photo credit: mikebaird

If are you out on the street by yourself, you will probably get the feeling that people driving by in cars think you are somewhat weird. On the other hand, if you are walking down the street with someone else, you suddenly don’t have those thoughts. The power of partnering up with others to do almost anything is something that you want to keep in mind.

Exercise With Someone

There is no shortage of ways to make use of this concept. One involves exercise. If you are a person who will feel socially out of place running on some trail, or at a local basketball court, or at an ice skating rink alone, you will be much more comfortable going with someone. It’s worth it to team up with someone. You don’t even have to be prepared. You could go to the beginning of the hiking trail and find someone else who is going up alone and join them. You could also search online to find others who are hiking in the area, or take a friend. It can make a huge difference if you are not up for doing activities alone.

On the other hand, you could go on your own and risk getting bitten by some person’s dog that wasn’t kept on a leash, even though dogs are supposed to be kept on leashes, and all is well and good until the dog bites someone and then they say “oh my dog was a nice dog”,  but it is too late because the bite already happened, and any excuses about the dog aren’t as relevant as dealing with the injury.  I like to include more entertaining bits like this in articles.

Partner For Your Efforts

Another example is in your efforts. It is great to have an accountabilibuddy who you can put effort in with together. However it is created, it will motivate you to do more than you normally would, and you will both have effort to discuss with each other after it occurs. It is quite easy to find a person for this, but the hard part is setting some real goals beforehand, and then working through them with your partner. Self-discipline of this type pays off more than normal, because you get the results, and also get to watch the results of your partner, and are able to talk about both.

There is much I have read in relation to partnering up in some way.  Bud wrote  an article about forming a mastermind group with others.  The members of a group of that type will help each other bigtime.  Then, I found this article about exercising with a partner to keep the motivation to exercise in place.  Here is an article I have found from Entrepreneur.com about teaming up for success.  It points out that teamwork equals success, and that the person who goes it alone is no longer as viable.  That article is from 2007, and is more about building businesses, but it still relates to the concept.

One other article on this topic is by Paul at Diary4Life about Creating a Mastermind team.  It contains a lot about the details of how to select a partner or team, based on criteria that are important to you.  This is an important aspect to take into account.  Picking the first person that you see might work, but any thinking you put in to who you choose will also be rewarded.

There Is Much Opportunity

Somebody is ready to team up with you right now for business, sports, yoga, studying, networking, motivation, goal-setting, going to events, and so on.  You probably thought of a person or two you might want to team up with now that you have read this article.  That is how good my writing and message is – it leads straight to action.  There hasn’t been a time where I teamed up with someone and regretted it afterward.  You might be surprised with how the person you want to team up with also wants to team up with you.  You might also be rejected and mocked for even trying, leading to a short bit of depression.  It isn’t likely, though.

You Won’t Be The Only One

Another thing you get out of partnering up with someone is a sense that you’re not alone in your quest.  Although it is good to feel as though you are leading the way through new frontiers, it is also good to get in touch with reality and connect with others who see a similar frontier.  I’ve found that there is always someone having a similar thought process to me in some aspect.

Partnering Makes Your Goals More Real

Teaming up with someone for something adds seriousness to it too.  Teaming up is saying that you are looking to fulfill your part of the collaboration.  If you have nothing to bring to the table, teaming up is not appealing.  It motivates you to bring something to the table.  If the table were a dinner table, you could bring some bread sticks to it.  Since it is most likely not, you must replace those bread sticks with your skill or effort of choice.

Collaboration and teamwork have such positive connotations because the people making use of them are getting leaps and bounds ahead of folks who are trying to stay as single entities.  There is a time and place for doing things alone, but there should also be a time and place for the opposite.

Random Example Story

How can I add more value here?  I could create a story.  Here is an example I am creating on the spot for you to relate to your own efforts:

There is a person named John, who is interested in learning C++ programming through tutorials.  He knows that he has tried it before, and did not go past tutorial 5 of a 31-day set.  This time, he finds someone else who is learning C++, like through the FreeNode C++ IRC Channel, and sets up a plan with them to go through the tutorial together.  He finds that their levels are somewhat different, so he resolves to do the first 4 sets of the tutorial on his own, followed by teaming up with the partner for the other 27 days.  John has put in effort and acquired an accountabilibuddy.

In Closing

If this article has made you think you want to partner up with me in some aspect(as most do), let me know through the contact page.  Other than that, feel free to leave a comment in relation to this topic.  Let me know if you thought of someone to team up with in some respect also, although you don’t have to mention who they are.

