Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelogon/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”
Aldous Huxley

Last night, as I was going to sleep, I thought about the most common question in my inbox: “What are your tips for creating a successful blog?”. And as I thought about it I got an idea. Not about writing about what I have learned about blogging. But what blogging has taught me about life.

So here are 9 life lessons I have learned. Or in some cases healthy reminders of what I already knew. I hope you find something helpful for your life/blog.

1. Don’t wait for inspiration.

The most common question I get from people when I met them in real life and they learn that I do a lot of writing is this one: “How do you come up with all the ideas?”.

Well, I have never been one to rely much on inspiration. If you want to be able to write and produce articles consistently week in aand week out you can’t always wait to get inspired. You just have to work and think. Come up with ideas and drafts. Some will suck, some will not.

I don’t always feel like writing a new article. But I sit down and start writing anyway. And somewhere along the way inspiration and fun pretty much always catches up with me.

Now, how do I come up the ideas?

I have about a hundred drafts with post titles and brief outlines saved in a folder on my computer. By writing it all down I always have some idea to pick up and expand into an article.

After 3 years, I still have an interested in personal development. I have experimented and thought about it a lot. I have read a lot about it. When you really are curious about something and having fun with it then ideas and writing flows a lot easier.

A few more tips for inspiration are:

• Brainstorm. You can often get a good stream of ideas going if you just get started. You may not feel like you have any ideas at all. But as soon as you sit down and start to brainstorm to reach for instance 20 ideas on some topic your mind starts to spit out idea after idea. It’s a bit weird, but after the first idea pop out you often experience a sort of ketchup effect.
• Expose your mind to new ideas. Read a variety of stuff, not just the stuff you are used to. Talk to people about all kinds of things. Follow blogs and people on Twitter that aren’t your usual cup of tea.
• Expose your mind to stillness. If you overload your mind with too much knowledge and ideas you may not only start using it as way to avoid taking action. It can in my experience hinder creativity. Sometimes it’s good to stop exposing your mind to a lot of new information. This can help you digest the impressions you have picked up recently and combine a few of them into cool and exciting ideas.

2. More work. Less talk.

So there is the trap of waiting for inspiration. Also, don’t fall into the trap of talking a lot about what you are about to do. I have found that this just makes it harder to do it. And it can get you stuck in analysis paralysis mode for months as you argue about stuff that is probably irrelevant with other people or just in your own head. Plus, you don’t know much until you do and get some real experience.

So just do stuff. Learn from your failures. Do again.

A week of good work is worth more than a trillion theories that are never put into practice.

3. Learn from people with more experience.

This is so key – in any area of life really – and can really help you to improve quickly and avoid wasting time.

When I started blogging I spent two or three weeks reading lots and lots from the massive archives of Problogger.net. I learned a lot about blogging, marketing, monetization and what you should and should not do. Before I started this blog I knew very little about blogging. After those weeks I at least had a basic education that was very helpful. If you are thinking about creating your own blog or have just started one I recommend reading the big series Blogging Tips for Beginners over at Problogger.

As mentioned above, experience is most important. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Getting a bit of basic education and learning about common pitfalls can cut down on your learning curve in any area of life.

4. You need to set limits and focus on just what is important.

I have cut back on reading blogs, on Facebook and internet in general. When you cut out the less important stuff your mind clears up. It becomes focused. It becomes light and inspired more often.

All of us have a lot of stuff going on. If you never cut out anything of the things you do now, how will you have time to do all that stuff you really want to do? How will you do something in the best way you can if you mind is constantly overflowing with information and stuff you don’t really need that much?

To make room for all the new and cool stuff you want to do it is very likely that you in the end have to let go of some of that old stuff in your life that feels oh so familiar and safe.

5. You get what you give.

I think any social interaction is to a large part about exchanging positive feelings and people giving some kind of value to each other. That value could be helpful hints, hugs, a listening ear, something fun or just new photos of Lady Gaga with some strange hat on.

This goes for blogging. This goes for any conversation or interaction.

If you are trying to get other people to always give you more value than you give them – in real life or on your blog – then you suck the positive feelings out of the place. And people will become less and less likely to want to hang around and interact with you.

6. More external validation won’t save you.

Every day I get dozens of messages via comments, email, Twitter and Facebook about how cool some article I wrote was or how awesome my blog or I am. It is pretty nice. Here’s the thing though: after a while your mind gets used to it. You don’t get giddy or overly happy. It becomes a part of life.

Now, some comments or emails make me really happy (usually the ones that are really specific about how some article helped someone to overcome a dark period in their life or solve a problem). And I do appreciate all the kind words. But nowadays I mostly look at it as being happy for the people who said the kind things because I am glad that something on my website could help them and that they are in such a good place that they feel like expressing their appreciation.

But my main point here is that your mind gets used to pretty much anything. So if you think that getting more validation from other people via a blog or some other place will somehow save you then you may be disappointed. It’s all good and nice. But in the end I do believe that the only way to pull yourself up out of not being that fond of yourself or low self esteem is by creating more inner validation of yourself. You can’t find that groundwork outside of yourself.

But you can find it on the inside by for example viewing other people and the world in a kinder light and letting that flow over to how you view yourself too. And by doing what you know deep down is right – taking action, being kind, being positive, acting in a mature way etc. – instead trying to take what may feel like the easy way out.

By doing such things you create an inner spring of validation and positive emotions. You become steadier, calmer and more centred.

7. Ideas and insights are fleeting.

Always keep a pen and paper close by. I don’t know how many ideas I would have never gotten to explore here if didn’t have this habit. If you forget the pen and paper and get some idea, pull out your cell phone and type it down there instead.

