being mindful to help you realize just how nice it would be to see a pit before you fall into it!

1. If I were mindful, I would never be in a rush…even if I had to move quickly.

2. If I were mindful, I couldn’t leave a mess behind me, let alone create one for someone else to clean up.

3. If I were mindful, I couldn’t be tempted into making the same mistake repeatedly, let alone believe in the sense of regret that always follows.

4. If I were mindful, I wouldn’t have to talk to myself for any reason, let alone explain or justify myself for whatever may have just happened.

5. If I were mindful, I could never say something cruel to anyone, anywhere, for any reason.

6. If I were mindful, I would never judge those around me, let alone myself.

7. If I were mindful, I would be consciously aware of anything I take into myself… whether some kind of food, my own thoughts and feelings, or the emanations of others.

8. If I were mindful, I would lose all fascination with talking about myself.

9. If I were mindful, I would know – without having to think about it – the general, if not the specific inner state of anyone around me.

10. If I were mindful, I could never be made to act impulsively.

11. If I were mindful, I would have no need, whatsoever, to put on any kind of pretense.

12. If I were mindful, I would be able to use the negative manifestation of others for a highly positive purpose.

13. If I were mindful, I would know the difference between wants and needs.

14. If I were mindful, I couldn’t be brought to blame any other person for my pain.

15. If I were mindful, I would know the difference between useful and useless conversations.

16. If I were mindful, I would never embrace, let alone be convinced to hang on to a fear or worry.

17. If I were mindful, I could listen to others without having to inject something about myself.

18. If I were mindful, neither the imagined joy, nor the sorrow of some tomorrow would hold any attraction for me.

19. If I were mindful, I wouldn’t misplace things, let alone my sense of self.

20. If I were mindful, there would be no interest in – or need for – psychologically defending myself.

21. If I were mindful, I would enjoy an effortless sense of gratitude and reverence for life.

So the question is: Given these 21 blessings of being mindful… why in the name of all that is good, holy and divine, do we not place being mindful before all other pursuits? Shouldn’t we dedicate our lives to being as perfectly mindful as it is possible for us to be?

Answer these two questions in the affirmative, act accordingly, and all unseen blessings will be yours. To ignore them is to turn your back on yourself and – with your inner eyes thus closed – to walk in ever-smaller circles, going nowhere but down.

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

Has something within ever told you that “good captains” go down with the ship… suffering the fate of their ship, regardless of the consequences to their soul?

That sinking sensation of being all alone, that dreaded feeling of inadequacy, those worried fearful thoughts… none of them, not a single one of them is your ship! Yes, the feel is real, but the why is a lie.

The only way anyone would ever agree to be defined by such dark thoughts is if he was suffering from a kind amnesia.

Living in this state of spiritual sleep is the same as unconsciously identifying with whatever “uniform” one finds oneself wearing in any given moment, for instance the uniform of:

1. The one who is a perpetual victim

2. The one unable to get a break

3. The one too weak to walk away from what is wrecking you

4. The one who remains in a place clearly wrong for you, but who stays there for fear of finding yourself somewhere worse

Perhaps you can add other false identities to this list, but here’s the main point: each codependent relation-“ship” in which we find ourselves also finds us decked out in the appropriate “uniform” for that role.

With each of these false identities comes the false sense of duty that one must be true to it, even though it may lead to one’s destruction.

These familiar, but totally unconscious roles we play, born from false images formed in us over time, outweigh even common good sense.

Our original intelligence is buried beneath an alluring sense of self-importance, induced in us by having unconsciously identified with a fictitious sense of self.

Once deceived as such, our story, including its inevitable outcome, is all but written for us. We’re left with no other conclusion: “I am the captain, I must adhere to a captain’s duty,” and down we go with the ship!

We must wake up and remember our True Identity, our True Self. For us this means, at the outset, anyway, working to become conscious of what amounts to a consensual relationship with what obviously compromises our best interests.

More than just being complicit in a destructive relationship with someone, or caught in a vicious cycle of substance abuse, we must also agree to see how our fear of what others may think of us makes us fawn before them; or how we think ourselves into some form of daily despair by constantly measuring ourselves against others who seem more successful or happy than we are.

The new and higher understanding we need, to leap from our present state of dependency to one of greater independence, is inseparable from an awareness of our True Self.

Only in its presence, by its will, are we empowered to see, remember, and to act upon what we now know is true: any part of us that accepts, as inevitable, some punishing state is also its perpetrator… which means it is not the “friend-in need” and protector it pretends to be!

The light of this insight is the same as the power we need to see through, and then let go of what is our “enemy in deed.”

It may seem difficult at first, but to see that nothing real stands between you and your wish to be free is the first step towards winning the independence for which you long.

The parts of you that “believe” in your inadequacy, in your inability to make meaningful changes in your life, are also the same ones that send you out looking for solutions to the very suffering they engender.

It’s time to stop believing in any nature that, on one hand, tells you there’s no recourse other than to live in the cage of codependency it creates, while its other hand points to a “time when” conditions will be right and then you’ll be free.

[Excerpted from Guy Finley’s eBook, “Breaking Dependency”]

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. Find out how you can shatter any addiction and break any bad habit in…

Guy’s “Breaking Dependency” package

“I know it’s a mistake looking to someone else for a sense of myself. I really do. Yet, what I don’t understand is why this need for approval runs so deep and so strong. I’ve heard lots of theories, but what I’d really like now is some insight into how I can keep from giving myself away?”

Before we can clear away the invisible obstacles blocking our path to self-possession, we must first understand their real nature. An honest admission of our present condition gives us an excellent place to start.

We seek the approval of others because as long as we think someone else feels good about us, it allows us to feel that way about ourselves as well.

“Well, what could be wrong with that?”

It may help if we look at this confusing condition from a slightly different angle. Let’s see if the way in which we look at ourselves through the eyes of another still sounds as pleasing after we place our new perspective into the form of a probing question: What good is any feeling we may have about ourselves, if it only lasts as long as others agree to it?

“Yes, I see what you mean. There’s certainly a lot more to this issue of seeking approval than meets the eye. What else do I need to know to set myself free?”

Looking for ourselves in the eyes of others throws us behind the walls of a psychic prison. The door slams shut each time we find ourselves feeling good about ourselves simply because someone has given us a needed nod of approval. Let’s investigate this strange sequence of psychological events that leaves us in a prison of our own making.

Whenever someone approves of us, it gives us a feeling we like. These silent emotions tell us that we’re good, wanted, or in some way important. Yet the real pleasure in these sensations is that it secretly serves to strengthen the way we want to feel about ourselves, that we’re worth being cared about, and that our existence has meaning.

“What’s wrong with those feelings?”

If these positive emotions were the true end of a happy story, there wouldn’t be a problem… but they’re never the end. At the same satisfying moment of our being unconsciously identified with this feeling of being approved, something else is happening to us deep within our own uninvestigated nature.

As our approval-provided feeling of self-worth starts to fade, which all such feelings do, we begin feeling as though we too are about to fade away!

If we could only see behind these feelings of fading back into obscurity, what we’d see is that our feelings of self-worth aren’t really disappearing at all. They’re only going through a state of flux, a psychic transformation that turns these once-pleasing emotions into their own undesirable opposites.

Now, the same feelings that had confirmed us only moments before become a source of misgiving, internally questioning us as to our own importance. So we start to worry. Maybe we’re no longer needed? Maybe no one loves us?

As this vicious, invisible, psychological process moves towards its inevitable conclusion, we begin feeling a subtle form of fear, a distant dread.

We’ve all felt that unpleasant inner pressure of a brewing anxiety. It heralds the coming of insecurity and self-doubt, in much the same way as distant thunder warns of an approaching storm.

The stirring of this first dark wave within carries an unspoken message on its winds. It warns us of a serious loss of some kind if we don’t do something right away to shore ourselves up.

“How true! And so we go out looking for approval all over again! No wonder we never break free from this approval seeking business. But what can we do? Is there no way out?”

Yes, there is a way. You must act on our new knowledge.

“What do you mean? What should I do?”

Your new actions won’t be so much what you do as what you don’t do. Here’s the bottom line drawn out for you in three points, followed by an important summary which also includes a special instruction and encouragement.

Never again go looking to another human being for his or her approval.

Never again fawn over anyone to show that you’re on his or her side.

Never again exchange your smile in the hope that someone who is capable of betraying you, won’t.

Summary and Instruction: Face your fear of disappearing, without doing anything about it …and something will disappear, but it won’t be you.

The only thing that will fade from view will be your own fear of fading. As it disappears, what appears in its place, right before your inner eyes, will be the you you’ve been looking for in all the wrong places!

This is the real beginning of having your own life, of being your own person. Only this time, your sense of yourself is coming to you from reality itself. This is the only approval you’ll ever need, the only one that never fades.

“There’s still one thing I’m not sure about. How can it be wrong to want or enjoy the approval and respect of my peers?”