No related posts.

photo credit: gadl

Parkinson’s Law, proposed by Cyril Parkinson in a 1955 humorous essay for The Economist, states: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” While the author might have been using humor to make a point, his observation underscores the basic truth that we tend to find ways to fill up our free time with more work. Charles Hummel touched on the same issue in his small book Tyranny of the Urgent, which deals with our problem of over commitment. Making the right decisions and keeping yourself from being spread to thin takes some work, but it’s worth it in the long run. Here are some strategies to remember:

Practice the Art of Refusal

This is tough one, especially for young people or recent college graduates who are so desperate to get their careers going that they’ll take any offer of work, part-time or full-time, that they get. But saying “yes” to every offer is the first step toward being over-committed. Put simply, you can’t do everything, and it’s useless to try. If someone wants you to take on a job for them, or do them a favor, don’t accept out of hand. Instead, take an honest look at your schedule and think about whether you really want to do it. It’s fine to turn things down, especially if it would help you keep your life under control.

Know What You Can and Can’t Do

This is related to the first point, but just as important. So often in our lives we take on extra tasks not because they suit us but because we want them, or because we think we’re supposed to want them. And that’s dangerous. If you find yourself presented with an opportunity that would make you much busier and that isn’t even related to your strengths, it might be a good idea to refuse it. Only commit yourself to the things you can and want to do.

Pay Yourself First

A common savings tip is to pay yourself first by putting the top 10% of your take-home pay into a savings account to make sure you’ve got some money left over for a rainy day. The same thing applies to the strategy of time management. Set aside time every day and every week that’s yours alone, and that can’t be given away to extra work or responsibilities. Maybe it’s an hour after dinner to read; maybe it’s a Saturday afternoon to work in your yard. Whatever it is, set it up and don’t violate it for anyone unless it’s an extreme emergency. Having solid boundaries for your personal time is the best way to begin getting your various commitments under control, and knowing you’ve got a daily respite will help you get through the rest of your work.

Remember, being over-committed begins and ends with you. Make the right decisions, and you’ll be able to get your life under control.

This guest post was contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of accredited online universities.  She also welcomes your comments or feedback at her email: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

No related posts.

photo credit: Jacob Bøtter

If you are a businessperson, when you worry that your business will fail, it is that much more likely to occur. The man or woman you like is likely to not be interested in you if you are afraid they will leave or reject you at any minute. Your own dreams are less likely to materialize if you tend to fear that they may not be reached.

Thinking of a fear is like eating a piece of candy. You can do it, but the benefits are short-lived. Thinking about a fear gives you a little comfort for a few seconds, and then your fear is a bit stronger. Each time you think of it, it gets a little stronger, until it is more potent than your desire to put forth effort against it.

When you fear that you will lose the person you desire, you start doing things that make them see you as weak. This then leads to them wanting to distance from you. You might start asking them more questions to see if they are interested in you, and they will get the feeling that you are insecure about yourself. Insecurity represents problems at some level, and people are not attracted to problems.

Give Your Plans More Power

You might as well give your plans more power than the fears you have in relation to those plans.  Here is a table of examples:

Stick To Empowering Thoughts

While the items in the “Fearful Thought” column of the table might sound ridiculous next to the ones in the “Empowering Thought” column, they are not so ridiculous to us when they are thought of on their own, and people are having these fearful thoughts all day long.  It’s like there are two cups.  When you have fearful thoughts, you are pouring liquid into the cup labeled “failure”, and when you think empowering thoughts, you are pouring liquid into the cup labeled “success”.  You want to pour more into the success cup.  When you have thoughts, think about which cup you are filling.

What are your thoughts on this topic?  What do you feel is a good response to have when fearful thoughts are in your mind?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Reject Any Thoughts About Rejection
2. Being Passive Or Bored Means Being Fearful
3. Point Out Thoughts On Your Mind Instantly

Hi everyone.  I have hit another milestone here, or “landmark” as someone I know called it, and I’ve got various items to point out.  First of all, this is the 200th post/article here on Timeless Information.  It is cool to take notice of stepping-stones along the way, like my 100th post.  I made a list of things I wanted to mention in this post too.

See You In The Comments

One thing is that I want to hear from you folks.  If you haven’t commented before, this post is a good one to comment to.  Point out whatever comes to mind, or just say “hello”, or let me know an article you liked, or tell me why you read Timeless Information, or so on.  Also, if you haven’t, go ahead and put your Twitter name in below the comment box, and then it will keep it on record and have a link to it after your comments in the future.

The Self-Improvement Sites Page

Also, I wanted to mention many folks and their sites.  First of all, if you have not seen it yet, I made a super-duper page that contains a table with a list of self-improvement type sites ranked by RSS subscriber numbers, along with the associated Twitter page, and then the Twitter count of that page as well.  It is here:

http://www.timelessinformation.com/sites

If you have a self-improvement/personal development/self-help/psychology/success type site that has your RSS feed publicized, and have a Twitter account, there is a good chance you are already on there.  I’d appreciate any linking/sharing or use of the list as a resource.

I was about to mention folks who are growing their sites quickly, but there are quite a few.  Some that come to mind include Henri from Wake Up Cloud, Dragos from DragosRoua.com, and Oscar from Freestyle Mind.  Many others are also, but I just wanted to point out a few.

A conversational tone like this is not normally used by me, I think, but it is good to use, and I’m glad to do it on a milestone post such as this.  I might go back to being un-conversational when the next post comes around.

