Self Help That Works...

Don’t live a life you didn’t choose for yourself

2009-04-14T22:22:00.002+00:00

You can design your life rather than letting it run on by default. In this post I’m going to show you 5 simple steps that you can use to actively design your life.

If you don’t design your life you will get to your deathbed feeling that you could have done, been and had so much more. Taking control of your life means that you will create a unique, interesting and satisfying life according to your own standards. Others will be on awe of your level of control and satisfaction and you will be a fantastic role model for your family, your friends and your colleagues.

The way you do this is to set aside a few minutes a day to be alone with your thoughts and to actively design, in writing, your ideal life.

If you read the biographies of great men and women it is clear that they had a clear vision of what they wanted. They may not have written it down, although many have done, but they designed the specifics of their lives and did not allow themselves to get caught up with the day to day trivialities that we all face.

It’s not that they didn’t have to do the mundane chores that are part of everybody’s lives – they did. Where they differed from most of us was that they didn’t let themselves get distracted by the necessities of life. They knew that they had to stay focused on the life they wanted for themselves and how to get there.

If you want to be sure of giving your ideal life the right amount of focus I suggest you do this:

1. Commit right now to spending 5 minutes today focusing on your ideal life.

2. Spend 2 minutes now and write down why you MUST focus on your ideal life. If you can’t think of reasons ask yourself “If I DID know why must I do it?”

3. During your 5 minutes today just pick one aspect of your life, doesn’t matter what it is, and spend the whole time in writing down what it looks, feels, sounds like. Don’t worry about doing it perfectly, just make sure you do it the best you can.

4. Don’t be tempted to go on after 5 minutes – the commitment you made was to 5 minutes and so you should stick to that. If you spend the rest of the day thinking about your ideal life that’s great but don’t keep writing once the 5 minutes is up.

5. Rinse and repeat – complete steps 1 – 4 from now on and see how it impacts upon your life.

In future posts I might elaborate on why I think this simple technique works and share some of the specific ways I spend my 5 minutes but for now try the 5 steps and let me know how you get on in the days ahead.

5 Reasons For Setting Goals - Do it now!

2009-01-04T13:16:00.004+00:00

Why set goals?

The fact is that goal setting works! Research studies have shown a direct link between goals and improved performance in both sports and business.

Earl Nightingale put it this way, "People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. It's as simple as that."

In this post I'm going to answer the questions "why set goals?"

5 Top Reasons to Set Goals

1. Goals can give you a target to aim for.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of the classic Psycho-Cybernetics, said that human beings have a built-in goal seeking "success mechanism" that is part of the subconscious mind. This success mechanism is constantly searching for ways to help us reach our targets and find answers to our problems.

According to Maltz, we work and feel better when our success mechanism is fully engaged going after clear targets.All we have to do to use this mechanism is to give it a target. Without one, our success mechanism lies dormant, or worse, pursues targets we didn't consciously choose.Goals provide your success mechanism with clear targets of your own choosing based on what is most important to you

2. Goals can help you concentrate your time and effort.

One important reason goal setters achieve such outstanding results is that they have learned how to focus and concentrate their time, energy, and resources on a single objective; even if it is just for a few hours at a time. Their concentrated power can produce results that are much greater than those achievable through the diffused and unfocused energy many people use to get through their days.

A clear example of the power of the concentration and focusing of energy can be seen in a simple magnifying glass. The light from the sun arrives at the Earth as diffused energy.We know the energy is there because we can feel the heat from sunlight on our skin. When this diffused energy is concentrated through a magnifying glass, and then focused on a specific point, it can easily burn a piece of paper or wood.

The same amount of energy that in one instance could only produce a very slight increase in temperature, when focused can start a fire.

Another example is the laser beam. When all the light waves from a given source are concentrated so that they are all in phase, we end up with a laser beam. When a laser beam is focused on a given target, the results can be astounding: the light waves from a powerful laser beam can easily cut through a thick piece of metal. When we focus and concentrate our time, energy and resources, we can similarly cut through many of the challenges and obstacles that are standing in our way.

One major time management challenge we are facing today is that there are more things available for us to do than anyone could possibly attempt, let alone accomplish, in an entire lifetime. If we are not careful, it is very easy to diffuse our time and energy with many different trivial pursuits, aimless distractions, and general busyness.Goals provide a way to focus and concentrate your time and energy into carefully chosen targets that are designed to make significant positive impacts in your life.