Winning approval and respect from others and wanting it have very little in common. When we’re willing to go the extra mile – to be or to do what is true, especially if there’s a personal cost attached to it – others see our sacrifice and their approval is a spontaneous reaction to seeing excellence in action. Enjoyment of this kind of approval is both natural and non-binding.

However, if our initial wish is to attract attention or applause, then we’re doing what we’re doing for all the wrong reasons. Then we have neither good works, nor respect.

Approval may be awarded, but never sought. The approval we seek makes us debtors of our own fearful feelings – and of whomever makes us temporarily forget these fears.

[Excerpted from “Freedom From the Ties That Bind” by Guy Finley]

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

We all have within us a vantage point – a very special part of ourselves within which we may be at peace regardless of what goes on around us. This yet-to-be realized state of ourselves may be called conscious self-awareness. Through its power, instead of being pulled down into painful identification with the passing shadows of life, we can discover a life in a peace far above the reach of any fear.

One thing needs to be clear about true peace of mind. Either we are at peace wherever we are – because this peace goes with us – or what we call our peace is a product of some pleasurable condition over which we have temporary command. In situations like the latter, though largely unconscious to us, we sense that our peace is conditional. We know that we must work to keep certain prevailing conditions in place in order to remain at peace. Of course, this means that we will resist any movement that threatens our desired state.

Clearly such a tentative peace is not true peace at all, because it dwells side by side, in league with an unseen conflict that is a basic requirement of its existence.

What does this insight teach us? True peace is never a sensation. Its hidden nature is the expression of a timeless stillness, a silence not born of and therefore beyond, the play of the opposites. This silence cannot be possessed. As it cannot be gained, neither can it be lost, which means that whomever it embraces lives in a world free of fear.

What does this mean to us? True silence may be called upon, but as it is without cause, it always appears on its own, remaining only as it pleases its purpose. Nevertheless, one may court this stillness through a quiet wish to understand its life within one’s own.

For this reason, our moment-to-moment meditation becomes a revelation if we open ourselves to truth and listen to what it reveals.

Study the next “Seven Insights Into True Silence” and allow their understanding to reveal the secret home of peace within you. Ponder these truths. Quietly turn them over and over in your mind. Soon you will hear what cannot be told.

1) Just as true emptiness holds all things, true silence bears all things. Whatever is brought into this silence, whatever it touches, is gradually silenced… not by an act of domination, but through a peaceful integration of a lesser peace into a greater one.

2) True silence is an interior presence and not an exterior circumstance. Its peace has no opposite and is not created, which means nothing can act against it or serve to enhance its existence.

3) True silence cannot be cultivated, but the interior conditions that prohibit its presence, and our relationship to the peace within it, may be recognized and released, allowing us to realize the silence we seek.

4) True silence is perfectly empty of content and completely full of peace, without any contradiction between the two.

5) True silence is without preference, and as it neither rejects nor resists any condition, it is always at peace.

6) True silence doesn’t have intelligence – it is intelligence of an order, which a divided mind cannot comprehend. Its peace surpasses all understanding.

7) If we wish for the presence and peace of true silence, then the great necessity of solitude should be as evident to us as the knowledge that any seedling must be left undisturbed, if it is ever to break out of its dark ground and live in the light.

Let all we have looked into together show you that there is a higher world and that this peaceable kingdom of Now dwells within you. Allow your heart to remind you what the mind so easily forgets: there is a peace. There is a shelter. There is a timeless place in each of us that no darkness can shatter or dispel. Make it your one intention to spend your time there. Prefer its ever-present company to that of any promise of peace to come, and watch how your life grows happy and whole in stillness beyond compare.

[Excerpted from “Let Go and Live in the Now,” Red Wheel/Weiser]

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation website and sign up for free to receive Guy’s 8-hour eCourse Seven Steps to Oneness on 8 MP3 downloads.

Some people spend time on acquiring new skills to make themselves more marketable and employment-worthy.

Others are just madly passionate about learning and life-long education.

Whichever category you belong to, one thing is certain: learning a new skill, whether that’s a language or handicraft, changes you for the better.

It’s like a software update for your brain; you’re equipped with new, better, faster, more intuitive tools, and that will definitely improve your life.

Being a student (again) makes you more human

Highly successful people always try to be an expert in their field, to be the best at what they do. But even accomplished people are beginners when they are learning something new – and that’s a good thing. When we learn a new skill, we enter a new dynamic. We become part of a system that considers us vulnerable and prone to mistakes. We are, for once, allowed to lack knowledge and not to be reprimanded for it (unlike within many corporate environments).

Learning new skills is rejuvenating

A popular way to get new thrills is to go on an adventurous vacation. Some people like to buy flamboyant sports cars to bring excitement in their lives. For many successful people, the greatest thrill comes from learning things. Learning is a multi-sensory, multi-modal awakening for the brain. The experience can be truly eye-opening, especially when the new skill requires fine motor skills.

New skills = Better survival prospects

It’s possible that you have all the skills you need right now to get by. For example, you’ll probably be totally fine if you continue to use the “hunt and peck” typing method if your current job doesn’t require you to do a lot of typing. Yet, the thing is, when we hone our skills we automatically improve our marketability, our appeal and even our prospects for survival in the “corporate jungle”.

If you type quickly and accurately you can get your ideas across faster and save hundreds of hours in the course of the fiscal year. Let’s admit it, you’ll feel more powerful and confident when you can take pride in your ability to type out a 2500-word report in under fifteen minutes.

Your brain never stops evolving

When we learn a new skill, our brain biologically changes with immediate cognitive advantages. You might learn to type in order to improve your job prospects and your daily efficiency. However, good touch typing is not the only skill you end up with.

Your working memory will improve and so will your verbal proficiency. Brain synapses, elasticity and connectivity studies explain why when we master a skill, other cognitive skills also improve (inncluding language related ones).

Build brain resilience and openness to learning

The brain is a muscle. The more you practice a specific skill, the better you become at it. What’s more, the more new skills you master, the more effective your brain is in learning and adapting to new skills faster.

Embracing productive failure

Manu Kapur advocates the use of productive failure. Instead of learning with a focused and limited approach, as if you were solving a math problem, you should dive right into solving the problem without necessarily having a fixed plan.

Using this method, it’s possible that you might never get the right solution, yet you will get to understand the nature of the problem, come up with various approaches to fixing problems or reaching goals and potentially learn how to tackle similar issues that you come across in the future.

We can all benefit from learning to be more creative in our problem solving and more radical in our decision-making, overall.

New skills equal new powers

Apart from better, more rigorous brain connections, learning new skills has an immediate impact on our creativity. A new skill informs our entire experience of the world, our body and our mind.

As a result, we get to bring together similarly unrelated bodies of knowledge and come up with exciting new ideas and ways of thinking.

Learning new skills as an adult can be a daunting experience. We fear failure and the possibility of making mistakes or not mastering a skill as fast or as well as we would want. However, this shouldn’t make us self-conscious or reluctant to venture out to learn new things.

Mastery of a new skill boosts your confidence, enhances your creativity and amplifies your other skills and talents. There’s really no excuse for settling for the skills you have, when there are so many benefits to taking up a new challenge!

Author: Chassie Lee is the Content Expert for eReflect – creator of Ultimate Typing and Ultimate Typing EDU which is currently being used by tens of thousands of happy customers in over 110 countries.

A man once awakened to find himself riding through what appeared to be a haunted house. He didn’t know exactly where he was. All he did know was that it was very dark and that he was moving along with no choice as to the direction.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, around almost every twisting corner he knew that something out of his worst dreams was ready to leap out at him. He was about to jump out of the car and run for help when he thought he heard a strong quiet voice speaking directly to him.

“Stay in the car,” it said, “Don’t be afraid. This darkness and its creatures are not real. You don’t have to be brave, but if you want out of this scary place, you must wait in the car until the ride is over. If you jump out now, you will just get out into the darkness. Listen to me. Sunlight is just ahead. You don’t have to do anything except let the ride end.”

He knew something out of the ordinary was happening to him because, right about then, his conventional wisdom would have had him out of the car and running like a wild man for anything that even resembled the way out. In some unexplainable way he sensed he had been in this position before and that this time he must do something altogether new.

And so, instead of listening to his own frantic feelings, he decided in favor of following the strange instructions that had just come to him. Some tense moments that seemed like a lifetime later, he found himself rolling out into the sunlight just as he had been told would happen if he allowed the ride to reach its natural end. To his great relief, it had only been a wild ride after all. Now here is the inner-explanation for this story. Ride it all the way to freedom.

Every sustained effort you make to grow beyond your self, so as to help effect a real change in your present level of consciousness, brings up in you a host of negative thoughts and feelings that can’t wait to point out the negatives as to why this can’t be done. We’ve all heard their whine within. They cry out, “no way,” “why try?” “too tough” — on and on it goes.

Unexamined, these inner-voices appear to have our best interests in mind. But they lie; and to see the truth of this deception is vital in our quest for self-victory.