Some Statistics

Here are some random points of information.  This is the 200th post.  I have about 20 categories of articles.  I have about 2000 comments, but it’s about 1200 real comments, and 700-something spam.  It still keeps the “2″ theme going, though.  My Alexa rank is around 200000.  There are 2’s everywhere at this time.  Also, this site currently has about 500 subscribers.

A Few Folks/Sites To Mention

Now I am just going to point out person after person.  Celestine Chua over at The Personal Excellence Blog is doing it big like Oprah with “The Celestine Chua Show” that she has started.  Video is always enjoyable to see, and I have to say that that signature reminds me somewhat of Oprah’s.  Cool material.

David Turnbull over at Adventures Of A Barefoot Geek has been rolling smoothly since his guest post on Zen Habits.  He’s got some huge/expansive articles that he has put out.  Some were almost too large at first, but now we are more used to them, and they are in detail.  This post about persistence is so large and jam-packed with material.  Few people can do it like that.

Oscar at Freestyle Mind recently updated his site to put it on his own blogging platform written in rails, replacing WordPress.  That sure is doing something uncommon.  His site has a new look with some noticeable colors.  Oscar has a cool voice too, as I have heard him on Skype.

A few weeks back, Mike over at Learn This released a big one called 100 Ways to Serve Others, which is an article that includes 100 ways to serve others.  I added that description for entertainment purposes.  When you serve others, you get fulfillment that fuels you like no other fuel.

I recently did an interview of Gail from A Flourishing Life, and her great nature continues to be spread through her articles and comments.  She has recently discussed meditation, with a how-to post, and a related audio to use for it.  I found benefit from giving it a try.

Shout Outs To Some Folks You May Have Seen In The Comments

Now I’d like to mention a few regular commentators on the site.  I went through and checked, because I had a couple of folks that came to mind, but when you check your recent articles, you start to see some folks multiple times, and those are your ‘big supporters’.  I’d suggest doing the same on your site, if you have one.

Some individuals I want to give a shout-out to are Eduard, Gordie, Marc, Hulbert, Sibyl, Amit, Dan, Richard, Baker, Mighty, Srinivas, Vincent, and Steven.  I’ll just point out random facts related to these individuals.

Eduard from Ideas With A Kick recently guest posted here on Timeless Information, and I also guest posted on his site.  It was good to have him here.  He is a communication coach for those who don’t know.

Gordie did a great community-gathering item over at Lifestyle Design For You, getting many people together to regularly post there(including me), and he sure has a personable attitude.  You can see all the writers he brought together on the top of his site.  However, he has recently posted his last post on the site for this year, as he switches priorities.  Still a cool guy to talk to.

Black Belt Guide by Marc is somewhat of a new site, but he has certainly brought some focus to it.  A couple of notable articles there are these two about mind push ups.  We have the ability to do for our mind what push ups do for our body, and Marc discusses this.  There is a lot of detail and typing elements in these posts, like numbered lists and bold sections and red sections and so on.  It makes reading them easier.

Hulbert over at From Bottom Up is a warm individual that has talked from his mind on his site.  He gives personal examples, like his last couple articles talking about his brother’s experience.  It is when people talk from what they are actually thinking that we are most able to connect with them.

Sibyl over at Alternaview always present an alternate perspective on things we normally do.  This is what the alternaview is about.  She sometimes takes a concept, presents the regular response or thinking related to it, and then switch into alternaview mode, which is like putting on thought-expanding glasses.

The Power of Choice is run by Amit, and he has been going strong for quite a few years now, presenting concepts that we think about in our heads, like that of how we control our showing of gratitude so we don’t become pushovers.  It is important to not become a pushover, because then we are letting others and ourselves down at the same time.  Others want us to be resilient, too, because it is better for them also.

Srivinas from over at The Skool Of Life has been doing some cool stuff.  He has started a podcast site with Sid Savara called BlogcastFM, where they interview other bloggers, including those who are on the page of self-improvement sites I created, like Jonathan Wells, or Jonathan Mead.  If you are a Jonathan, you may be next to be interviewed.  I am joking, as they have interviewed non-Jonathans as well.

Dan can be located writing at The Anxiety Support Network, where he guides readers in dealing with issues related to social anxiety.  It is a specific category, and one that is certainly relevant for numerous folks who are hindered by anxiety-related causes.  He gets you thinking a little bit with article like “What is Normal?“, getting you to question what you label as normal for characteristics of people in society.

Richard Shelmerdine writes at Spiritual Awakening about spiritual growth and personal development.  One cool thing is that he has a group of articles that relate to his own story as a person.  That is where learning happens.

At Beyond Success, Baker also talks about personal development, and he writes like he thinks.  You can see some questions answered, and examples provided, and examples are what we need to see to get concepts down.  In this post about attracting what you want, he presents two separate examples to make his point, in sections labeled as example 1 and 2.