3. Goals can provide motivation, persistence and desire.

Most significant accomplishments are riddled with obstacles, struggles, and failures. It is estimated that Thomas Edison failed over one thousand times before he finally discovered a way to make the light bulb work.

It is very rare for something important to be accomplished successfully on the very first try.If you want to achieve anything significant, it is likely that you will struggle and fail many times before you finally reach your target. High achievers keep picking themselves up after each fall and continue working steadily toward their targets until they finally reach their goal.

Struggle and failure are often part of the price you have to pay for high achievement.As you can see, any major accomplishment requires motivation and persistence.

Where does this motivation come from? It comes from your desire and purpose, from the reasons why you want to accomplish it.It's been said that a person with a big enough "why" can bear almost any "what" or "how." When your "why" is big enough, you find a way to reach your targets, even if you have to struggle and try many different things to get there.One of the main reasons people give up so easily in the face of failure is that they loose sight of their "why." Goals can help you remember your "big why" when you need to pick yourself up and keep going in the face of adversity.

4. Goals can help you establish priorities.

You will find many forks in the road between where you are now and where you want to be. Instead of just going with the flow and letting the "current" or other people's interests determine where you end up, you have to consciously decide which way to go.

Goals and the missions, visions, and dreams that inspire them, provide a natural framework to help you identify and establish your priorities and make the "right" choices based on the long-term view of what is most important to you.

5. Goals can provide a roadmap to take you from where you are to where you want to be.

A well crafted strategy with an accompanying set of intermediate goals provides a framework to reach far away targets. One of the best ways to deal with large or seemingly "impossible" tasks is to break them up into a series of intermediate achievable steps and get to work on each piece. As Brian Tracy likes to say, "By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch it's a cinch!"Your intermediate goals give you valuable feedback: they tell you whether you are making progress or not, and can warn you if you are getting off course.

In almost any endeavor, you will need to make adjustments to your plans and overall strategy as you learn from your mistakes, face and overcome obstacles, and experience unexpected setbacks. As the old adage states, "No plan survives first contact with the battlefield."Your strategy will also need to change and adapt based on the situations and circumstances you experience.

Note that in all the five reasons above, I say that goals can help you in various ways. In order for goals to help you, they have to be the right kind of goals and you have to use them in the right way.

Now you know the answer to "why set goals?" I will move on, in the next post, to how to set goals.

I can help you...

2008-01-30T22:20:00.000+00:00

I've had a revelation. It's taken me a while to get here but I've just realised something that I should have realised a long time ago.

This blog is almost a complete waste of time.

Why?

Because it's called "Self Help That Works" and if you have landed here THAT'S what you want. It's that simple.

But what have I been serving up? Not that. It's been close at times but it's not been that.

So.

From now on that's what I'm going to give. I can't promise to give it very often but I can promise to give it.

I have some answers. I have answers because I've found ways to succeed during the last...almost 40 years...I'm not going to boast...that comes later :)

So...come back now and then and see how I'm doing.

Watch a movie, change your life: Can films make a difference?

2007-10-14T23:32:00.000+00:00

Linda is a highly functioning autistic woman who loses her only child in a car accident. The cold and emotionally distant stranger who was driving the car comes to apologise and stays until after the funeral. As he watches Linda's different approach to life he lets himself relax more until, by the time he leaves her, he has “thawed”.

That is a brief synopsis of the movie Snow Cake. I watched it last night and enjoyed it. I've been thinking about it today and considering what, if anything, I can learn from the story.

As I have said on this blog before I am a voracious consumer of self help books but lately I've been thinking about other sources of wisdom and “lifehacks”. Movies are such a source.

This is most obvious in children's movies. The lessons in a film like Cars are laid out for all to see, requiring little work from a young mind. Adults usually have to work a little harder when they watch their own films. But the work pays off when you find something that resonates with your own life.

Here are my top 5 films with life lessons:

1. Fight Club

Tyler Durden's speeches are full of overblown rhetoric but I associate with the essence of his comments on modern society. The film didn't make me take up fighting but it did make me question some assumptions about what I wanted for my life and pointed to some answers.

2.Ferris Bueller's Day off

Ferris sums up his approach to life with “Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it“. Who could disagree with that? This is about having fun and not worrying too much about the rules just as long as no one gets hurt. I watch this film when I've been taking myself a little too seriously...