We need only persist with our wish to wake up, let go, and know the truth of ourselves and — in spite of their vigorous protest — these same resistant reactions will be forced to reveal themselves as the hulking giants of fear and despair that they have always been! They are not your friends. In fact, their only appointed task is to see to it that you turn back. These fierce but fake fiends usually accomplish their task by making you believe that you can’t go any further with them blocking the way.

Now comes the best part. Here is the beauty and the secret way in which higher self-knowledge “rescues” the one who actualizes it. You don’t have to “do” anything else. Your part in the process is done. Just as in the story of the man’s scary ride through the haunted house, all you need to do is to listen to the voice of truth and do what it tells you to do.

Listen now. You don’t have to do anything about what tries to disturb you on your journey to outside of yourself. In fact, like the man in our story, you mustn’t do anything except stay in the “car” of life as it carries you along.

You are safe there — in the conscious awareness of your fears. Now you know better than to run from one scary doubt right into the arms of another. Practice this lesson in perfecting higher patience in the trying moments of life.

Remember: inner-progress is not measured by what you do with any scary thoughts or feelings, but by how well you understand this new instruction: there is nothing that needs to be done with any dark state except for you to stay awake and watchful. Whatever wants to frighten you will eventually fade into the nothingness from out of which it came in the first place.

Let the world inside of yourself go by. All you need do is to act from what you can see is true. Then, just like sunlight, victory comes to you.

[Excerpted from “The Secret of Letting Go” Rev. Edition, Llewellyn]

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization, including his brand new book The Secret of Your Immortal Self. Guy is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post. For more information visit the Life of Learning Foundation and sign up to receive a free helpful newsletter emailed to your desktop once each week.

I recently purchased an air conditioning fan. I had my doubts about it. But after the recommendation of friends, I went ahead and made the purchase. It was the hot season in Thailand. Sweltering heat forced frequent naps and stagnated production.

Our townhouse had an air-conditioner, but a rat, or, a family of rats, and nibbled at the internal wiring, making it inoperable. For the most part, I made due with a fan. But the unending heat soon wore me down.

It was soon clear that the fan was not going to work as promised. Though the sales agent told me it would decrease the temperature by 5°C, it increased the temperature.

We tried all the settings. Even adding copious amounts of ice to thoroughly chill the water. But the result was an increase in humidity — it was like getting into a steam room.

I returned the item. I demanded a refund. As I did so, as I stood in front of that salesman, I was overtaken by an onslaught of angry thoughts. It was as if some long concealed childish version of myself had risen into consciousness and forced his beliefs on to me.

I wanted to completely abandon that air conditioner. To angrily push it aside and to let him know how much I abhorred it and his company. It was a childish tantrum, but nonetheless it had conquered my inner world. Rage was building, and I felt awful.

Yet there was this space inside of me. This awareness of what was going on. The realization that this process was an external entity. It was not a part of me. Just this out-of-date relic that I had once identified with.

In days gone by, I reveled and danced in its madness, burning bridges, destroying relationships, and blindly burying myself in isolation and unhappiness.

It was a marvel to see this process in action and to recognize, from a distant perspective, this device that I long knew existed. But knowing it exists does not eradicate its hold over you. It’s like watching yourself be beaten up. You know you’re being hurt, but you just can’t get away.

Escaping your thoughts is not an instantaneous process. It is something that needs to be continually pursued.

These thoughts are fused into you, and you need to tear away at them. Having seen and felt the damage that they have done to you, all that stands in the way of removing them is time.

The salesman refused to refund the money, but offered to fix the product. I hesitantly agreed. After once again bringing the fan home, I plugged it in and recreated the steam room. I was not happy.

I eventually called the salesman’s superior, for a second time, and demanded a refund. He told me they didn’t do refunds. That I could take it back and they would fix it. That I should have known it would not work very well, for it was not really an air-conditioner.

Tired of hearing his excuses, I told him that if he generally believed in his product and was willing to help out his customer, he could make steps to refund me the money within the next 48 hours. Otherwise, I would leave a negative review and we would both lose. He hung up after implying that he had no intention of refunding me.

I was irate. I had been ripped off, insulted, and had my time wasted. I wanted justice. I wanted this man who had taken advantage of me to face consequences. I began plotting strategies on what to do. Where to complain. How to raise awareness. What words to choose on my future Facebook rant. I envision myself going to his kiosk in order to describe his business by complaining to his potential customers about my bad experience.

Needless to say, I had created a hell inside my mind. I didn’t do it intentionally. I know very well that these thoughts are extremely bad for me. Yet they still come, at lesser and lesser intervals, sweeping me up unaware into their madness. And when they finally let me down, I feel almost breathless, exhausted, but relieved and tickled by the great joke that has once again ensnared me and by the knowledge that with every moment of awareness its hold over me dwindles.

The use of self-inquiry is the greatest weapon in this war against the mind. I had not had such unpleasant thoughts like this for very long time. Yet deep down, these past patterns lay buried.

This episode with the air conditioning fan, though unpleasant, also excites me. It has given me a very real look at my past problems and the confidence to know that they can be eradicated. After all, enjoying life was never really a problem for me.

Problems occurred during those brief times when insanity would override my reality.

Equipped with this great weapon of self-inquiry, I feel encouraged to go out and seek things that bother me – that cause me to bother myself — so that I may further sink into the perpetual happiness that is my true self.

Author: David Ring III is the author of Unclog Your Happiness: A Practical Guide to Living Blissfully.

For most people who I’ve talked to over the years the idea of establishing a regular meditation practice is somewhat daunting.

Part of the problem is that most people who ‘try’ meditation aren’t really meditating. They are merely sitting still with their eyes closed and trying not to think.

That’s a frustrating endeavor, to be sure.

This is because the more you try not to think, the more you are utilizing mental energy.

This means that instead of giving your mind a break, you are forcing your mind to work even harder.

In essence, now you are trying to think your way into not thinking.

Of course the average person is going to believe that meditation didn’t work for them. This is because meditation, like anything else in life worth learning, requires technique.

Yet another problem for many people who want to begin to walk the path of awareness is the daunting idea of committing to daily meditation for the rest of their lives. Although it is one of the most empowering and liberating things that you could ever do for yourself, committing to daily meditation is difficult for most people.

The problem is how to bridge the gap between not having any mind/body practice at all and a life of disciplined, daily meditation.

I have found that a good beginning step for many people who find difficulty making the jump from zero to sixty with regular meditation is to simply do some daily breathing exercises.

This can be done in as little as sixty seconds and have a profoundly positive impact upon your life. In fact, any time you stop to take a couple of deep breaths, you will notice a slight reduction in your stress level as well as a slightly broader perspective on your current life situation.

It’s easy to do and can begin to cultivate the power of awareness in your life.

Basic Breathing Exercise

• Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for 2 minutes.
• Sit down (unless there is no chair, then remain standing) and close the eyes.
• Take two, deep breaths through the nose.
• Exhale all the way out through the nose.
• Sit quietly for an additional 30 seconds.
• You are done, open the eyes and continue on with your day.

Notice how your perspective and awareness has shifted slightly allowing you to see and observe more than before.

For the individual who feels as if they are too busy to begin daily meditation or is daunted by the process this is a great way to begin building a daily mind/body practice and alleviate stress within their lives.

The more often you do this the more you will benefit. You may be surprised to find that certain life situations, whether it is your work, creativity, or relationships, have improved ever so slightly.

It is only logical to assume that if you continue to do this exercise on a daily basis that the benefits will be cumulative.

Author: Christopher A. Pinckley is the street level spiritualist, writer, illuminator, creator of the Emotional Integration Technique, and author of the popular spiritual book Reality Creation 101. His life’s work is to help people to awaken and become present within their lives and businesses. Get yourself a copy of Christopher’s most recent book Alive Awake Aware: Authentic Power Through Spirituality

One of the greatest things to ever happen to me was that I became a writer. Now I don’t mean this was because I started writing or that I found my voice or that I was finally able to express myself.

What I mean is that I became a professional writer and, as a result, had to undergo an intense spiritual journey that would challenge me in ways that I could not conceive of at the time.

In other words, unbeknownst to myself, I had begun to walk the path of authenticity.

When I was fourteen years old I fell in love with fantasy fiction as a way to escape the public school system. For me, school was absolutely torturous and I never fit in with any group. I had some friends here and there, but mostly I was on my own.

During that time I found the power of the written word and its ability to project you into an alternate reality. I read book after book and was particularly enamored with Terry Brooks “Shannara” series which was similar to J.R.R. Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.

I began writing at around age seventeen and focused primarily on my first love which was fantasy fiction. It didn’t get very far, but it was the beginning of a journey that would ultimately resume two decades later.

In an interesting twist of fate, the very thing that I used to escape reality would ultimately make me come face to face with it.

Years later I wrote my first book “Reality Creation 101”. It was a good book, but not a great book. It wasn’t the book that I originally set out to write, but of course I wasn’t ready to write what I originally set out to write.

I needed to undergo further transformation. The confrontation with myself was one I did not expect: hiring an editor.

To this day I believe that being forced to hire and work with an editor was one of the very best things that ever happened to me. It forced me to face myself, to get over myself, to embrace evolution, and to ultimately become authentic. Sure, this is a vast oversimplification of a life path the likes of which would shock most people.