Vincent over at HealthMoneySuccess recently passed 1000 subscribers.  Also, I had a guest post that went up on there not too long ago about being decisive, not only for yourself, but for others.  Vincent also does podcast interviews with other individuals, like this one with Pat Flynn.

Steven from Human Explosion is a cool guy, and although he has not been posting as much recently, the material and comics he has posted thus far are just great.  You can see his material as “personal development meets The Oatmeal“, for those who know of The Oatmeal, and his drawings always send home a simple message.  I like much of his pictures.

Mighty over at MightyRasing talks about transformational leadership, and how to be the person running the show.  His material is made for those who want to rise above and represent for others, presenting a solid image of what people should want to be.  He has started posting continued series posts every Wednesday, and is currently in a 5-part series called Ignite Yourself, which started with this post.

Other than that, I didn’t have much else in mind at this time.  I appreciate you folks for reading my material, and for presenting yourselves as you are in messages or on your own sites.  I look forward to hearing from you in the comments~

Related posts:

1. 100th Post On Timeless Information
2. Timeless Information 2009 Review
3. Timeless Information Podcast #001 – Take The First Step

photo credit: dotbenjamin

Are you thinking “if only person A did this, and person B did this, and person C helped me with this, I would be able to really succeed”?  If so, you have to toss away that thinking.  Things don’t work out that way.  First off, people don’t know what you desire until you tell them, and second, even if you tell them, that doesn’t mean they are up for taking part as you have envisioned.

Your Focus Is To Be On You

This is an empowering thing to keep in mind.  Next time you get a thought like “if only this person did this”, realize it is not valuable.  You can’t let yourself be in the hands of someone else, as that is the opposite of self-control.  You have to run your own show.  Other people have their own show in place.

Bigshots Did What They Could Early On

Also, as you notice with successful folks, they didn’t need the perfect circumstances.  They needed their hunger and patience.  Later on, biographers describe their circumstances as having been great, or so on, but they took whatever they had and labeled that “the right circumstances”.  You can do the same.

The day when everyone is on the same page as you in bringing your initiative to fruition is not going to come.  That isn’t a real day.  It is an idealized day, and you shouldn’t need it anyway.  Maybe a couple are on your support team and a couple are either not helpful, or possibly against you in some way.  That is the normal way of things, and so you need to see it as normal and not bad.

That Ideal Day Is As Uncommon As Winning The Lottery

The perfect day doesn’t come, and even if it did, it wouldn’t impact you as you would imagine.  Instead, remember that today is a day that has come, and that is good enough.  You certainly have some potential in this instance, and ignoring that potential in search of some greater potential is like not eating bread, even though you are hungry, because there is a chance you may later have bread and cheese.  While bread and cheese can certainly be great, you don’t need that combination to be effective.  Also, if you can do fine with just bread, if bread and cheese arrives as a package for you later, you will have your self-discipline maintained, along with a reward on top of it.

Others Have Their Own Items To Focus On

People do generally have a sense of your desires, but they either might not be available, or don’t have the interest in helping, or don’t feel that they have the ability to help or support you.  Blaming others for any lack of support takes power away from you.  It is like saying you need their support to proceed, which is a very limited state of effectiveness.

Create Your Plan Around Your Own Abilities

You have to take a potential lack of support into account when you plan your efforts.  Know that not everyone will come to your side, and that you might have very little in the form of assistance.  This has to be in your game plan.  If you formulate a game plan that expects too much of others, you’ll get part of the way there and start to break down, because one of your “fuel sources” is depleted.  You can think of support like a fuel source, because support and help from others does lead you to take more action than you normally would.

Taking that into account means planning for having less fuel than what you think of as being at a full tank.  You have to be able to replenish your own fuel at times, through directed thinking, or exercise of some sort, or so on.  As I pointed out in a recent article, you might need some “foolish pride” to get through the difficult part of your venture.  That is somewhat like creating fuel out of thin air, at least temporarily.

When It Is Based On You, It Gets Done

There are quite a few folks waiting for a certain event or state of events to arise before they do something important they have been thinking of.  There are risks associated with this.  One is that you miss out on opportunities that would have been available had the action just been taken on a regular day, during regular circumstances.  Another risk is that the special day or period of time doesn’t come, and then the whole process is not started.  There is little we regret more than something we did not do.

So, when is the special day or time to act?  Many say you should treat today as that special day of sorts.  This is reasonable.  Also, you could leave tomorrow as your big action day, as long as it is tomorrow from today and not a vague “tomorrow”.

Do you have any examples that come to mind, where you have left control in the hands of others, in hopes of great results?  Let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Tough Circumstances Are A Test
2. Create Your “Day One” As Soon As Possible

photo credit: włodi

Song lyrics have more relevance than we give them credit for.  Music is ubiquitous, and most of it has lyrics.  Apple went into the music industry with the iPod because the market for music is basically everyone.  One of Twitter’s top trending topics is #nowplaying, which is what people use to list what they are currently listening to.  In this short interview video with President Obama, the interviewer was asking him about if there was potential to use hip hop for betterment of society.  This is done through insightful lyrics that lift listeners.  The following are some lyrics that are meaningful to me, and some commentary regarding them:

“…it’s hard gettin’ good, easy to do evil” – Akon

Just like it is much easier to lose someone’s trust, than to build it, it is easy to do bad things, but takes a lot of effort to remain in the “good” category.  Being labeled as “bad” takes a minute of doing the wrong thing, while being labeled as “good” requires setting example after example of picking the good-natured path.