8. How you present it makes a big difference.

I changed the design of the blog – to the Thesis theme – a while ago and the rate of added subscribers and the offers from advertisers have increased. The blog looks more professional and therefore I believe it looks more trustworthy now than it did before. It leaves people with a better first impression.

The same thing goes for your clothes. For your appearance. For how you say something – mumbly and barely audible or with a loud and clear voice? – and how you move, sit and use your body.

No, the surface – or what may seem superficial – is not just what matters. But it does have a big impact. Don’t neglect it.

9. Don’t think about what everyone else may think.

If you have a blog then after your first big wave of new regulars has arrived you may start to experience a sort of stage fright. You may think: “Oh, now I have a hundred regular readers, a hundred Joes and Marys waiting for some new content”. And then you start second-guessing yourself and worry that someone will be upset, mock you or that you will somehow screw up big time.

I don’t think too much about how many readers there may be. Or what they will think. When I write I either think about it as discussion that I have with myself or something I am writing to just one reader. Or I just focus on the fun and excitement of the article I am writing and nothing more. Feeding your own fears will not help anyone.

This works the same in any other part of life. Don’t be too concerned about what people may think of you (but of course use your common sense). You can never please everyone. Focus on doing what you think is right instead and on getting approval from yourself.

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“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”
Win Borden

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to improve your life is simply to do things. To take action and learn along the way.

Here are five suggestions for “do-habits” that are very helpful to adopt to radically improve your life.

1. Do it first thing in the morning.

How you start your day tends to have a big influence on that day. It sets the context in your mind. I believe that one key to better consistency and improvement in your life is what you do early in the day. Three ways to get a good start to your day are these:

• A morning routine. Center yourself and get into an organized and productive mindset by adopting a morning routine. The morning routine – you can read about mine and the routines of the readers here – gets you into the right headspace to take on the rest of the day.
• Do the hardest/ most important/ most uncomfortable thing first in your day. If you start your day by doing it you will feel relieved. You feel relaxed and good about yourself. And the rest of the day – and your to-do list – tends to feel a lot lighter and easier to move through. It’s amazing what difference this one action makes.
• Start small. To get from a state where you just feel like sitting on your chair and doing nothing much to one where you take action over and over you can do this: start small. Getting started with your biggest task or most difficult action may seem too much and land you in Procrastinationland. So instead, start with something that doesn’t seem so hard. One of my favorites is simply to take a few minutes to clean my desk. After that the next thing doesn’t seem so difficult to get started with since I’m now in a more of a “take action” kind of mode. Experiment with this one and the previous tip and see which one that suits you the best. Or mix them up as you wish.

2. Do it one more time.

Don’t give up too soon. It is very easy to give into feeling that you done something enough times and it will never work. You have tried it as many times as you would expect people to do. But these expectations I believe are often a bit unrealistic.
Society, TV and advertising tell us that there is an almost instant solution to any of our problems. You can easily lose 30 pounds within a month. Or with little work and time invested have another extra 20 000 dollars in the bank.

So it is not unreasonable to think that success will come quickly. But instead of doing something as many times as you think others have done it, talk to and read about people who have actually done what you want to do. This will give you a more realistic picture of reality.

Oftentimes you may have to do it more than one more time. But I have often found that doing it just one more time, doing it that extra time even though you may start to feel that this won’t work, can bring the results you want in many cases. I actually feel a little bit of excitement sometimes when I feel like giving up because then I remember that at this point success is often not that far away.

3. Do the unusual thing.

When faced with a choice in your daily life, step back for a minute and think. Then take the option that is and feels unusual for you.

If you often back down just don’t for this one time. If you are often get into arguments with people then just this one time don’t and instead just let it go or treat the other person with kindness. Do the opposite of what you usually do and see what happens (while using common sense of course). Do something new and something you wouldn’t expect from yourself.

This is a fun a great way to get new experiences and learn things you wouldn’t if you kept going like you usually do.

Getting stuck in the same old routine until it becomes a rut can suck the life out of you. Doing the unusual thing in small and big situations, no matter how it goes, is a great way to feel alive again.

4. Do less.

How do you find time to do what you really want? How do you not get caught up in minor tasks and fill you day with them?

By setting limits. By being a bit ruthless and cutting down on the least important stuff. At some point you will probably have to be honest with yourself and realize that you can never fit all that you want into your day or week. Something has to go. Not only because it takes up time. But also because you only have so much energy, focus and creativity available during your day. If spend it on the less important things then all of that will be gone each day before you get to the big stuff.

It may not be fun to give up a couple of those TV-shows or hanging out on Facebook. But to make room for something new you sometimes have throw out a couple of old things.

5. Do your best.

Why should you do your best? Why not coast a bit and do just what is expected?

Three reasons:

• You get better results. Sometimes immediately. Often not right away, but as all your awesome work adds up you start to see new and exciting results.
• You raise your self esteem. I already mentioned this in last week’s article. When you do what you think is the right thing – like doing your best – then your self esteem goes up. If you just coast then you tend to feel kinda lame about yourself. So do awesome work and you feel awesome about yourself. Do ok work and feel ok about yourself.
• Deservedness. When you feel awesome about yourself you do also feel like you deserve more in life. So you go after it and you don’t self-sabotage as much when opportunities pop up.

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Image by tbondolfi (license).

“Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.  There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”
J.C. Watts

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”
Henry David Thoreau

One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself and your world is doing what you feel deep down is the right thing.

What is the right thing? Well, that is up to you. Often you have a little voice in your head that tells what the right thing is. Or a gut feeling.

Here are a few suggestions though:

• Being kind instead of being judgmental/ trying to put someone down to feel better about yourself.
• Eating a healthy meal and then going to the gym instead of lying on the couch eating chips and watching TV.
• Doing the dishes and other chores instead of slacking off.
• Putting a stop to feeling like a victim with everything against you and instead looking at the opportunities and taking action.