Yet, I couldn’t have become an authentic spiritual writer without walking this insane path. I would have been inauthentic otherwise.

The in-authenticity had to be burned away from me like an outer layer of residue like some form of an alchemical experiment.

Alive Awake Aware: Authentic Power Through Spirituality is the end result of this alchemical transformation and awakening into authenticity.

It represents my desire to create something that can help people to awaken to their own authenticity and a departure from the ‘shiny object syndrome’.

When I wrote this book my intention was to infuse every word and every line with that of consciousness itself.

In my approximation, your life is a pathway upon which you continue to learn, grow, and evolve yourself.

There is no destination, there is only the journey.

Author: Christopher A. Pinckley is the street level spiritualist, writer, illuminator, creator of the Emotional Integration Technique, and author of the popular spiritual book Reality Creation 101. His life’s work is to help people to awaken and become present within their lives and businesses. Get yourself a copy of Christopher’s most recent book Alive Awake Aware: Authentic Power Through Spirituality

Are you going to read this later? It’s ok, I have nothing against distractions or procrastination. Neither do our brains.

But you won’t do it later. Now or probably never. So let the urge to switch to another relaxing event pass.

Are you ready for a practice… it’s easy, no need to dig deep and it’s only about imagination.

Try this:

1. Imagine the most important task and the huge priority you must do now. Let’s imagine it’s really a complex one or frightened or from the unknown area. And you can imagine it will take ages… ok let’s say hours to accomplish it.

2. Second step is: imagine and focus on doing only a small part of this task. It’s the first few second or a minute. Something really easy, a piece of cake.

3. This is the secret hint. Because getting started and getting a movement is the far most important thing that counts.

That’s it. You started. You are not procrastinating. Your brains are warming up. It’s like being an athlete and warm up muscles before the competition. It sounds logical there. And the same is with warming up our ‘brain muscles’.

If you observe yourself you might notice that some intention to leave that task is starting to appear. Almost from nowhere. It’s ok, just observe it. Now focus again on your ‘few seconds’ long task. Do it. Observe your actions.

When I repeated this method for a few times I realized it works well. It’s much easier to focus and act on minor simplified task. So when I’m setting goals, the huge ones, I instantly break them to small ‘minute’ tasks. That’s also why I used to have hundreds of stickers all around my place in the past.

All of the above mentioned can only work if I’m well organized. I don’t care if I procrastinate sometimes. I’m quite aware that my brains need relaxation for a short time.

How do I organize steps to limit procrastination and manage to move all my important tasks?

Before I tell you, I just want to remind you (and me) to keep things simple. Don’t allow to think on a never-ending project you need to start working on, but instead on a pen or table you will use. Focus on searching car’s keys instead on driving 2 hours. And then on radio station you are going to listen while driving, and so on.

Enjoy in simplified steps…. [I exclude setting goals as I mentioned them above]

1. Motivation – work with passion

When I procrastinate it’s mostly because I don’t have the incentive to do the big task. I don’t have the passion to do it. I don’t enjoy. I rather check emails, news and other distractions. They are easier to achieve.
I need to set a list of reminders that help me focusing on big tasks. The awareness of what’s going on is many times more important than solution itself. That’s why I need to remind myself to be aware and start focusing on priorities. That leads me to outsourced motivation.

2. Leverage – set enough Why’s to avoid going back to the past

Right at the beginning of setting goals or daydreaming huge ideas I need to declare myself why I want to do this.

– Is this my passion?

– Will this help me solving my problems?

– Will I be able to work nights and long Mondays even If I think this project is a piece of cake?

Why?

If I don’t have the leverage I will easier start paying attention on new social media feeds or phone calls or any kind of unimportant stuff going on in my surroundings.

When I think of leverage I visualize the moment of accomplished task. It’s a moment of joy. But the problem is I need to remind myself over and over. It seems like these reminders have nothing with living in Now. Well their purpose is to kick my actions on and reach the moment of being rewarded.

3. Reward – take a relax and celebrate minor milestones

Getting all done is far from this moment. I know the good feeling, but it lies somewhere in the future. Still I need to think on rewards of getting things done. It’s another energy I can deliver to me and transform into action. And it’s for free right now.

Relax and procrastinate for a while. That’s far from bad time. Our brains need the time to settle news and to get familiar with. We act and we react differently if we react tomorrow (it’s actually a huge help for decision making). We might avoid arguing as well and that is ok for our project.

Boredom is definitely the necessary filter I need when I have too much information in front of me. So the procrastination is ok when it’s not …

4. Share big task with others or set a public commitment

– If I share my ideas, my excuse and what’s preventing me to achieve goals I find myself in position where it’s more difficult to avoid.

– I can cooperate with accountability partners – those who share similar difficulties with me in order to motivate each other.

– I can share ideas with close friend who I trust and don’t lose the fear of stolen ideas.

– I can post reminders all over my home and write goals and deadlines in my notebook and outlook.

– I can work on my project in public place (e.g. writing book in library or park).

However I need to know why I want to realize this project. Knowing why means to create leverage big enough to not looking back.

If you want even better results from anti-procrastinating ‘race’ watch, this DIY accountability journal trailer (less than 3 minutes to watch & No sound needed). It shows in brief how the analog journal works, why this silent piece of paper is accountable and what kind of incentives provides. You can also learn from the creators manual what the benefits are and how to do journal by yourself.

Author: Life hacker but not a hero. Mat Veni recently wrote about Procrastination. He’ll tell you more later… or if you want better results check this video now. And DIY by using this manual

Note from Thea: please excuse some of the grammar, Carl’s native tongue is not English however the tips below are good.

Your understanding of yourself has a tremendous effect on how you are perceived by others.

Self confidence is incredibly significant in virtually every part of our lives, though a lot of people struggle to achieve it. Unfortunately, this is a vicious circle: people who lack self confidence can discover that it’s almost impossible eventually become successful.

Assured individuals are memorable. Plus, they make everything appear simple. Gaining the assurance of others is among the crucial ways when a self confident person discovers success.

The good thing is the fact that self confidence can be built and actually could be learned. And, whether you are working in your personal assurance or developing the confidence of individuals around you, it is well-worth the effort!

Although most of the variables influencing self confidence are beyond your control, there certainly are several things you can actively do to develop self confidence.

This is a listing of my 13 favored self-confidence-boosting actions. Set one or more beginning today, to work in your lifetime, watching your assurance increase drastically.

Do mirror work
Each day, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I love myself”. This might feel strange in the beginning, but keep at it. After a day or two, improve on this and say, ” what a great person, exceptional and unique”. Carry on this everyday each day, and you’re going to locate your self-confidence building.

Use Positive Confession
Do these or add them into your morning mirror work for an additional boost. Examples of affirmations for self-assurance contain things like, “I ‘m stunning and everybody loves me,” “I ‘m comfortable and serene in social scenarios” and “I feel comfortable with groups of strangers.” some years back, I started each morning, doing 85 avowals before the mirror. It’s the most effective use of 13 minutes within my day.

Visualize
Take time daily to shut your eyes and visualize yourself as confident and at ease. Get detailed in this procedure and actually visualize and feel what it might feel like in the event you had been completely confident and self assured every day. Imagine yourself walking along with your head held high and shoulders back to the shop or the fitness center, making eye contact and smiling at everyone you pass.

Get Yourself Outside Your Comfort Zone
Give at least once weekly to trying something new. You are going to be amazed at how fast you grow applying this technique. For instance, give this week to smiling at a stranger. Commit to carrying it out two times weekly three times weekly as soon as you are feeling comfortable achieving this. You will also feel amazing in and outside.

Practice Extreme Self love and Self Acceptance
Look after yourself every day and in every manner it is possible to. For those who have trouble hanging out with yourself, beginning by making a record to benefit one to shower-you with-love of the matters your perfect partner might do – and do them on your own. As an example, you can buy yourself blooms once weekly, write yourself notes of love and encouragement, consider exceptional attention to your body by consuming healthier and working out, spending some time doing things you like and just take time to sleep daily. Training extreme self love is growing and results in assurance.

Be a Part of a Public Speaking Group
Seventy-five percent of Americans are terrified of public speaking, yet it’s among the most effective methods for the reason that it includes practice being before a bunch, to develop self-assurance. Toastmasters, a renown firm with many clubs world-wide, is an outstanding means of developing social and speaking abilities in a safe, encouraging surroundings. It’s generally token although there’s a fee to join Toastmasters. Most clubs allow guests to go to with quite a few times free of charge. See Toastmasters around the net to find out more and also to locate a club locally.

Keep Behaving it Until You Make It
You do not have to be assured to behave that way. Do not believe me? Check it out yourself; the next instance you feel self conscious, strike a “power pose”: put your shoulders back, stand up straight, and grin. Research shows held a pose similar to this for 2 minutes leads to feelings of authorization and really tells your brain to feel assured. Learn more about dramatic power models in the fascinating, Ted Talk of Amy Cuddy.