Take a look at some folks who aim to stay on the path of “good”.  Even if direct attacks on them are not so visible, indirect pressure on them to give up those efforts is always there.  Good after good after good makes those who tried shortcut paths of some type look like they missed the concept, so they hope for some error or break in the good.

TV news shows don’t show much good because it is more likely to make more viewers feel bad about themselves.  This is what keeps programming on the lowest-common-denominator level, for the most part, unless there is some story of good that is too large to ignore without looking like an uninformed station.  The local inventive engineer or winning student is left out of the news, and another story about obesity is presented(not that obesity isn’t a big issue, but there is a difference between playing to the feelings of viewers and actually helping to solve the problem).

“Foolish pride is what held me together through the years…I never sat back feeling sorry for myself” – Jay-Z

These are two lines that carry a strong message from one song.  A lot of winners we know of now were not always labeled as “winners” by the populace, or at least by their current supporters, so they needed “foolish pride” to power through the period until they got that support.  Michael Jordan talked about how he always had to hear about how he was good, but not as good as some player like Magic Johnson, and so he needed this type of foolish or unfounded pride to fuel him to show everyone up.  There is always that period of time where people don’t think you have what it takes, regardless of which category you look to achieve in, and although some support can come to you, it speeds you up to provide some of your own(even if it seems foolish).

The line about not sitting back feeling sorry for yourself is another relevant one.  It is better to take come crazy action than to sit back feeling helpless or regretful.  You have to keep this in mind, and keep it easy to process.  Repeat it a few times for the next time you feel sorry for yourself in some fashion.  It is better to play your table like a drum with your hands, or fold a paper into a paper airplane, or toss a tennis ball up in the air repeatedly, than to sit in regret.  Sitting in regret is a lose-lose item as far as action and enjoyment.  Throwing a tennis ball up in the air to yourself is at least enjoyable.

“I keep my eye on the prize then pursue it, chase it like a cheetah…” – Ice Cube

A big part of the message here is about your focus.  The prize has to always be in the back of your mind for you to have the vigor to work toward it.  If you forget about it, also known as “taking your eye off of the ball”, you might be fine until when you remember the prize, and then time has gone by already.  Reminding yourself of the prize or prizes every day is one of the only ways to keep focus.  Find me a person who works hard without thinking of the impending results or rewards, and I will show you a talking walnut.

When you not only chase your prize, but chase it with the speed of a cheetah, you have a real chance of attaining it.  Chasing your prize slowly brings a lot of small problems to you along the way.  Depending on how slowly you chase it, people will start to present doubt of your achievement potential into your own mind.  If some big company throws a networking conference every year, and decides to slow down their marketing efforts by instead throwing one every two years, loads of people will start to comment about how the company is losing speed, ability, or vigor.  That never helps.  The quicker your pace, the less you have to deal with what I call “unsupport”, and once you cross the “tipping point” of achievement, the lack of support won’t matter much.

“There’s only two types of people in the world, the ones that entertain and the ones that observe” – Britney Spears

I don’t think this lyric could be any more of a call-to-action.  I can’t imagine many folks hear or read it and want to join the side of the observers.  It’s hard to envision a biography being written about someone who always observed others, and who didn’t contribute in their own fashion.  If Britney Spears didn’t continue her musical creations and tours, and was just a “fan” on various artists pages on MySpace, this lyric wouldn’t even be hers to present.

The bar for creation should be set much lower than we usually first think.  We assume that our creations have to be spectacular, so we don’t even get started, because we don’t see ourselves making something spectacular; at the same time, someone else doesn’t care if they make something spectacular, and starts making things, and eventually gets the experience needed to make something spectacular.  If you need to remember it this way, low-quality creations trump uncreated creations.

I can show that doing something is better than doing nothing.  When you do nothing, out of worry of being attacked, you get no attacks on you, but you also have gone nowhere.  It is like putting nothing in a pot and cooking it.  An hour later, you have a heated nothing.  On the other hand, when you do something, some people will support you, and some will attack you, but at least you now have more support that you didn’t have earlier.  Attacks can be ignored, but support can’t be self-generated.

Do you have any lyrics that are powerful to you that you would like to mention?  You can point them out in a comment, and then maybe let us know what the lyrics mean to you.

Related posts:

1. Discussion On Long Versus Short-Term Efforts
2. Spoken/Written Words vs. Intent
3. Others Won’t Create The Perfect Circumstances For You

photo credit: zoutedrop

Activities are said to take up the period of time you provide for them.  You can potentially take certain activities that normally take you an hour to do, and do them in 15 minutes. This is well within your capacity. You would then be able to spend the other 45 minutes doing whatever you feel like, as you have then created time for yourself which was not previously there.