It isn’t always easy. So I use these win/win-reasons to motivate myself to do the right thing. If you know why you are doing something and how it benefits you and the people around you then it becomes easier to do. And over time you can become more and more consistent with it.

1. You raise your self esteem.

When you don’t do the right thing you are not only sending out signals out into your world. You are also sending signals to yourself. When you don’t do the right thing you don’t feel good about yourself. You may experience emptiness or get stuck in negative thought loops. It’s like you are letting yourself down. You are telling yourself that you can’t handle doing the right thing. To not do the right thing is a bit like punching yourself in the stomach.

But the more you do the right thing on a consistent basis the more you tend to like yourself. Your esteem of yourself goes up.

This is also a cure to the often common habit of being a validation/approval junkie. That’s when you do things to get people to like you, compliment you etc. You want to feel good about yourself so you try to get other people to give you those feelings.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting positive feelings from other people as an extra bonus. But if you have no inner spring of positive feelings about yourself at all then life becomes a rollercoaster of positive and negative emotions. Everyone around you control how you feel and may also wield a big influence over how you think.

By doing the right thing you create that inner spring of validation and positive emotions. You become steadier, calmer and more centred.

2. It feels really good.

One of the simplest ways to create positive feelings within and maintaining them in a steady way is to do the right thing throughout your day. This of course starts a positive upward spiral of positivity not only within you but around you as positive feelings are highly contagious.

3. You get great results.

By doing what you feel is the right thing you focus on creating a better outside and inside while at the same time you cut out less relevant stuff from your inner and outer life.

So you become more focused on doing that is most important to you.

And as with anything you tend to get what you give. When you give value to people, when you help them then they will often want to help you and give you value in some form. Not everyone will do it but many will. Not always right away but somewhere down the line. Things tend to even out.

But most people wait for the other person to do something positive first. Don’t get stuck in that wait that just causes frustration. Be proactive, create a habit of taking the first step, put in the extra effort and you tend to get good stuff back. Don’t do it and you tend to get less good stuff back from the world.

4. Deservedness.

I believe this may be one benefit of doing the right thing that people often forget about. Because is it just enough to get motivated and take action to get what you want?

Maybe. But if you deep down don’t really think you deserve what you go after then you will tend to sabotage for yourself. Perhaps in subtle ways. You may get a gut feeling that this success is wrong and so you start doing stuff that screws things up.

So how do you make yourself feel like you deserve something? Well, you may do affirmations or some other exercise to make yourself feel better about yourself. But I think that what is most potent for your mind is actual proof. When you do the right thing over and over you tell your mind that you are indeed a good person.

And slowly it starts to accept that this is indeed the new truth about you.

The feelings of deservedness are also essential to maintaining a new self image.

When you try to make a big change in your life and make it stick then in some way your self image needs to be changed. You need to start seeing yourself as a healthy and fit person for example instead of couch potato or you will easily slip back into your old habits once again.

Doing the right thing not only in the health area of your life but also for example your work and relationships provides your mind with a ton of proof that you are someone who deserves what s/he want.

Just from my own experience I have found that if I have a day when I do nothing right then it is very easy slip back into old thought patterns. But by doing the right thing in many areas I tend to rarely slip back into old and more negative behavior and thoughts. I become steadier in my new, more positive self image.

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“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Winston Churchill is probably no stranger to anyone. He was an inspirational British leader during the Second World War.

He was also a writer, historian, poet, artist and the only British Prime Minister to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Here are a few of my favorite fundamentals from Churchill on how to improve your life.

1. Focus on what you are doing right now.

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.”

When you start to look too far into the future then any task or project can seem close to impossible. And so you shut down because you become overwhelmed and start surfing the internet aimlessly instead. That is one of the reasons why it is good to plan for the future but then to shift your focus back to today and the present moment.

Then you just focus on taking the first step today. That is all you need to focus on, nothing else. By taking the first step you change your mental state from resistant to “hey, I’m doing this, cool”. You put yourself in state where you become more positive and open, a state where you may not be enthusiastic about taking the next step after this first one but you are at least accepting it. And so you can take the next step. And the next one after that.

The thing is, you can’t see the whole path anyway and it will shift and reveal itself along the way. That’s why the best of plans tend to fall apart at least a bit as you start to put it into action. You discover that your map of reality doesn’t look like reality.

2. Be concerned about action.

“I never worry about action, but only about inaction”

Yes, taking action can lead to failure, rejection or making mistakes. There is always a risk for that. But if you stay in inaction then you are pretty much guaranteed that nothing will change or improve.

How can you improve your action habit though? Three tips:

• Reconnect with the present moment. This will help you snap out of over thinking and just go and do whatever you want to get done. It is one of the best tips I have found so far for taking more action since it puts you in a state where you feel little emotional resistance to the work you’ll do. And it puts you in state where the right actions often just seem to flow out of you in a focused but relaxed way and without much effort.  One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on your breathing for a minute or two. Check out 7 more tips in 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment.
• Lighten up. One way to dissuade yourself from taking action is to take whatever you are about to do too seriously. That makes it feel too big, too difficult and too scary. If you on the other hand relax a bit and lighten up you often realize that those problems and negative feelings are just something you are creating in your own mind. With a lighter state of mind your tasks seems lighter and becomes easier to get started with.
• Start small. To get from a state where you just feel like sitting on your chair and doing nothing much to one where you take action over and over you can do this: start small. Getting started with your biggest task or most difficult action may seem too much and land you in Procrastinationland. So instead, start with something that doesn’t seem so hard. One of my favorites is simply to take a few minutes to clean my desk. After that the next thing doesn’t seem so difficult to get started with since I’m now in a more of a “take action” kind of mode.