Self Esteem Enriching Tasks
One thing people that are exceptionally confident do often is practice actions that build their self esteem. Self Esteem Enriching Tasks (SEETs), could be as easy as choosing to not gratify the essential voice in your mind, or scheduling and attending wellness visits such as a doctor and dentist, participating in wholesome habits like exercise and meditation. SEETs call for a stretch and help us most when they’re attainable. By monitoring them, the effect of SEETs go further. Seeing an inventory of stuff you do for yourself every day develops self worth and positive, strong, day-to-day customs, which lead to well-being and increased well-being.

Dress Decently
Although we aren’t made by clothing, they definitely influence the way we feel about ourself. No one is more aware of your physical looks than you are. It alters the way you perceive yourself and how you socialize with other people, even when you do might not feel too great. By taking care of your personal appearance, make use of this to your benefit. Generally, major progress could be made by simply shaving and by bathing often, wearing clean clothing, and being cognizant of the hottest fashions. Instead of purchasing a lot of clothing, purchase half as many and select the highest quality garments. In the long run, this reduces spending because high-priced clothing remains in fashion for longer and lower priced clothing often wears out more easily. Purchasing less additionally helps decrease the clutter in your wardrobe.

Be Thankful
The mind creates reasons why you cannot have it when you focus too much on that which you desire. This leads one to dwell on his weaknesses. The easiest way to prevent this is actively focusing on gratitude. Set aside time daily to emotionally list, all you’ve got to be thankful for. Remember your previous successes, abilities that are exceptional, loving relationships, and positive impetus.

Take The Front Seat
In offices, schools, and public assemblies all over the world, individuals always make an effort to sit down in the rear of the area. Because they are scared of being seen a lot of folks favor the rear. This represents too little self confidence. You will additionally be less invisible to the significant people speaking in the very front of the area.

Focus on Supporting
Too often we get trapped in our very own want. We focus on our requirements and helping others. Should you concentrate on the contribution you are making to the remaining planet as well as stop thinking about yourself, you will not worry as much about you own defects. This enables one to give with maximum efficiency and increases self confidence. The further you give to the world the more you will be rewarded with acknowledgement and personal success.

Engage In Physical Exercise
Along exactly the same lines as private appearance, physical fitness has an enormous impact on self confidence. If you are out of shape, you will feel not as dynamic, unattractive, and insecure. By working out, you energize yourself to enhance your physical look, and realize something positive.

Author: Carl Preston is the founder of the ultimate self-development site, Why Don’t You Change?. Find here self-improvement tips and FREE eBooks. Register to receive Carl’s newsletter and get a FREE Productivity eBook.

Meditation. What is it? We’ve all heard of it. Maybe you’ve tried it a few times, or if you’re truly dedicated to it, you do it every day. Meditation is one of the best things you can do for yourself, as it has the potential to transform your life.

The first thing we need to do is clear up some common misconceptions. It is not strictly a “Buddhist” or “Hindu” religious activity, although those religions incorporate meditation into their beliefs. In fact, every major religion incorporates some form of meditation in their teachings. If you don’t like the name “meditation,” just go with “quieting the mind” or “mindfulness.”

Scientific studies have shown that dozens of positive effects come from meditation. Over 3000 studies in the last few years have shown that meditation improves happiness levels, decreases stress, lowers blood pressure, increases attention span, relieves depression, etc. If you click here, you will be able to see dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies that demonstrate the incredible benefits of meditation.

There are powerful inner aspects to meditation. A key realization that you will come to as a result of meditation is that you are not your thoughts. You are the awareness behind your thoughts, the “watcher” that notices them.

There are many different ways to meditate. You can should sit cross legged with your eyes open, you can sit in a chair with your eyes closed, lie down, etc. You should meditate in whatever way you want as long as you’re relaxed and not going to fall asleep during the practice.

When meditating, there are very few rules. The goal is to quiet the constantly chattering mind and simply be at peace, allowing yourself to be in the present moment. That’s it. It sounds simple, but as we all know, what’s simple is not necessarily easy.

Once you start meditating, your mind will begin to wander. You will think of what you need to do later on that day, something that happened earlier, etc. This will happen often in the beginning of your practice. A common experience is getting frustrated at yourself for thinking so much, which is unhelpful. Accept that many thoughts will cross your mind during meditation and just let them float by.

Visualization can be really helpful during meditation. I like to visualize a pool of water, and when a thought comes by, the pool of water ripples outwards until the pool is still again. Try whatever works for you. Some people imagine a clear blue sky, and when a thought appears, they see it as a cloud that quickly disintegrates.

For beginners, listening to guided meditations is very helpful. Eventually, you will be able to just be at peace, without many thoughts entering your mind. This allows you to go deeper and deeper into your meditation, giving you a profound sense of relaxation and happiness. Remember, this takes much practice, and you need to fully accept wherever you’re at in your journey.

You have to make meditation a priority in your life; otherwise it simply won’t become a habit. While meditating every once in a while is good, it won’t make much of a difference in your life unless you commit to it and do it daily.

Starting off, you don’t need to commit a lot of time to meditation. To just get the habit started, start off with five or ten minutes daily. It helps if you can incorporate this into your morning or nightly routines so that it can become a habit more easily.

The habit of meditation is not something that you will necessarily notice immediate improvements from. Patience is key here. It takes a couple months of daily practice to noticeably shift your awareness and increase the level of presence and peace you have in your daily life. I can assure you that it is completely worth the time spent, and anyone who’s been meditating for months would agree.

I’ve personally had some amazing experiences while meditating. Many times, indescribable positive emotions flow through me. Flashes of insight and unique ideas come to me. Each time I meditate, I can go for longer and longer periods of time without having any thoughts come up. I promise that you can get to this point and much farther if you commit to a daily practice.

Whenever I talk to people who have been meditating for years, I notice that they are all very calm, and fully present. They seem at peace with themselves and the world. They rarely, if ever, worry about things. These people seem to realize that worrying is mentally creating a possible negative future that doesn’t have any basis in the present moment. These people usually don’t have much of an ego, as they have realized that the ego is just another mental concept.

I started meditating sporadically a few years ago, when I was in high school. I had read about the benefits, and wanted to see for myself. I meditated whenever I could remember to do so, and when I did, thoughts would flood my mind and I was never at peace. I gave up on it for the time being, until I read that the only way for me to receive real benefits from meditation was if I did it daily. I started to do just that, and made meditation a large priority in my life.

I have not looked back since. I’m now noticing many positive results in my life, and I have no doubt in my mind that meditation will continue to improve my life more and more as time goes on. In your meditation practice, remember this quotation by spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti, “Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.”

Since I’m so passionate about how meditation can change anyone’s life, I decided to spread meditation to as many people as possible. I wanted everyone to get a chance to experience the benefits for themselves. I created a meditation service that sends you the world’s best meditation videos for only $5 a month. Check it out at Daily Meditation.

Author: Lars King is passionate about creating businesses that help people grow, whether it’s helping them get motivated, at… yearofmotivation.com or helping them meditate, with daily meditation

Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies.

It’s sad, but true?

Even when we think we’re doing all the right things, our subconscious can sneak out and undo some of our best plans.

As a result, if we don’t first get control of our deeply-rooted urges and addictions to past behaviors, creating our dreams can be a lot like trying to control a bull in a china shop. Not an easy task, right?

So if you feel like you’ve been sabotaging your own success, and can’t quite figure out exactly why or how it’s happening, try these 3 simple steps for building a pen for the bull that might be living in your subconscious mind.

Step 1 – Identify the bull in the herd

Our subconscious is a wonderful place full of ideas, instincts and intuition. These inherent traits make up who we are and how we act. For the most part, they are prized attributes.

But, if your subconscious is sabotaging you, it needs to be wrangled in.

– Spend some time in meditation focusing on what you DO want. – Then, move to the things you already do that can help you achieve those goals. – And lastly, try to identify the habits that are keeping you from success?

If you’re having a hard time identifying your bull or perhaps figuring out which is your dominant bull in the herd (I suggest dealing with one ‘bull’ – or your biggest obstacle – at a time)?

Click here to find out what your number 1 success blocker is with this fun, quick quiz.

Then, once you’ve identified the bull that’s keeping you from reaching success, try to?

Step 2 – Separate the bull from the herd

You should never look a bull in the eyes, nor should we stare down our own inner struggles. Giving focused attention to your obstacle can increase the tension and allow your bull to go wild.

Instead, try to find the root cause.

Some people spend time toiling on the internet or watching TV, but focusing on watching TV won’t change the way you feel or act. Rather, identify the main reason you’re experiencing the problem. Why is it that you feel frustrated, unhappy or anxious? What is the real, ‘deep down’ reason that’s causing you dissatisfaction?

Once you have identified the obstacle (and separated the bull from the herd) next?

Step 3 – Use the bull to grow the herd

After identifying the obstacle, you have a chance to embrace it and use it to your advantage.

You simply need to find a way to meet the needs of your bull-ish urges, while not detracting from your main goals.