3.It's a Wonderful Life

Not only is this the perfect Christmas film it is a great reminder that we can forget our positive impact on others and our world.

4.Touching the Void

I cheated a little in adding this as it's a documentary but Joe Simpson's story of survival is incredible. There are lessons about decision making, achieving your goals and the importance of not giving up in this film.

5.Finding Nemo

In addition to getting childcare lessons from the turtles there are lessons here about being true to your nature yet not being afraid to try something new.

And what about Snow Cake? For me the film was a reminder about enjoying the present moment and to understand that there are many ways of seeing the world.

Buyers' Remorse

2007-09-24T20:01:00.001+00:00

I buy a lot of self help books. I spend lunchtimes browsing the self-help section of Borders and I get a tingle when I see a new one that looks promising. I pick them up knowing how I should examine them; read the index, read about the author to establish their credentials, look for chapter headings and diagrams, read the back cover for testimonials. And sometimes that's exactly what I do.

But sometimes the title or the promise ("Transform Your Life", "Find Your Purpose")creates such a positive emotion that I am going to buy it no matter what my examination reveals.

Sometimes the emotional reaction leads to a good purchase. Mostly it doesn't and I end up reading the same tired self-help cliches for a few chapters before I throw it aside. And it's then that I get buyer's remorse a horrible feeling for someone who prides himself on making rational choices. I don't want to feel that emotion very often in the future but I suspect I will.

Most self-help books are full of platitudes, are overly-long or are written by people who are poor role models for success so I'm likely to experience buyer's remorse again.

So what can we can do to reduce the risk?

Here are my top tips:

1. Spend 5 minutes mentally interrogating the author ("If you are such a massive success why did you sell your book to Crud Publications?" "How long have you been teaching this stuff?"

2. Ask yourself "If I could only take 20% of my library with me if my house burnt down would this book be in my hand?"

3. Check the contents page, chapter headings, diagrams etc for things that interest you. Then do a sample read of a section that looks promising.

4. Promise yourself that you will never buy a book without checking Amazon or other online reviews.

5. Make it a rule to give away or sell a self-help book everytime you buy a new one.

6. Think about a self-imposed fast for a month/6 months/12 months.

You never know - I might even take my own advice.

The Four Hour Work Week Is Ruining My Life...

2007-07-25T22:41:00.000+00:00

It's rare that a book nags away at me. Most self help books are instantly forgettable when you put them back on the shelf.

Having now read Tim Ferriss' "Four Hour Work Week" at least 4 times in total (that's not including all the dipping
into read throughs) I can safely say that it won't be going back on
my shelf for quite some time.

I'm not going to review it because others have done it better than I would hope to (I'll add some links to reviews and stuff shortly) but I wanted to point out that you need this book. Whoever you are and whatever you want from your life - you need this book.

So if it's that good why is it ruining my life?

Here's the first bunch of reasons:

1. Most of the ideas Tim presents are simple yet pretty profound and I find myself thinking "Damn, why didn't I think of that before!"

2. I am constantly looking at my own life and wondering how I can get from where I am to where I could be with a little help from the book

3. There are so many little tips and techniques in it that I get mad at myself for not applying them all in my day to day life.

4. His whole "creation of a muse" idea is driving me insane. I want to find a muse or three and quickly so that I can start living a much cooler life.

5. It reminds me to read his blog and that makes me mad as hell when I read about all the cool stuff he's doing :)

There. I've said it.

For those who have been hiding from the internet this is Tim's website... and don't forget to check out his blog.

Knock Knock

2006-11-22T22:44:00.000+00:00

For anyone who may have read this blog before and who might be keeping a watching eye on it...sorry about the slight (7 months?) delay in posting anything new. You know what it's like, sometimes life takes a hold.

Anyway I've been working on some new ideas and have been keeping up my self-help reading so I plan to set out some thoughts over the next few weeks.

So bear with me chaps...

Now I know The Secret...

2006-04-10T21:55:00.000+00:00

I posted a while ago about the hype surrounding a movie called "The Secret". Now The Secret is out and I saw it last night (you can see it on the internet at The Secret).

The movie is basically a slicing together of "teachers" talking about the Law of Attraction, for that is what The Secret is. That might sound tedious but it certainly managed to keep my attention for the duration. I was pretty engrossed in it from start to finish and my pen struggled to keep up with my desire to take notes.