3. Be an optimist.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”

Focusing on what helps you sure makes a huge difference compared to if you keep focusing on what is wrong in every situation or what makes you more of a victim. It’s like living in two different worlds.

How do you make the shift to a more optimistic attitude? Well, it takes time. But gradually you can change it. Four of my own most favorite tips are:

• Take care of the fundamentals. This is for me the most important thing you can do to maintain and strengthen your positive attitude. How you eat, sleep and workout is huge factor. A good lifestyle, how you live your life on normal days determine how you feel, think and how much energy you will have.
  For example, exercising and keeping my testosterone levels pretty high consistently – I do that by focusing on free weight exercises that target many and big muscle groups – is a very simple way to get a lot of positive emotions to flow through my body automatically. A good workout always seems to do the trick.
• Positive influences. Fill your mind and emotional system with positive input from people, music and programs/books. Other people’s thoughts have a big influence and emotions are contagious. Limit your time with negative people. Reduce TV or magazines that may make you feel worse about what you don’t own or your body. Or just create fear and negativity within you (for instance a lot of news shows). Limiting negative influences can make it a lot easier to keep the positive attitude up.
• Set the context for your day. What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. We have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. You can use that your advantage in few ways. You can for example do the hardest thing on your to-do list first. When it is done you’ll feel good about yourself and it makes the day feel easier and you’ll have less inner resistance to getting the rest of the tasks of the day done.
• Act as you want to feel. Act as if you are feeling positive. After a few minutes you will actually feel it for real. So smile. Use positive language. And so on. It feels weird at first but it really works.

Just practicing these four things in a consistent way can make a huge difference in your life.

4. Be persistent. Don’t give up.

“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential”

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Since society often tells us to look for quick fixes it’s easy to make the mistake of giving up to soon. After you have failed perhaps 1-5 times. That’s the “normal” thing to do. But what could have happened if someone just kept going after that? And for each failure learned more and more about what works?

I think people often make a mistake of giving up too early. Your mind probably has a reasonable time-frame for success. This might not correspond to a realistic time-frame though.

It’s useful to take a break from advertised perspectives and let more realistic perspectives seep into your mind. Learn from people who have gone where you want to go. Talk to them. Read what they have to say in books or online. This will not give complete plan but a clearer perspective of what is needed to achieve what you want.

Now, that’s not to say that you should never quit. But it can be helpful to keep going on your current path for a while longer.

And that’s not to say that you should do the same thing over and over in exactly the same manner. It’s better to do and get an experience. Take the lessons you can learn from that real life experience. And then adjust how you do things as you try again.

It obviously helps immensely if you find what you really like to do. And what you really, really want. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, to get what you want and to build on inner strengths like persistence.

5. Don’t lose the enthusiasm.

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

It’s very easy to get down on yourself and your results when things don’t go as planned. What was once enthusiasm can quickly become apathy and pessimism.

But how do you do keep up the enthusiasm after things have gone wrong and you just feel like giving up? Well, as I mentioned in the previous fundamental, it certainly helps to have something you really like doing and something you really want.

And the tips found in fundamental # 3 such as keeping your energy up, acting as you would like to feel and keeping away from negative influences work very well here too. A good additional tip is simply to ask better questions in “negative” situations. Instead of asking yourself why this or you suck ask yourself questions that empower you. Questions like:

What can I learn from this?
What is the hidden opportunity in this situation?

6. Remember, most troubles never happen.

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”

One final, quick thought. But a very important one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you think back and remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more worry from your thoughts. This makes it a lot easier to start doing more of what you really want in life. And to move through your day to day life with a lighter, happier and more optimistic attitude.

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/ / CC BY 2.0

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”
Lao Tzu

One destructive habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you create a lot of negative feelings within. And perhaps also outside of yourself.

But how can you stop doing it? Or at least get control of it and use it in a better way? Well, here are five tips that have helped me.

1. Be kind.

The way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself Judge people more and you tend to judge yourself more. Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.

A bit counter intuitive perhaps, but that has been my experience. The more you love other people, the more your love yourself.

So focus your mind on helping people and being kind. This is very helpful to move away from judging yourself and others so much. And instead focus on the positive things in yourself and the people around you. You become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

You are OK and so are they.

2. Don’t fall into the trap of hero worship.

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

When you have some heroes you are likely to think more about the opposite too. And place people into neat and tidy folders. You may create villain-like images of people in your world.

But in truth, things can be kinda messy. Putting someone on a pedestal or making a villain out of them create barriers in your head and life. It may give you a sense of being right. But it can hold you back from positive experiences too.

Openness is in the long run more fun than being judgemental.

3. Just realize that you can’t win.

Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something. Yes, you may feel good for a while when you get a nicer car than you neighbour. But a week or two later you’ll see someone from the next block with an even finer car than yours.

4. Give up both sides of comparing.

If you can’t stop doing the negative comparisons then stop doing them both.

Because if you’re in the headspace where you compare to feel better about yourself then it’s hard to stop it and not also start to compare in way that make you feel worse and inferior. So you may need to step out of that whole comparing habit because the two sides are often connected. Give up the upside to be able to move away from the downside.

5. Compare yourself to yourself.

Instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals.

This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done. You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.

Bonus tip: Use helpful comparisons.

So are there no helpful comparisons that you do between yourself and other people? Sure there are. One exercise I use when I for example feel sorry for myself is to ask myself:

“Does someone have it worse on the planet?”

The answer may not result in positive thoughts, but it can sure snap you of a somewhat childish “poor, poor me…” attitude pretty quickly. I understand that I have much to be grateful for in my life.

This question changes my perspective from a narrow, self-centred one into a much wider one. It helps me to lighten up about my situation.