Many of us have a need for nearly constant stimulation. I like to listen to music
(rather than watching TV for example) while doing other things to provide that stimulus without completely distracting me from the task at hand.

Whatever you see as being your biggest obstacle, you can always get to a point where it can be neutralized, or even better, used to your advantage.

The best way to get started is to practice visualizing yourself in the life you want, with clear intention and emotion.

And to help you do that, first figure out what your #1 Success Blocker is, so you can more easily attract all of the things that matter to you the most.

What are you waiting for? Get started now

Author: Natalie Ledwell is a Law of Attraction expert, bestselling author and speaker. She also hosts an online TV Show, The Inspiration Show, and is a co-founder of the personal development company, Mind Movies, which offers online courses and coaching programs, like Ultimate Success Masterclass. Natalie is passionate about helping others to achieve their greatest dreams and ambitions through personal transformation.

Find out more about Natalie and Mind Movies by trying her quick Success Blocker Quiz for yourself.

What are the secrets of super achievers? How do they become successful in almost everything they do? Are achievers really born and not made? Why are they on top, while many are not?

These are some of the questions you may ask if you are finding yourself unsatisfied with where you are in your life or in your career. Are any of them familiar to you?

If you have set goals that remain incomplete, or if you have dreams yet to be fulfilled, you will find these 6 secrets of achievers very useful.

Secret # 1: Dream Big.

The saying that “dreaming big sets you up for failure” is deceiving. One of the key qualities of successful people is that they are not afraid to dream big and set the bar high. There is power in big dreams, and none at all in small dreams.

When the dream is not great enough, it becomes easy to give in to problems and difficulties that are bound to get in the way.

When the dream is not big enough, or when you do not want it bad enough, it becomes difficult to maintain the inspiration and determination you get from the thought of achieving it. Dreaming big gives you the courage and patience to push through with your goals, no matter how hard or how long it takes.

Secret # 2: Take Chances.

When you follow a life of passion, you will see that even the Universe will conspire to make things happen in your favor. Good things will automatically fall into place for achievers who have really decided to follow their passion, despite the difficulties and challenges ahead.

But until you muster up all the courage in you and step out, you will never really know what taking chances is all about!

Many people are afraid to take risks and remain comfortable in their current status in life, but you must also remember that that is exactly why their lives remain mediocre. Nothing that they do is ever path breaking! And they have the nerve to complain why life is so boring (or even depressing)!

Imagine what would have happened if Bill Gates or Steve Jobs had not taken the chances they did in life, or if Thomas Alva Edison gave up the invention of light bulb just because he failed! Yes, Edison failed not once, not twice, but more than 10,000 times before he came up with the invention that is lighting up our lives right now!

Secret # 3: Accept Your Circumstances And Be Flexible.

Achievers take responsibility for the good and bad in their life, even when they don’t like it.

Don’t think that you need to be in the right state or situation to be successful. Many of those who have succeeded did not enjoy special circumstances nor have everything going well for them.

To be successful, you have to work hard and smart to get to your destination. You have to take advantage of what you have, make the most out of your situation and work around any challenges you might have.

Secret # 4: Find New Connections.

Opening new lines of communication is crucial. Go out there and meet new people who can help you or inspire you to become a better person.

If you can’t meet new people, at least make the effort to find new role models and learn everything you can about them.

Find out why they were successful and the challenges they have conquered. Learn from their mistakes, so you can save time and effort.

If you have the funds, hire a success coach who already has the experience and know-how to shortcut your journey.

Having new connections is a great way to get a new lease on life.

Secret # 5: Always Strive For Self-Improvement.

In order to increase your chances of success, you must become a better person in all aspects of your life.

Attend seminars that can enrich your knowledge. Read books which can help you improve your strategies.

You can save hundreds or even thousands of wasted hours by learning and applying what has already been proven to work!

Secret # 6: Keep Going, And Going, And Going.

Expect that there will be obstacles and complications in attaining success. Not everyone will be willing to help you. In fact, there will be people who will try to bring you down.

You will also make mistakes and take wrong turns – as not all the books, seminars or coaches have all the answers. When faced with these dilemmas, remember to stay strong, learn from your experiences and just keep going.

The beginning always requires great effort; but once you’ve got the momentum going, it will be much easier to keep it.

These secrets of achievers are not really secrets. Surely you have come across any of these at one point in your life. The real key, however, is to not only read but actually apply them in real life.

Author: Michael Lee has experienced weirdly amazing miracles in his life using the Choose To Believe System. Get free downloads from Choose To Believe, including more than 1 hour of workshop recording at: www.choosetobelieve.net

No one succeeds in life who lives in fear. Fearlessness is first the will to proceed in spite of conditions, and then it becomes a consciousness fixed in us that is beyond conditions. Real success is a fearless state of being in a conscious relationship with an Intelligence that always achieves its ends in spite of changing conditions.

The success that our present nature looks for is to try to find some point in our life where we’re able to put together conditions outside of us sufficiently enough so that we feel fearless. The only way we know to try to achieve this success is by attaching ourselves to something that we imagine, and by the very fact that we’ve done that, we become dependent upon what we’ve imagined remaining in place – which means that we’re right back to having a life that has fear in it.

The more we imagine success, the more fearful we become, and the more fearful we become because of ideas, images, and people in our lives which we say have to remain in place, the more we resist change in them. The more we resist change, the more static we become as a human being.

Unlike every other creature on this earth, you and I are created to be changed, to go through transformations which put us into a new relationship with a different order of life if we have allowed those changes to take place.

Three of the most powerful words in the English language are: I can learn — not learn how to identify with things outside of myself in order to get what I want, but I can learn about the forces inside of myself so that gradually I begin to recognize that the only thing that stands in my way of finding the fearless life is something in me that tells me I can’t.

Out of this persistence, everything changes. We don’t know that everything changes because we only make a tiny attempt at something and then run into our own conclusion that it’s a dead-end street. We then try to find another street we can go down, never knowing that none of those streets go anywhere because they are created by the same mind that produces the dead-end. Mountains crumble before the one who will wait for a passage through them. Persistence is knowing that life changes.

The seasons themselves are the evidence of a Reality that is always shifting, in transition, ever improving itself. I know that if I sit and watch, I will gain new self-knowledge through the observation of the fact that everything is changing. I discover through this persistence connected with self-knowledge (which is born of awareness) that I am in a world of changes but within me exists something that is unchanging because I am willing to watch the changes take place. Then passages open up before me that were impossibly closed because they were closed to the one who sat there with the insistence they open the way I wanted them to.

When we understand that, then we can start letting go of this nature that creates its own passage, and wait for Truth, for God’s Life to create and show us passage through the change. Then our persistence begins to pay off because it is a gateway to a new kind of confidence and success based in the conviction that we have inside of us. It’s a conviction because we have experienced for ourselves that the world changes if we will watch it change. If we try to change it according to what we want however, we will never see the changes that we imagine, and will always wind up a captive of our own imaginings.

Out of this persistence comes the gradual, marvelous recognition that a big part of changing everything is learning to be persistent in waiting for the right moment for me to move through… and I have to be there when it happens. I can’t run for fear that I won’t accomplish what I set out to accomplish.

We live in a world that is established for us to succeed in realizing that within us dwells an Intelligence beyond fear. The whole world is set up so that we can take attention, awareness, self-knowledge, and persistence, and bring them together. We can choose to be in this moment in order to let the moment educate us, without telling ourselves what we want. We let Life, that we have finally found out has a purpose, give us what we need to understand.

Once we experience for ourselves that the universe is actually set up for us to succeed in becoming wise in all things, we realize in that same moment that Reality itself is compassionate. It is founded in Love. With this discovery in us, fear is dissolved because we are no longer apart from life. We don’t have adversaries anymore. We’re not fighting with anything or anyone because we have some idea of scarcity of commodity or consciousness. We have awakened in ourselves to something in us, and it is our knowledge.

This process takes a willingness to dive in and go through it, because as you yield to these principles and they are married up inside of you, you no longer look at life as a series of separate actions taking place. Rather, they are one complete action you can be complete in, and in which you can discover the perfection that is inherent in the center of your being. You find that Love is that wholeness, indivisibility, and recognition that all things good come to those for whom the Good is all things. When you set out to find this truly fearless life, lo and behold, you discover Love, Intelligence… and fear cannot dwell in the presence of this Light.

Author: Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study at which he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit GuyFinley.org, and sign up to receive a free helpful newsletter emailed to your desktop each week.

Click here to download Guy’s Free Self-Realization Starter Kit

“Why is the wind blowing?”, asked the sailor.
“Why did you come upon us?”, he asked the storm.
“Why are you tipping over?”, he asked the boat.
“Why don’t you shut up and do something about it?”, answered his fellow sailor.
Life is like a storm. It comes out of nowhere, takes us by surprise, sweeps us away and crushes the unprepared.
Since we cannot hope to control it, we can only try and navigate its waves.