Did I learn anything? It would be true to say that it was mostly nuances on a philosophy with which I am already very familiar. Anyone who has read The Master Key or Think and Grow Rich would not be surprised by anything in the movie. But it re-awaken my interest in the area of how we attract things into our lives.

For me the most challenging aspect of the film was the predominance of Esther Hicks. For those who are unfamiliar with Esther Hicks she claims to channel a group of spirits known collectively as "Abraham". For those of a similar mindset to my own you will already see why I'm "challenged" by that! Channeled by a group of spirits....hmmmmmm.

But having said that what she said seemed to make sense, even without the spiritual overtones. If you go around looking for something the odds are you will find it (my inelegant summary version of the law of attraction!).

Now the question is whether the law of attraction works. In my case the jury is still out. In the movie Jack Canfield speaks persuasively about the law and how it worked in his own life. I'm going to play with the idea of testing it, as Mr Canfield did, and see how it works out.

So go and see the movie people...

Life is not a dress rehearsal

2006-01-22T17:31:00.000+00:00

One of the biggest challenges in our lives, in my opinion, is how remind ourselves, every day, that this is the only life we get (or for those who believe in the afterlife or reincarnation - that this is the only life we get to our knowledge!). Most of us act as if our lives will go on forever and concentrate on what's in front of us which is mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

The challenge as I see it is to remind ourselves daily that our lives will one day end and that we should make the most of them while we still can. It's that sense of true perspective which we miss on a daily basis.

I'm toying with the idea of designing a coloured wristband (similar to Lance Armstrong's Live Strong wristbands) which might act as a daily reminder of our own mortality.

Imagine the things you would do, imagine the fear you'd lose and imagine the love you'd show if you kept that thought ever present in your mind.

Getting Things Done - David Allen

2006-01-19T22:57:00.000+00:00

There is probably just one self-help/personal development book that I would recommend unreservedly to anyone and everyone and that's David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity

I've tried many ways to organise myself and my time and the only method that I come back to time and time again is set out in this book.

When I work the system effectively my life is so much better organised and nothing drops through the cracks.

I particularly like the way that Allen sets out the principles and the methodology behind his thinking but also sets out very specific and practical steps to getting things organised.

I will come back to Getting Things Done (or "gtd" to those who advocate it) on other occasions but my full and thorough review amounts to BUY THIS BOOK!

Rating: 10/10

ps For those who want a taste of the gtd methodology before buying the book the web is full of sites setting out ways to implement the methodology and people's experience of putting it into practice. Some of my favourites are:

43 Folders

Office Zealot

GTD Resource List (someone had some time on their hands...!

"The Game" - not just for pick up artists...

2006-01-16T22:45:00.000+00:00

The Game: Undercover in the Secret Society of Pick-up Artistsby Neil Strauss got quite a lot of publicity in the UK a few months ago and not all of it good.

Neil Strauss, an ex Rolling Stone journalist has written about his experiences of the seduction community. For the uninitiated there is a whole world of professional pick-up artists out there who spend their time honing their techniques on unsuspecting HBs (that's "hot babes" to you and me).

The book is an expose of these guys and their techniques.

I am aware that the book would turn off a lot of people due to its subject matter but I've read it and I loved it!

And I loved it because it's not just about how to pick-up women. If you read it as a guide to how to sell yourself and your services it's a great primer.

I may write more about it at another time but for now I will share with you just a few concepts that can be applied to your life and to your career/business.

One of the big techniques is to Demonstrate Value. You need to show your prospect that it's worth their while talking to you. How many of us do that deliberately with prospective clients or customers? Shouldn't we?

"Style" (Strauss's alter ego) uses the following routine:

1. open
2. Demonstrate higher value
3. Build rapport/emotional connection
4. Physical connection

Ok so maybe we should leave out the physical connection but other than that what a good framework for first conversations with prospective clients!

There are other little nuggets such as "See life obstacles as levels in a video game to get through".

So my advice is - get the book and see how it can be applied to the rest of your life (assuming you don't want to pick people up of course).

Rating : 8/10

The Success Principles - Revisited

2006-01-14T10:15:00.000+00:00

Since I last posted on this book I have been through it quite a few times (dipping in and out).

My overall impression is pretty much the same as it was initially. This is a very good collection of ideas, techniques and exercises. Most of the material I have seen before in various guises so nothing earth shattering in itself but the sort of book that I would keep on my shelf and take down to get ideas about how to handle situations or when I wanted to set goals, visions etc.