But if doing such helpful comparisons also leads you to constantly compare yourself to others in a negative way then you may need to stop and give up the comparing habit altogether as I mentioned in tip # 4.

And then later on, sometime in the future, when your mind is more peaceful and positive, you may want to incorporate questions like the one above. Or not. Experiment and find a balance and way that works for you.

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilerin/ / CC BY 2.0

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice”
Wayne Dyer

“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else”
Winston Churchill

If you are reading this then there is good chance that you agree with me that positivity is pretty awesome. But it is not always easy to adopt a more positive attitude and there are some pitfalls. So today I’d like to share a few mistakes that I have made in this area and that I think are fairly common.

1. Thinking 100 percent positivity.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that when you adopt a positive attitude then it’s just on. Like when you flick a light switch. And that would be nice and simple, wouldn’t it?

But in my experience you improve gradually with a few bigger leaps from time to time. For example, today I stay positive for about 80 percent of the time. Four years ago or so, I was probably positive for about 30 percent of the time.

So I have made big improvements in this area. But it has taken years and lots of exploring and work to have a more consistently positive attitude. And the work continues. Mental fitness is like physical fitness. If you let things slide then you get out of shape and then you can’t do the things you used to do.

I think it is very important to be aware that nothing will ever be perfect. Striving for perfection can be pretty dangerous. Because you will never feel like you are good enough.

Even though you may be positive 90 percent of the time you still feel deep inside like you aren’t OK. No matter what you do. You have set the bar at an inhuman level. And so your self esteem stays low even though your results may be very good.

So I think it’s better to just focus on gradually being more consistent instead trying to be perfect.

2. Thinking it’s just about your thoughts.

One good way to become a more positive person is to ask questions that empower you instead of making you feel like a victim. If you are in negative situation you can for instance ask yourself: what is the hidden opportunity in this situation?

So one part of a positive attitude is about learning to think in more helpful way.

But it’s not just about your thoughts.

I have found that one of the best ways to turn around a negative mood or just to remain positive and strong is to work out. After you are done it sometimes feels like you are different person. Doubt and worries just seem to fall away or at least become a lot smaller.

This nice thing about this is that it works kinda automatically.

Because sometimes you just can’t pump up your own enthusiasm or motivation. Or see things from a positive perspective. When working out you don’t have to think or push through such inner resistance. You go and you work out. And most of the time it works like pushing a stress and tension release button in yourself.

Being in pretty good shape and working out a couple of times a week is to me one of the most fundamental and effective things you can do to improve your attitude and life.

You may discover that if you improve this area of your life then many of the tips for how to think in more positive way become a bit superfluous.

3. Can’t let go of the benefits of your current attitude.

At some point you have to make up your mind. Will you go for the benefits of adopting more positive attitude? Or will you stay with benefits of a negative attitude?

Because there are benefits to both of them. It’s not like a negative attitude is something that is just stupid and something people do without any reason. A negative attitude can for example give you this:

• Attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out.
• No risks. When you are negative you can find explanations for why nothing will work. And so you don’t have to take action and have to risk for example rejection or failure.
• A feeling of being smarter and right. A common attitude of very negative people seems to be – and it was in my case – that you think you are smarter than other people. They do, fumble and fail. While you can judge and analyse life and them from a safe distance. It’s not hard to feel smarter than most people when you are always on the sidelines. But it’s not clever. In the end it’s just sad.

So there are a few benefits and quite a bit of pleasurable feelings to be drawn from a negative attitude. But I have found that a positive attitude – although it may sometimes be harder to keep up – is more helpful and just makes life a lot more exciting and fresh.

To be able to have a more consistent positive attitude you will probably have to let go of the negative attitude and those benefits or you’ll get stuck at a certain level. You can find some of the best reasons to adopt the positive attitude and how to do it in this article.

4. Swimming in a sea of negativity.

If you are trying to change your attitude then it’s not very helpful to live in a world where forces try to drag you back to your old mindset each day. It makes it very hard to change.

What you allow into your mind will have a big effect on you. So be selective. If you’re hanging out with negative people all the time then that can really drag you down. It’s not easy to stay optimistic when pessimism is the default mode in your world.

Another part of this is getting hooked on the news and prophecies of the sky falling. The sky is probably not falling.

Consider spending less time with negative voices. Cut back on – or cut out – seeing negative people. Cut back on watching the news or even more spectacularly negative TV-shows. But don’t forget to replace that old stuff you cut out with something more positive instead. If you have a vacuum in your life then you are more likely to revert back to your old habits.

You can for instance replace reading the newspaper in the morning with listening to personal development CDs, watching something fun or just having a good conversation with someone.

5. Confusing positivity with trying to please everyone.

Positivity isn’t about being nice and trying to please everyone. Or accepting everything that people do to you.

Being nice is wonderful thing. But letting people walk all over you and accepting it with a smile and a positive attitude won’t help you.

We do to a large extent choose how we want to be treated. How you expect people to treat you can have a big effect on how you allow yourself to act and how people around you view and treat you. If you start creating a role for yourself where you always let people do what they want to you then you may create some pretty destructive and negative things.

• You may create an identity for yourself where you get used to always taking whatever anyone doles out. You create a kind of victim identity where you may look happy on the outside but don’t feel so good on the inside. But since you have gotten used to it after a while you may accept it and think that: this is just who I am.
• You may create a concept in the minds of the people around you that it’s OK to treat you this way. Either because you seem so positive despite what they are doing so they think it’s OK. Or just because you aren’t saying no and some people may take advantage of that.

Look, you can’t please everyone. I think both Eleanor Roosevelt and Buddha have mentioned something along the lines that whatever you do there will always be people who don’t like what you are doing. And that’s OK. That’s normal.