Fortunately, each one of us has four sails which are more or less under our control:

1. The influences which come into our minds and/or body

This is the first sail and probably the most important. You might think you have little to no control over this one, but you are wrong.
You control whether or not you watch television, commercials, YouTube, movies, etc.
You control whether or not you read books, listen to audio programs, go to seminars, etc.
It has recently come to my attention just how important listening to audio books while commuting is.
How silly of me to not have done so sooner. In the past year alone I could have sucked down more than 500 hours of information. Instead, I used this time to admire the sidewalk and gaze at traffic lights.
We have all kinds of information thrown at us daily. Some of it we can’t control (the tip of our sail belongs to the enemy); but most of it we can.
If you want to improve your life, stop watching nonsense. Cut off all negative influences (including negative people, foods, etc.). You will not miss them.
It’s been years since I’ve last watched television. I do not miss it.
It’s been years since I’ve last played an online game. I do not miss it.
It’s been months since I’ve last eaten something fried. I do not miss it.
It’s been a week since I’ve last watched something pointless on YouTube. Surprisingly, I do not miss it.

2. Our thoughts

For those of you who think you have no control over your thoughts, take a minute to think of something (anything).
Did you do it?
Great, now think of something else.
If you did the above you’ve basically switched your thoughts from one thing to another (you took control of them). This sail has always been in your grasp.
Some thoughts pop up spontaneously in our heads as a result of outside stimuli, our feelings or other thoughts.
However, some thoughts are generated by our conscious minds.
These we can control (so do it).
Catch yourself thinking negative thoughts and use your consciousness to change them to something more positive.
Catch yourself thinking of chocolate flavored ice cream and start thinking of tomatoes instead.
Stop yourself from thinking about who pissed you off at work, television and other such “constructive” things and change your mind to more useful stuff.
The words which I try to make ring most often in my head are “Let’s go!” or “Let’s do this!”
Find your own call to action and yell it in your head 24/7.

3. Our emotions/feelings

Thoughts are easy, but this sail is a bit tricky, isn’t it?
About half this sail belongs to the environment, hence the need to take control of outside influences.
However, the other half (the tip) you can control manually.
For example, right this very moment force yourself to smile. Even though it’s fake, do you not feel slightly better?
Try exaggerating your smile as much as you can. Do you not feel like laughing?
For a very brief period of time, I tried acting.
Although I never saw the stage, I learned something rather interesting.
For those of you not familiar with the art, actors do not just pretend to feel certain emotions.
They actually feel them.
We are no actors, but we can learn from them.
One exercise I tried while acting went like this:
Another person would grab a piece of paper and write on it a sentence such as: “I feel good; tanananana” or “I feel sad; so, so sad!”
Afterwards, I would have to get into the mood it represented and read it.
I noticed that reading the sentence again and again while trying to make myself feel the emotion described worked.
Try this yourself.
Say the word passion again and again.
While you say it, think of how passion would feel like. Actually try to feel passionate.
You will notice that the longer you engage in this activity, the more passionate you will feel.
An actor can generate emotions in seconds, but you can learn to do it in a few minutes (which is pretty good for everyday life).
I still remember finishing my first acting lesson. My head was spinning. I was shocked.
My teacher had asked me to feel and then recite the phrase: “Why? Please don’t leave me.”
After getting down on my knees and reading the line more than 50 times, I was successful.

4. Our actions

A widespread idea in self development is that your inner world reflects your outer world.
Your predominant thoughts and feelings determine your reality.
But there’s a middle man: action.
The actions you take are the result of your thoughts and feelings and it is through action that you shape your world.
You can handle this sail manually by using your conscious mind. Try the following:
Move your hand. Can you do it without thinking about it? Can you do it without feeling like it? Can you just move your hand?
If you can, then I’ll go on a wild guess and say that you can move any other part of your body as well.
Use this power. Take manual control of your body to do the things your self-defeating thoughts and feelings won’t let you.

In conclusion

If you want control over your life, you must take control of the following 4 sails:
You must control the influences which come into your mind and/or body
You must control your thoughts
You must control your emotions/feelings
You must control your actions
How do you do so?
By any means necessary.
The tricks I showed you will help you in this matter, but what will ultimately make a difference is your decisiveness.
Your resolution to take control of yourself will determine your success/failure.
So, make up your mind to take control of your destiny by any means necessary.
After all, it is your future that’s at stake, is it not?

Author: Colisnicencu Daniel is a teacher, karate-ka, writer and entrepreneur. Five years ago, he discovered personal development and vowed to change his life. How many adults have actually grown up and how many of us are overgrown babies? Learn how “big” you actually are at his website: www.growupproper.com

While listening to a cd the other day, I heard a speaker say to be grateful for what you have and to work with it. I thought about what he meant, and the words had a profound effect on me.

Live Now

It seems that so many of us are spending too much time living in the past or the future, that we spend very little time in the right here and now.

By doing this, we are ignoring what we have right in front of us, always looking back to the “good old days” or thinking what you could do “if I only I had x, y or z.”

However, the truth is that we all have the ability to make our lives exactly the way we want, but by focusing so much on how life used to be, or what life could be, we ignore our ability and live a life vastly different than we envisioned. Many of of the people who come to see us for coaching in Capalaba are like this.

Take Stock of What You Have

A good way to begin is by taking stock of all of the wonderful things in your life and being grateful for them. Also be grateful for all the challenges that you face, as it is through those challenges that we grow as people.

Once we know what we want in life, and understand and are grateful for everything that we already have, we can then move forward by removing the things in life that stop us from having the life that we truly desire.

Examine What is True Benefit

When people come to us for hypnotherapy to remove the blocks in their life, we often ask them the question, “How much do you tolerate?” This is to say, everything we do, we do because it will bring us benefit, but of course there are also drawbacks.

My question is which drawbacks can you tolerate? Are the drawbacks negating some or even all of the benefits?

For example, for whatever benefits smoking brings, we will also be likely to suffer from numerous health problems, die younger and have less energy.

Some people say the benefits of smoking are greater than the drawbacks. However, if you say that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, then you have become grateful for the things in your life from which smoking detracts.

It is recognizing this block that lets you live now, and create the life that you truly desire.

Author: Nate Freedman is a team member at Steve Gardiner – Quit Smoking Hypnosis. He enjoys personal improvement, exercise and spending time with family.

Reading enriches your knowledge of fascinating facts and stories and stretches your mind, helping you discover new ways of thinking and acting. Needless to say, reading faster can only improve how much fitter and wiser your brain gets.

In fact, speed reading has some hard-to-miss benefits as it taps into critical thinking, analytical skills, and problem-solving, contributing to a flexible, inquisitive, and stronger intellect overall.

Become an expert

Speed reading lets you become an expert in your industry, or even better, the niche of your choice. The faster you read, the more knowledge and wisdom you acquire, necessary for taking the right steps at the right time.

Reading lets you gradually and steadily become an influential expert in your field. What’s more, it allows you to remain there, progressing and never becoming irrelevant. Needless to say, having an edge boosts your confidence and makes you more credible and influential in the eyes of your colleagues (and your employers!).
Speed reading improves your prestige and expertise; in other words, it let you develop a deep, comprehensive knowledge of your niche and take advantage of it to become an innovator and trailblazer.

Be on top of your game

Speed reading lets you become aware of the latest trends, developments and changes in your industry before everyone else.

When you must daily read blogs, online magazines, newspapers, publications and everything else in between, it’s essential to have a decent reading speed level in order for this task to be efficient and not counterproductive.

This is especially important if you’re in an industry that’s growing fast. With speed reading you can gather the expertise and knowledge necessary for moving up the career ladder and never really losing your edge.

Turn information into something manageable

Reading is no longer time-bounded; you can learn more of what excites you in less time. This substantially increases your knowledge of things that matter to your personal and professional life.

With speed reading, knowledge becomes accessible and easily attained. Especially in this information-laden era of social media and constant online information circulation, being able to digest big chunks of information in less time will skyrocket your expertise.

An immediate benefit of being a potent speed reader is that information becomes timely and manageable, and acquiring it a task that facilitates your progress rather than hindering it.

Nurture your talents

One of the reasons why people refrain from learning new things or getting new qualifications that can advance their career is reading. Reading can be a frustratingly laborious and time-consuming process. With speed reading, however, you can excel in multiple skills and develop new capacities simply due to your ability to read and learn things faster than the rest.

Multiple side benefits of learning to speed read include a better memory, a more advanced focus, and improved analytic skills, such as seeing the bigger picture and connecting new knowledge to existing facts.

In effect, speed reading lets you create an ever-expanding repertoire of knowledge and skills, inevitably making you stand out.

Become a better person

While the other benefits have focused on how speed reading affects your career positively, we can’t ignore the fact that it has other unmistakable benefits for your personal growth and self-fulfillment.

Speed reading stretches your available time, as you can read more in less time. As a result, through speed reading you can take hold of knowledge and wisdom that would otherwise take entire years to accumulate. Consequently, you can quickly advance spiritually, intellectually and at any other level you might wish to.

Efficient reading skills are considered a tool for accessing truths, facts and wisdom, often unreachable through conventional reading speeds.