Tim Ferriss brought up this concept in a video he did with Kevin Rose for his “Random” video series, when he decided to bring up some valuable things he has written down and focuses on. This concept is also present in his book “The Four Hour Workweek”. I am not saying that you can take an hour of piano practice, and do it in 15 minutes; however, there are certainly things you are currently doing that you allot much more time to than they require from you when you are running at full capacity.

Think About The Reward

When trying out something new like this, you always want to first thing about what you will get from the attempt, other than attempt experience. You could potentially create an extra 30 minutes in your day during the first try, or even more. This is time that you could use as though it were “free”, and your leisure desires could be fulfilled. Also, you would start feeling more in control of your required activities, as you would be relaxed to enjoy your free time as any smart CEO or business person makes sure to do.

Focus On Where You Can Set Time Limits

It is worth it to take a look at where you can apply this concept. There are probably multiple examples of where you can start to set less time for yourself to do the same things you normally do. Some that come to mind include:

• running high-intensity for 20 minutes, instead of walking for a whole hour
• setting 20 minutes to read 15 pages of a book, instead of taking an hour to read it while getting distracted and losing focus
• cutting down the time to craft an e-mail to 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes(as the main point you want to communicate is really what is important)
• cooking a healthy dinner in 20 minutes by doing everything one after another, instead of cooking the meal in parts, or stopping along the way to check e-mail

Self-Discipline Is Needed For This

Self-discipline is the name of the game here. Using this time-limiting method requires you to envision a small world where your organization and planning matters. You have to adhere to what you set to do. Any messing around with the time settings will then lead to you not fulfilling your plan. Self-discipline separates the slacker from the attacker.

Self-Confidence Is Built Through This

When you set limited time plans, you are indirectly telling yourself that you value your time. This is something that is important. Other won’t ever value more time more than you do, so you benefit greatly from raising that bar. Everyone’s time passes by, but some have time that is worth far more, in the eyes of society, than others. It is this value that gives them opportunities the others don’t have. If we had limitless time, we could all get every opportunity, but since time is normally a constraint, people like to work with those who value it the most.

There is also a shared effect. The more you value your time, the less others worry that you will waste their time. This is key to working with some folks you may have a real wish to work with.

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One great source of understanding comes from experience.  Gail Brenner, who writes at A Flourishing Life, presents very coherent concepts in her articles.  There is much accuracy in her discussion of topics like memories, habits, and anxiety.  Some of these articles are also accompanied with audio messages that extend the main topic, or explain a part of the article in detail.  I certainly recommend these audio messages for obtaining greater understanding or inner peace.

Gail has 16 years of psychotherapy experience as a Ph. D. psychologist, as is easily evident through her writings.  Also, this experiential knowledge comes into play in her Questions and Answers articles, where she has elaborately answered some questions others have provided for her.  One relevant example involves help with depression, where many points regarding depression are brought up, such as labeling, awareness, attention, and negative thinking.  Analysis of the many interconnected components of an issue is a key to clearing it up or being able to work through it, and that is one item that Gail brings to her material.  The following is an interview I have done with Gail, and then some commentary and a summary of the points brought up:

Armen: This one goes right to your psychological background. I think about this every so often. How much of our personality would you say is fixed in place, and how much is able to be altered, and/or what are your thoughts in relation to this?

Gail: This is a great question – a version of the the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. Any parent will tell you that we come into the world with personality tendencies, and there is a lot of research evidence supporting this observation. Some of us tend to be anxious, others appear to be comfortable and relaxed, while others are avoidant and reserved. These tendencies begin to show up within days of birth, suggesting that they originate from the structure of the brain and nervous system.

So it seems that we come into the world with a given template, but then we are powerfully affected by the experiences we encounter.

Because a lot of who we take ourselves to be is learned from these experiences, the good news is that a lot can be altered. Our minds are always trying to make sense of the world. When things happen – events, interactions – we develop thought patterns about ourselves and others that become our personalities. As we all know, some of these patterns serve us and some don’t.

Anything that is learned can potentially be unlearned, which creates tremendous possibilities for growth and transformation. If we are willing to untangle our distorted thinking, any habit or belief system that holds us back can be changed.

In addition, we can learn to work with our given physiological structures. For example, someone with an excitable nervous system can learn relaxation strategies that can be very helpful.

There is no substitute for living a conscious life. We start where we are and become aware of our thoughts and feelings. Then we can choose to engage in unproductive habits – or make a different, more life-affirming choice. We have within us the power to express our natural creativity and live fulfilling lives, no matter what tendencies we were born with or what experiences we have had.

Armen: As can be seen very easily in your audio messages, you present your words very calmly and peacefully. Was this ability improved much over time, or was it your natural way to present concepts?