Going around trying to please everyone at your own expense isn’t healthy though. Or even a realistic thing to attempt. It eats away at you both mentally and physically.

So be nice. Be positive. But make sure you set your own standards, rules and limits too. Combine the positive attitude and smiles with assertiveness and with being proactive. And remember that you might as well do what you want because there will always be critics.

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”Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
Benjamin Franklin

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
Elbert Hubbard

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”
George F. Burns

Worries. They can circle around and around in your head. Becoming louder and louder as they sap your strength and make you feel you weaker. It’s no fun.

So what can you do about it? Here are five timeless thoughts to help you overcome or at least lessen the worries in your life. I hope you find something helpful.

1. 80-90 percent of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
Winston Churchill

“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
E. Joseph Cossman

This is a big one but one that is easy to forget about. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

2. Don’t mountains out of molehills.

“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.”
Swedish Proverb

“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”
Arthur Somers Roche

“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”
Dean Smith

It’s very easy to fall into the habit of making mountains out of molehills. You think and think about a small problem until it becomes something that you believe may ruin your life.

So why do we do it? Why don’t strive to make things easy and simple?

Well, one reason I believe is protection from pain. By making the problem huge can you can invent a helpful excuse to convince yourself to not take action.

Another reason is that the ego wants more. It wants to feel better or worse than someone else. By making things more complicated than they need to be you can make them feel very important. And since you are involved in these important things, since you have these BIG problems, well, then you have to be important too, right? Plus, by doing so you can get a lot of attention and comfort from other people.

So how do you get out of the habit of making mountains of molehills? Three tips:

• Zoom out. Ask questions that widen your current perspective. Questions like: “Does someone have it worse on the planet?” The answer may not result in positive thoughts, but it can sure snap you of a somewhat childish “poor, poor me…” attitude pretty quickly. This question changes the perspective from a narrow, self-centred one into a much wider one and helps me to lighten up about my situation and to be grateful about my life.
• Bring awareness to you own thought patterns. Ask yourself questions like: “Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?” and “What is the simplest and most straightforward solution to my problem that I may be avoiding to protect myself from pain?”
• Realize that much of this is in your head. Your relationships to what you want to achieve are – just like your relationships to people – to a large extent just in your head. Think that something is easy and simple instead of “heavy” and complicated and your perception of that external thing you want to achieve tends to change too. Experiment and find healthy and effective relationships to what you want to achieve instead of just seeing something like many people may do.

3. Let go of that familiarity and certainty.

“Worry is like a rocking chair–it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Unknown

”People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.”
George Bernard Shaw

Whatever you have been doing perhaps for decades feels familiar and comfortable. Even if it may be something destructive as worrying. Taking a leap of faith and going into the unknown, making a change that may turn out to be positive, can feel scarier and more uncomfortable than what you are used to. Even if what you are used to is worse in the long run.

But at some point you have to make up your mind to start letting go of that old familiar part of yourself. You have to fill up the space all that worrying used take up with new thinking. It may feel uncomfortable. It is not so intimately familiar as your past thoughts.

It can be scary and exciting at the same time because now you are not just someone who sees him/herself as worrier and that uses some techniques to lessen that. You are instead making a deep change to who you are, to how you view yourself. You are letting go of something that has been a big part of you and are leaving it at the side of the road.

One great tip that I have learned for making it easier to let go is to first accept it. Then to let it go. When you accept something instead of resisting it you stop feeding more energy into your problem and making it even bigger. A bit counterintuitive.

This is useful when it comes to letting go. If you first accept what you want to let go you aren’t so emotionally attached to it and still feeding it with your focus and energy. And so it becomes less powerful and easier to just drop. As long as you resist it then it will be hard to let it go.

Another helpful hint for letting go is found in tip #1 in this article. All that worrying in your past may not have been very accurate at all. So perhaps it’s a smart choice to let go of that habit?

4. Focus on a solution.

“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.”
Harold Stephen

“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”
Robert Frost

”You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.”
Pat Schroeder

To move out of worry it’s very helpful to just start moving and taking action to solve what you are concerned about.

Two tips that have helped me to take action more consistently are:

Using a morning routine.

This is perhaps the most powerful tip I have found so far in this area. You simply set up a routine in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. As humans we have a strong tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. That’s one big reason why a bad start often leads to a bad day and a good start often leads to a good day. Read all about my and other people’s morning routines in this article.

Focusing on and taking responsibility for the process, not the potential results.

I use this when I workout. I don’t take responsibility for the results in my mind. I take responsibility for showing up and doing my workout. The results have come anyway from that consistent action. And this makes it easier for me to take this action when I know that is all I need to focus on. Instead of using half of the energy and focus I have available on hoping that I “reach my goal real, real soon”.

Focus on the process and you will be a lot more relaxed and prone to continue than if you stare yourself blind on the potential results that never come as quickly as you want to and puts you on an emotional rollercoaster from day to day.

5. Tomorrow will come anyway. Live and fully enjoy here and now.

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”
Leo F. Buscaglia

It may sometimes seem that by worrying we can less the sorrow of tomorrow. But it never works. It only sucks the life out of today and this moment.

To be able to live better today and to be able to take that action to prevent the possible sorrow it’s important to learn to live in the present moment. Because it’s there that you can do things in the best possible way with your focus fully on what you are doing.

Three of my favourite techniques for drawing myself back to the now are these (the first one is the one I use most often right now):

• Focus on what’s right in front of you. Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel. Be still right there and just take in the world around you.
• Pick up the vibe from present people. If you know someone that is more present than most people then you can pick his/her vibe of presence (just like you can pick up positivity or enthusiasm from people). If you don’t know someone like that then I have often recommended listening/watching to Eckhart Tolle in the past. I still do. I especially like his audiobook “Stillness Speaks”. Another guy that I find helpful for picking up presence from is Wayne Dyer.
• Paraliminals. I reviewed these guided meditation CDs during the spring and they have become one of my favourite way for reconnecting with the present. I just plop down on my bed for 25 minutes or so to relax and listen. Afterwards I feel relaxed and energized and my self-talk tends to shut down or decrease significantly for maybe half a day. This makes it a lot easier to be in the present moment and just focus on what is going on right now.