Becoming a speed reader lets you hone your skills, increase your knowledge, and sharpen your expertise, while concurrently saving you time you can use in constructively advancing your career and personal growth in more tangible ways.

Author: Jovell Alingod is a Project Manager for eReflect, developer of 7 Speed Reading software, a product currently being used by tens of thousands of happy customers in over 110 countries.

If you want to become happy and successful, you need two things:

• A clear, feasible plan outlining your goals
• The perseverance to work toward achieving those goals

To become happy and successful, you first need to know what exactly you want in life and how you will get there.

Life coach, Martha Beck, says that what we need to find happiness and attain success is not some vague goal-setting plan, we need to visualize our successful, happy selves and describe in only three words what that future “us” is like.

She explains that the adjectives we use determine what path our efforts towards success will take. So instead of saying I want to have babies, switch your perspective to a future time in which you already have a baby and describe what kind of emotions and mental states your future self is experiencing. For instance, some people might say “calm, present and caring” are words that describe their future self in that situation.

Focusing on what emotions a goal will bring might even surprise you. When you analyze the words you use to describe your emotions in the future, you might realize that you already can be described using those same words. Have you already achieved the goal of being calm, present, and caring?

On the other hand, you might visualize the future as being chaotic, distracted, and angry – and if your goal is to be calm and caring, then it’s possible that you need to envision another means of reaching that goal. Think of it as a trial and error game, one that you play mentally until you determine your true goals in life.

Describing your future hoped-for success and happiness in adjectives is the first step to discovering how you can reach success and happiness. It will help you:

• Narrow down the work needed to get you there
• Illustrate what circumstances, people and resources you need to achieve it
• Keep you on track when your spirits are low or when you’re struggling

The second step in using words to help define and achieve your goals is to use “power words” that will give you momentum and inspiration. Don’t underestimate the influence language has on your emotional state. Words carry energy and you’re the one who can choose whether that energy will be nurturing and inspiring or negative and undermining.

Power Words That Describe Positive, Energetic Intention
Embrace / Awaken / Breathe / Align / Empower / Inspire / Experiment / Grow / Create
These verbs are dynamic. Inside each word is bold, intense energy that is unleashed into the world when the word is said out loud. These words empower you. They motivate you to work on your dreams and achieve your goals. These action-laden power words will be your little reminders that your goals are as far-reaching as you allow them to be. Any dream can become a reality!

Power Words That Amp Up Your Emotional State
Relaxed / Blossoming / Confident/ Mindful / Hopeful / Serene / Visionary / Responsible / Purified
These words, all of them adjectives, can help you narrow down your emotional state and define its reach. They lead the way for your actions and emotionally prepare you for a journey that can be long and demanding.
Words like blossoming, confident, and purified evoke images of accomplishment, optimism and perseverance — essential for making you feel capable of accomplishing all your goals.

Power Words That Attract Order And Calmness
Wholeness / Simplicity / Minimalism / Spontaneity / Thankfulness / Creativity / Self-preservation
While the previous list of power words focused on how you can find motivation and courage to accomplish your goals, this list of power words targets another essential aspect of goal-achieving: equanimity, purpose and mindfulness.
Words like wholeness and simplicity remind you that no matter how far you are from your goals, you can still take a pause and appreciate the present moment’s gifts, your health, your children, your past successes, your privileges.

These power words, along with the adjectives that you identify which describe your future (or present) happiness and success, will keep you on track and inspire you to attain your goals one step at a time. Not only do they provide perspective, but they also act as little alerts that life is meant to be cherished at every step of the way.

Author: Jovell Alingod is a Project Manager for eReflect – a world leader in self-improvement software for all ages. eReflect strives to provide the best in vocabulary, spelling, typing, and speed reading software. And currently these products are being used by tens of thousands of happy customers in over 110 countries.

All of us have heard our parents or a teacher tell us to, “Do our best”. Throughout our lives, we are constantly challenged to provide our best work and efforts. It then becomes second- nature to strive for perfection in almost every aspect of life. We become our own worst critics, for we can always find areas of improvement. Therefore, work never truly is finished and does not meet perfection. When this takes place, we may feel inferior to other people, worthless, and may be less willing to take on projects in the future because we fear failure. The problem is we have not really failed; we just did not meet our own standard of perfection.

Perfection is a state of mind and something we should never try to achieve. Instead, we should focus on providing our best in the present and move forward. There is always time to change things after the work is finished. There is a big difference between accomplishing a project from hard efforts and being proud of a job being perfect. As long as we move forward and improve in what we offer, we are achieving growth and are succeeding in providing our best work. Through the efforts of perfecting work, we sometimes can get caught up in minute details, which derail or sabotage us from the quality of the work as a whole.

For instance, when I was in high school, I had a final term paper due for school. I had about two months to complete the work and for over a month, I solely focused on my introduction. Then, about a week prior to the term paper being due, I rewrote my introduction again and again, leaving just two days to write a ten page paper on a topic I had not even researched. My parents were mad, because in their eyes, I procrastinated in writing the paper. I was upset at myself for having spent so much time on the introduction. The finished product resulted in a powerful, wonderful introduction that I was very proud of, yet a body I wasn’t proud of, that won me a grade of a “C”. Perfectionism worked against me in this case, because I couldn’t move forward until the introduction was perfect. Instead of focusing on perfection or our best work, we can amend our thinking to: “I will provide my best efforts in the time allotted,” granting ourselves the flexibility to arrange our projects within a given time frame in order to offer a finished product.

Sometimes, perfectionism can cause fear of failure. If we aren’t happy with our work, it becomes very easy for us to believe others won’t be happy with our efforts either. When we start to think in this direction, it can become very destructive to our productivity because we quickly become unmotivated and don’t even try. By not taking action, we are not providing our best work due to our misguided beliefs of perfectionism.

We must allow ourselves to make mistakes. Not every mistake will be catastrophic in nature. Mistakes enable us to grow, learn, and become well-rounded people. One way to overcome perfectionism is to question ourselves on the actual importance of those tiny details to which we give so much credit. For example, most women dream of their wedding way before they are engaged to be married. Many know where they will marry, what their dress will look like, and the kind of flowers that will decorate the hall or church. Months ahead of time, many women focus solely on the invites to the wedding, making sure the writing is just perfect and no one was forgotten on the guest list, the time has now run out to send the invites, so now more work has to be done to reach all of the guests.

Maybe a mistake was found in the invitation where there is a period or comma where there shouldn’t be one. Does it change the sentence structure? Was the sentence still coherent? Will people berate you for that one tiny mistake, or will it be something you can all laugh about in the future? Making mistakes is a part of life, and if someone chose to have all the invites redone, it would be costly and possibly may not reach people in time.

It is, therefore, the thought of one being imperfect that is the problem with perfectionism. Striving to offer our best is not a problem in-of-itself. The problem arises when we believe we are not capable of providing quality work or we get hung up on small details. We begin to sabotage the quality of our work and the things we want in our life when we strive for perfectionism. In short, I am granting you the opportunity to be human and make mistakes, for none of us are perfect, and that is perfectly alright.

3 ways perfectionism sabotages us from achieving our goals and ways to overcome them:

1. The idea of perfectionism is flawlessness, which no human can achieve. This results in feelings of anxiety, inferiority to others, and failure itself.

One way to remove ourselves from perfectionism is to not strive for perfection, but instead offer our best effort in a limited amount of time. When we are finished, then we can go and tweak our work to create a better product and meet our deadlines, so we receive what we desire.

2. Perfectionism does not allow room for mistakes. Mistakes are the building blocks of individual growth and understanding. As children, we learn from our mistakes and become better people. If we always strive for perfectionism and stop ourselves from submitting work because it isn’t perfect in our eyes, we are removing ourselves from the possibility of learning from our work and the feedback we would receive from others.

During standardized tests, we are told that if we don’t know an answer move ahead, finish and then come back to questions unanswered. The same is true in all our endeavors. If we move forward, we can usually come back to certain sections and provide an answer. If we will don’t know the answer, we should make our best guess and move on. Give yourself permission to make mistakes, and don’t beat yourself up over them.

3. The third, and possibly the worst, outcome of perfectionism is a belief that our work is not good enough and believing other people will think the same. When we start to think this way, other people will begin to question projects, not because of the work, but the lack of confidence we have in ourselves and the work we provide. If we start to hear negative feedback, we could quickly become unmotivated, stop progress altogether, or reinforce our fear of failure.

One of the best ways to overcome this outcome of perfectionism is to have more confidence in ourselves and the work we provide. When we are confident and proud of our work, other people will be as well. The positive feedback we receive can motivate us to further provide quality work. We should utilize positive affirmations to uplift our spirits and help achieve our goals.

Author: Brian Bagnall is a top expert on Happiness. He teaches people how to be happy and finally independent by starting their own business and designing their ideal life. Download his Free Report titled “7 Super Simple Secrets to Eliminating Stress & Finding True Lasting Happiness in the Next 30 Days” at www.BeHappyPlan.com

Images: Practice Makes Perfect by Peter Griffin and Invitation by Anna Langova