Gail: I’m so happy that you find the guided audio processes useful – it is a joy for me to offer them. They come about quite naturally for me. I like recording them with lots of silence in between the words so people who are listening have time to really be present with whatever they are experiencing.

Armen: What would you say to someone who is stuck in a cycle of weakness, fear, and hesitation, most of which is all in their own head?

Gail: Every problem is a potential learning experience to help us shed habits and tendencies that keep us from living full and happy lives. I don’t have an easy fix for this cycle you describe, but I see it as brimming with opportunities for freedom and possibility.

• First, I would want to know about the history of this cycle. Most habits that prevent us from moving forward have their roots in our childhood experiences. We may look like adults, but when these habits are triggered, it is as if we are five again, with familiar feelings of fear and lack. Understanding where these feelings come from can be a part of the healing process.
• Next, I would be interested in deconstructing the problem by identifying the specific thoughts, emotions, and bodily experiences that occur when the pattern is triggered. This investigation is useful so that the cycle can be recognized in real time as it is happening.
• I would also want to uncover any payoff for keeping the cycle going. For example, the payoff for hesitation is that we don’t risk failure.
• I would encourage this person to let go of self-judgment and welcome in this pattern and all of its components in a field of love. These patterns visit us because at some level we feel we didn’t get enough love and attention, we feel a sense of lack. As adults, it is so healing to know that in any moment we can be a kind and friendly host when these old habits arise.
• Finally, I would suggest making small and gradual changes in behavior to develop a sense of strength and empowerment.

This process takes some time, but is the only way I know of to heal these long-standing habits from the inside out. I write a lot about this topic on my blog, especially the series on Freedom from the Prison of Your Habits.

Armen: Is it healthy to channel a harmful addiction into a healthier addiction, or is addiction in general more of the problem?

Gail: My interest, always, is in freedom. Certainly, healthier addictions, such as exercise, might be better for the body than smoking, for example. However, my experience is that the deepest happiness comes from being free of all addictions.

At the root of any addiction is an unwillingness to face something that is true about ourselves. Some people spend their whole lives running from unpleasant feelings or insecurities. This is a life ruled by fear, which makes deep peace and happiness unattainable.

We are terrified of the true solution – which is stopping, turning around, and taking a look at what is actually driving us. Yet, when we can embrace all parts of ourselves in love, inner turmoil is put to rest, and all addictions fall away.

I have met all my darkest emotions, and I can tell you that for me, the anticipation was much worse than the actual experience. Now, if fear comes, I happily welcome it. It is an opportunity to open my heart even wider. I highly recommend freedom over addictions of any kind.

Armen: Would an introvert or extrovert benefit most from trying to improve their standard traits, or from trying to acquire skills on the other end of the spectrum(e.g. an extrovert working more on their self-thought than their networking and communication)?

Gail: My suggestion here would be to recognize if there is anything that is being avoided due to fear. Introversion or extroversion are tendencies that exist in our bodies and minds. Some people are naturally more outgoing than others, and neither way is right or wrong.

The trap is when we are held back by fear. As an example, if an introvert is afraid of networking, I would recommend welcoming the fear without judgment and acknowledging the story playing in the mind that causes avoidance (e.g., I will be overwhelmed, I won’t know what to say). When the pattern fueled by fear is exposed, we can make a choice that is aligned with what we truly want for ourselves.

Concluding Notes

The point about how a lot of our personality or characteristics can be altered is one to take note of for those of you who are hesitant to try to change what you have a desire to make different about yourself.  There is potential to build up social strength, or work past a fear you have, or so on, and so you have to take the process of correction/improvement into your own hands.  You have to remember to tell yourself that you have the capability.

You can find Gail on Twitter at @aflourishinglif, and can subscribe to her site feed here.  The following is a summary of the responses provided in the interview:

• We have a great deal of control over our personality, and are able to improve upon it with an amount of effort, so living a conscious life is valid and beneficial
• The audio posts at A Flourishing Life are fantastic, and the time provided between sentences in them is there to allow for internal reflection and presence
• If stuck in a cycle of fear or hesitation, there is an opportunity to exit this cycle, and the way to do so includes examining the history behind it, itemizing the various details about how the cycle functions and elicits feelings, being open to accepting the pattern as it is, and then making small changes that either self-strengthen or weaken the power of the cycle
• While healthy addictions are preferred over harmful addictions, it is best to be free of any type of habitual dependency, as they represent an unwillingness to face or accept a quality of ours
• A person who is more outgoing than another is only different, and not better or worse, than the other, and either person benefits from welcoming any weakness or fear they have without playing into a storyline they have in their mind about themselves

Related posts:

1. Channeling Addiction
2. An Interview With Jonathan Mead
3. An Interview With Chris Guillebeau

photo credit: nlnnet

This is a guest post from Eduard Ezeanu, a communication coach who writes personal development advice at Ideas With A Kick. You can follow him on Twitter at @eduardezeanu.

What’s the most popular advice for achieving great things? It’s: “Work hard”. Since the age of seven, most of us have constantly been told by family, teachers, friends and public figures to study hard, work hard, and our efforts will be rewarded by getting ahead.