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Sometime during the spring, when I first heard about using fasting from time to time to lose fat I thought it sounded a bit odd.

But then I thought about how people in all kinds of religions have been fasting for thousands of years.

I read a bit about it online and it seemed to be a pretty popular topic on various fitness blogs. Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training – the program I use every week and that helped me to lose 26 pounds – is a fan for example. So I got curious.

So I read a book called Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon (the guy above in the photo). It’s a pretty short and concise ebook at 91 pages.

In it Brad dispels many myths about fasting. He counters the arguments people may use to not try it out – like slowed down metabolism, fear of losing muscle, fear of becoming just too hungry – with facts and research (the book has over 50 references from different scientific studies).

The main idea of this way of losing fat is to fast for 24 hours once or twice per week. This will create a calorie deficit and you will use more energy than you put into your body. And so you lose weight. That’s it.

My Four Week Challenge

First, a quick note on fasting. As Brad writes in the intro to the book: “The information within this book is meant for healthy adult individuals. You should consult with your physician to make sure it is appropriate for your individual circumstances.”

Now, since I had gained back a few of those 26 pounds I lost earlier this year I thought I’d give it try. So I have fasted for two 24 hour periods during the last four weeks. The results? I lost 4 kilos/9 pounds.

I did no cardio exercises – I usually do the bodyweight exercises from the Turbulence Training program – during these four weeks to see how much I could lose without that training. I did however do two 25 minute workouts with free weights per week to maintain my muscle mass and just lose the fat. I did not lose any strength during the four weeks.

So how was it?

Well, pretty unobtrusive and I guess that is the point of this way of eating. You don’t have to prepare special meals. Or constantly think about what you are eating. You just stop eating. Then you just eat again as if nothing happened. It’s a pretty relaxed and very simple way of eating to lose weight.

I had hunger pangs when I usually eat but they dissipated again pretty quickly as I kept busy with work and other stuff. An interesting side effect of fasting is that productivity goes up. When you don’t have to cook food, eat and wash the dishes you can get quite a bit more done during your day of fasting.

I did however notice that it did become harder to focus for maybe four hours before the fast was done. My mind was foggier. I could still work and do some light stuff but for example writing a blog post would be hard.

But the thing is, this way of eating is very flexible. Taking your fasting day on a day when you for example have an important test in school is nothing you need to do. You can take your fast any day of the week, when it fits you and your schedule.

Besides dispelling the myths about fasting and changing how you think about food and fasting Brad also goes into the benefits of fasting from time to time – like decreased insulin levels and increased insulin sensitivity and growth hormone levels – and gives you a how to guide to live the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle with a helpful frequently asked questions section.

Anything to improve?

So I really liked the book and the intermittent fasting. But were there any negatives about it all? Well, nothing major, but I found a few things.

• Plain standard design. Eat Stop Eat is designed with the plain standard white background and black text. That’s totally OK but I hope that perhaps more ebook authors follow the example of for instance Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and add a little more to the design to spruce things up.
• Few food tips. One of the upsides of intermittent fasting is that you don’t have to fret about every meal to get a calorie deficit. However, I would have liked to see a little more about some recommended food and tips for when you are eating so you don’t compensate the calories lost by overeating.

UPDATE: The Special Discount Offer is Now Over.

But you can still get just the the ebook or more more expanded options such as the Advanced package that contains all the items below plus additional audio files.

• The Eat Stop Eat ebook.
• How Much Protein – Brad’s latest ebook – 121 pages – on protein and how much you actually need each day to build muscle.
• The 10 day Diet Solution – Brad’s 25 page ebook on how to overhaul your diet in 10 days, how to erase bad eating habits in less than two weeks and how to avoid the biggest causes of overeating.

Brad offers a 60 Day Money Back Guarantee with no questions asked so there is no risk for you.

Click here to get you own copy of Eat Stop Eat

“There is nothing permanent except change.”

“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.”

About 2500 years ago there lived a man named Heraclitus in the city of Ephesus in Greece.

He lived a lonely life, created his own cryptic philosophy and wasn’t that fond of humanity. Still, he became a big influence on famous stoics like Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.

And he had a few really good words of wisdom that I would like to share today.

1. Envy is a really good way to hurt yourself.

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”

Happiness often seems to be fleeting. But people can hold onto envy and make it even stronger over the course of many years.

But how can you become less envious? Three of my favorite tips are:

Stop comparing yourself to others.

Comparing what you have to what others have is a good way to make yourself miserable. It feeds your ego when you buy a nicer car or get a better job than someone else. You feel great for a while. But this mindset and the focus on comparing always winds up in you noticing someone that has more than you. That someone has an even better job or car than you. And so you don’t feel so good anymore.

A more useful way to compare is to just compare yourself to yourself. Look at how you have grown and what you have achieved. Appreciate what you have done and what you have, how far you have come and what you are planning to do.

Think about what’s in it for you.

I have found this to be helpful in many cases when I have negative thoughts or when I’m behaving in a less than useful way. Basically, I ask myself: “What’s in it for me?” And each time I fall back into that negative headspace and behaviour I remind myself of this question and the answer.

This reinforces to me the pointlessness of what I’m thinking. And often I just think to myself: “Oh, I’m being stupid again. Time to focus on something useful/fun/positive instead.”