It's not a book that has set my heart on fire but a very good collection of stuff and probably an excellent introduction to these ideas for those who, sensibly (!), haven't read the amount of self-help material that I have.

Rating : 8/10

Million Dollar Student

2006-01-09T18:17:00.000+00:00

This morning I read about a student who will make over $1 million from his website. The story of how he came to create the website is a great reminder of how a simple creative thought can lead to success.

Alex Tew used nothing more than a pad and some creative thinking to come up with an idea (in 20 minutes) which has netted him a seriously large amount of money. He's now got more than enough to pay off his student debt, tuition fees and a large tab at the student union bar!

Alex's weblog also gives a fascinating insight into how the whole thing came together.

I'm not suggesting that we can all come up with such a lucrative idea but it reminds us of what is possible for our lives. I'm sure that there are plenty of ideas still unexplored for all of us.

For myself the lesson that I draw from this story is that I can often see success as a complicated path. For Alex Tew it clearly wasn't complicated and maybe it needn't be for the rest of us either.

The Secret and the Master Key

2006-01-07T21:07:00.000+00:00

There has been a lot of buzz on the internet it seems about a TV programme which is due to air across the world in February this year. The website, What is the secret , provides a tantalising trailer.

But what is the secret?

It seems that it might relate to a book by Charles Haanal called "The Master Key". Haanal is one of the faces shown in connection with the Secret.

The suggestion is clearly that wealth and power can be yours if you read and apply the Secret.

At the moment it's hard to see what this programme could be about. It's also possible, I suppose, that it's an elaborate internet hoax but I hope not.

Anyway it's made me find an ebook version of the Master Key that I've had lurking around on my system for some time. I will read it and report back on its contents.

If anyone reads this and wants to be pointed in the right direction for a legitimate free copy of the Master Key I will look out my link.

Steve Pavlina is a wonderful guinea pig...

2006-01-05T21:28:00.000+00:00

Ok so now I've got your attention I'll explain what I mean.

I am an avid reader of Steve Pavlina's blog and his articles generally . It's a great site for personal development with some amazing free articles and blog entries.

And the thing that impresses me most about Steve is that he is prepared to try stuff. He's been trying polyphasic sleep recently and he provides a fascinating series of entries on his experiences.

Now I'm not going to be trying polyphasic sleep at the moment given the demands of my day job (lawyer) but reading about it from Steve has inspired me to consider what I CAN experiment with in my life.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Steve is prepared to be a guinea pig and experiment with stuff that might or might not work and that's one of the reasons why I go back to his blog - I want to see how things turn out and whether I can learn anything from his experiential approach.

It's a nice contrast to the usual self-help approach which is basically "here are some rules/principles which work and which you should apply to your life".

We need more people like Steve who are prepared to just try things out and then report back from the front.

So I say good on your Steve and keep up the good work.

The Success Principles - Jack Canfield

2006-01-04T20:39:00.000+00:00

I bought this book when it first came out and, as is ofen the case, I was very excited when I started reading it.

The first 6 pages have testimonials from people like Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and they are very complimentary about the book.

I have to admit I struggled with it when i firsted started it. I think it was because it's a huge book and each chapter deals with a "success principle" which makes it seem slightly disjointed at first if you are reading it straight through. It went the way of many of my books - I put it to one side and failed to finish it.

But then recently I've come across a few posts on the Tony Robbins Forum ) which have commented very favourably on the book and so I picked it up again a few days ago.

I have adopted, in part, the approach suggested by the authors of the new Mind Gym book and have "speed read" it by reading the first and last paragraphs of each chapter and then the first and last sentence of each paragraph.

This time round I'm a lot more impressed. I see the book as a great compendium of self-help advice. There are some really good chapters on goal setting and discovering your mission as well as time management and relationships with others.

It's too early for me to say whether it works as well as I hope it does but so far so good.

A little about me...

2006-01-04T20:07:00.000+00:00

I have been reading self-help books since discovering Wayne Dyer's "Your Erroneous Zones" at the age of 15. I'm now 37 and in the meantime I've read hundreds of self-help books and listened to hours of tapes and CDs.

Some of the material I've come across has been inspiring and has made some difference to my life, some of it has been useless and trite.

My intention in publishing this blog is to post some thoughts/reviews/comments on the stuff I've read and really to explore that which works.

So the journey begins...