Now, I am a relatively lazy person. I enjoy very much things like free time, rest and relaxation. So getting this advice, I almost instinctively started searching for a way around it. And guess what? I found it!

I believe that working hard can be an important factor for achieving great results. And at certain points of our lives, if we want to do something big with them, we can’t avoid working hard. However, I also believe that working hard is not a constant necessity, and is just one of many factors with a lot of influence over our results.

Especially in my coaching practice, I have worked with a lot of professionals who managed to achieve great results without a 70-hour work week. Here are 3 of the most important ideas they applied to achieve more and work less:

1. Capitalize On Your Strengths

As a human being, you have naturally developed certain patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving which applied in certain areas, help you create great results. Use them. They will allow you to do more, faster and better. You will be performant in your tasks and you will make this look easy.

Not working in a way which allows you to fully use your natural strengths is just wasting your potential. Maybe you’re analytical and good at seeing cause-effect relations, maybe you are empathic and good and sensing other people’s emotions, maybe you are creative and good at seeing out-of-the box solutions. Whatever your strengths are, dedicate yourself to finding them and using them.

2. Delegate A Lot

You may be asking yourself: “What do I do with the tasks that need to be done but do not capitalize on my strengths?” Well, you find somebody else to do them, and you delegate them. Preferably, someone who can do them better than you, or at least will learn to do them better than you. This way, you save precious time.

One thing I constantly notice is that a lot of people are simply not used to working with others. To matching people’s tasks with people’s strengths and putting in some teamwork to generate the end results. Make a habit out of teamwork, out of delegating and you’ll see impressive results.

3. Learn To Say ‘No’

One major factor which makes people unproductive is the fact they invest time and effort in activities which have low value for them, for the sake of others. They are asked for help by colleagues, friends, neighbors, family and they can’t say no. This only encourages people to ask for even more help from them.

If you want to achieve great things, you most say no to some requests from others, so you can focus your time and energy on the tasks with the biggest return on investment for you. If you don’t know how to do this effectively or don’t have the emotional strength to do it, then this is something you will have to learn.

As you put these ideas into action, not only that you will be more productive, performant, but you will also get an internal sense of doing things right and getting closer to your goals. A feeling I find very meaningful.

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photo credit: jimbowen0306

When I mention the names Napoleon, Lincoln, Einstein, Aristotle, and Darwin, you instantly recognize who I am talking about, and what field they were in. We often hear about the wonderful thinking that people like Socrates or Aristotle brought to humanity. What we don’t tend to hear about is how they interacted with people who were wasting their time as they were rising in academic stature. You can be certain that the most intelligent or financially successful people of all time wasted minimal amounts of time dealing with people who didn’t supplement their studies or business plans. If you want to be remarkable like they were, you will want to act the way they did.

People We Remember Always Guarded Their Time

During these individuals’ lives, including the time when they were teenagers and 20-somethings, their personalities were as full of ambition as the older versions of them that we know about and remember. If you can’t imagine Socrates spending an hour on a trivial verbal argument, it would be beneficial to follow in his hypothetical footsteps by not doing so yourself. The only foolproof way to win a verbal argument is to stay out of it, and you can be certain that any well-known person from the past or present took this route the majority of the time. Save the very few arguments you have to be made with people of a high position or stature, in the process of defending something important to you.

Keep Your Time For Things That Provide Rewards

Randy Pausch, in his Last Lecture, pointed out something to the effect of “no one cares if you clean the dust on the underside of a bookshelf”. He was trying to explain that if you focus on items with very little return-on-investment, day in and day out, there will be no returns in the future as the investment would be minimal. If you routinely perform some menial task that doesn’t bring you long-term growth, reassess whether you can do it less often, or if it is even worth your time to do it.

See The Path As Your Path To Make

People like Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln are remembered mostly for what they did later in life, but since personality and ambition don’t change much during one’s life, it is valuable to take note of how they must have been when they were younger. These were the types of individuals that wouldn’t take no for an answer, not by arguing until they got their way and wasting time, but by pursuing the same desire through a different path or method where their success could shine through. Just as it is very difficult to get a minute of time with President Obama, any of these leaders necessarily made certain to not let their time elapse without high relevance behind what they were doing. Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t have been able to fail so many times on his way to success if he didn’t set blocks of time to put days of effort into each risk, where resulting failure still provided experience.

You Can Turn Probabilities To Your Favor

If you have the ambition to rise up like these individuals, you have to start long before some “luck” arrives. I often point out that personality and response mechanisms are fairly fixed in place for each person through their various stages of growth, anytime after the teenage period is passed. Although the ambition in your personality may be lacking as compared with how you would like to view yourself, you can fill in part of the gap with constant reminders that leave you less susceptible to your own lack of ambition. It is often asked whether the chicken or egg came first. For becoming an individual well-known for pursuing a passion, highly valuing your own time comes before others value it as highly.

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