Asking yourself what is in it for you is a good way to find distance from your thoughts and behaviour and to motivate yourself to just drop the less useful thoughts whenever you can.

Think about what your envy is telling you.

What you think and feel about the world can often tell you quite a bit about yourself.

So thinking about what your envy tells you about yourself can help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself. Think about what is reflected when you feel envious of someone else.

Is it a fear of rejection? Of not being good enough?

Or a fear that you will lose something/someone/some part of yourself you feel very attached to? If so, why are you feeling so attached?

Try to find a solution or help – from books, people, the internet etc. – for whatever fear or belief within you that you think is making you feel the envy. Ask yourself: “What can the envy reveal about me?”

2. Understanding can not be found in books.

“Much learning does not teach understanding.”

When you read a lot you may think that you understand things. But you never really understand anything until your experience it. Yes, knowledge can help you to avoid pitfalls and improve quicker. But it can’t relate how it feels to experience something. And it can’t relate how you experience something since we are all a bit different from each other.

So you have to take action and do things. And when you start doing things you might also discover that things are often a bit more messy in real life than in books where it may seem like you only have to follow a clean ten step method to get the results you want. But that’s part of the fun of living life rather than just thinking and reading about it.

3. Be like the child again.

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.”

When you were a kid and were playing you were totally focused on what you were doing. You were curious rather than filled with fear. There were no worries about tomorrow or yesterday. You weren’t lost in endless looping thoughts. You were just in the moment.

You tried to learn to ride your first bike. You fell, scraped your knee, got up again. And again. And again. Until you could do it. Failure was just a temporary annoyance, not a reason to give up.

It is a bit funny and at the same time a bit sad how much of what one may strive for through personal development that is about being like a child again.

Because it’s about living in the moment. About not being bogged down by constant, often kinda pointless thoughts that just produce negative emotions within and outside of you. It’s about being open and curious and not getting trapped in your comfort zone or fear.

So I guess that personal growth may not be so much about adding new layers to yourself but to shed some those that you have gained over the last few decades.

All that positive stuff was there in the beginning. You may still reconnect with it from time to time. And you can learn to spend even more time in that wonderful headspace where you are present, positive, open, kind and curious. While still being a responsible adult.

And if you are looking for a good place to start with this, I would recommend to learn to spend more time in the present moment again.

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“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
Brian Tracy

I believe that one of the biggest reasons why people get stuck in reading and discussing things instead of taking action to change their lives for the better is simply that it is uncomfortable.

But to make real changes in your life you have to step outside your comfort zone. At least for a little while.

So how can you make that a little bit easier? In this article I’d like to explore a few tips that have helped me.

Curiosity.

When you are stuck in a bit of fear, when you get stuck in your comfort zone then you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people.

Curiosity on the other hand is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear.

Curiousness also opens you up to gain understanding of something. And with understanding vague, fog-like fears disappear.

The emotions you experience are often a result of what you focus your mind on. Change what you focus on about something and you can change your emotions about that thing.

How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped to discover and experience. And then to work at it. Curiosity is a habit. The more curious you are the more curious you become. And over time it becomes more of a natural part of you.

Develop a habit of mixing things up.

This is related to the previous tip, it’s a way to expand your comfort zone and to keep your curiousness up. I do, for example, try new music every month.

I have a look at the best music on sites like Pitchfork and Metacritic. Then I load a few of those albums on Spotify and listen. You could do the same with food for example and try new things each month.

Such small habits allow you to keep from getting stuck in the same old rut. It allows you to discover a ton of new exciting things. And it’s just plain fun.

Do it in small steps.

What holds us back in our zone of comfort is often a fear or that facing that fear head on might be overwhelming. This is a solution to those two problems. It allows you to stretch your comfort zone and slowly making it less uncomfortable and frightening.

Let’s say you want to be less nervous and awkward in social situations.

To solve that you can take small steps. Steps like first just saying hi to people. And being more involved in conversations at work or in school to exercise your conversation muscles. After a while those things will feel more comfortable. And so you can expand your comfort zone a little bit more.

And so you gradually desensitize yourself to social situations or whatever you are uncomfortable with. You make it the new “normal” for you.

So, identify your problem. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort.

Bring a friend.

If you are going to a party where you know few people then it may be easier to bring a friend. If you have decided to start going to the gym it might be easier to actually get going and keeping going there every week if you have a gym-partner.

However, there are potential downsides to bringing friends too. If you are at the party with your friend then you might not meet and get to know that many new people. If you are going to the gym with a partner it might lead to the two of you talking and focusing less on getting a great workout.

Focus on the positive past.

Realise it can be fun to get out of your comfort zone despite what your mind and feelings might be telling you before you get started. Think back to the previous times when you have broken out of your comfort zone. Focus on the positive memories, when you got out there, when you took a chance. And you will probably remember that it wasn’t so bad, it was actually fun and exciting and something new to you.

A lot of times we automatically play back negative experiences – or negative interpretations of events – in our minds before we are about to do something. And we forget about the positive memories and our previous, positive achievements. Avoid that trap. Let the good memories flow through your mind instead.

Read about it.

Your comfort zone might be protecting your from imaginary dangers. Maybe things aren’t as difficult or scary as you imagine? Do a bit of research. Just getting some good information can, in my experience, dissipate quite a bit of your fear and nervousness.

Accept that it will be uncomfortable.

Even if you do the things above it can still be uncomfortable to step out of your comfort zone. If that is the case, accept it. That discomfort will be temporary and you can always take action and just do it even though you may not fully feel like it.

The thing is if you accept that the discomfort is just there then it tends to become smaller or not so significant. If you on the other hand focus on how hard it is, think about it a lot and create all sorts of drama around it then you feed it with more energy and it becomes so uncomfortable that you can become paralysed from taking action.

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