Note: This is a guest post from Mark Harrison of Thirty Days to Change Your Life

Many years ago, I came across a book by Anthony de Mello called Awareness. De Mello was an Indian Jesuit priest whose writing was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. To me, he is a great source of inspiration, and he has much to say about happiness and pain.

Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

One of De Mello’s key messages is that, by nature, life is not a struggle. Attachment – greed, craving, ambition – is the cause of all misery, and so to be detached is to be happy.

Does this mean we should have no preferences? Should we not want to achieve more? Should we not desire and seek out the good things in life? I think it would be absurd to say that we should have no preference between different experiences and conditions, but a distinction needs to be made between preference and attachment.

We are surrounded by contrast, and one can choose – and enjoy – different experiences, without being attached to them. To enjoy someone’s company without being clingy, to feel great pleasure when watching the sunset on a cool summer evening without mourning the coming of the night – we can have preferences and make choices about what we experience without craving them.

We are free to choose – and to prefer – some conditions over others. But when our preferences become cravings, then life becomes a struggle to achieve these conditions, and once we have achieved them, we start to worry about losing them.

An analogy might be going for a long walk in the country – there will be various different scenes, and each one can be enjoyed. Perhaps you have some preference for a certain view or a particular spot on the walk, and you might linger in one place for a while, but all of the different parts of the walk can be enjoyed along the way.

Happiness, it seems, is to accept the world as it is, enjoying the journey as we pass through and being appreciative of each stage on the way.

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth

Trying to change the world in a forceful way is a foolish endeavor. Changing yourself may, in time, change things around you, but to ‘take on’ the world will probably not achieve much. Force may result in change, but it will be temporary and easily reversed. Real change is the result of quiet, patient working with the natural flow of things, just as water can cut a deep valley in a landscape.

Lao Tze, the semi-mythical Taoist sage, is said to have written in the Tao Te Ching, ‘By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.‘

The only thing you can truly change is yourself. In his book Choice Theory, William Glasser writes that we cannot force anyone to do anything. We are often brought up to think that we can change other people by our own efforts, but this ‘external control psychology’ is deeply misguided and leads to untold pain and misery.

We are responsible for our own happiness, and cannot derive happiness from the outside. Many (perhaps most) people, seem to think that happiness is caused by the outside world – including other people – conforming to certain conditions. People think things like, ‘I’ll be happy when I have my degree,’ or ‘I’ll be content when I’ve got a certain level of income,’ or ‘I’d be happy if my husband/wife/son/brother started behaving better.’ But relying on something outside to bring happiness is a mistake. It abdicates responsibility for our happiness and takes away our power. The truth is that we can only change ourselves, our attitudes, our thoughts, and our own level of happiness.

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head.

If we can change only ourselves and not the world around us, it follows that we can be happier by changing our thoughts. Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor-philosopher, observed this when he wrote ‘Our life is what our thoughts make it,’ and this is a sentiment which has been echoed by countless writers. From Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent-Peale to Dale Carnegie, the vital importance of our thoughts in determining our experience of life has been emphasized again and again.

In summary, life should be easy and things can be achieved without a great deal of effort, and we can experience this ease by working with the natural grain of things, and not trying to use force. The way we think about things is the most important factor in our happiness and our achievement.

Take a look at Mark’s book, Thirty Days to Change Your Life.

Photo by Arwen Abendstern

In The Importance of Being Smart, I wrote how smart people can achieve much more – with much less effort – than those who just work hard. There’s a comment there by Frode that I’d like to discuss:

… lazy people seem to be smarter, as they use a lot of brain energy on finding an easier way to do stuff.

Interesting, isn’t it? Lazy people seem to be smarter. But I agree that thinking like lazy people is a good way to work smart. Here are two reasons:

1. Lazy people find ways to accomplish something with the least amount of effort. If you are lazy, you will diligently find ways not to work. Applied to finishing tasks, it means that you try to accomplish it with the least amount of work possible.
2. Lazy people ensure that when they work, they do things that have impact. Why? Because it allows them to gain more with less. They don’t bother doing something that won’t give them results.

Of course, what I mean here is thinking like lazy people, not actually being lazy. You still need to have strong work ethic. But you also need to do things the smart way.

Here are four things you will do if you think like a lazy person:

1. Question whether or not something is worth doing. Don’t do something just because everyone else does it. Ask yourself: is it really necessary? Is it really worth doing? If the answer is no then there is no reason to do it.

2. Do only things with the most impact. Your resources are limited so invest them only on things that give you the most return. Think ROI.

3. Take the shortest path. Don’t waste your time on unnecessary bells and whistles. Do only the things that are necessary to get the job done. Cut everything else.

4. Use as much leverage as possible. Before doing something, find the things you can leverage. Do you know someone in your network who can do it better or faster than you? Can you market it to your existing customers? Can you achieve more than one thing at once? Whatever you do, always use the power of leverage to your advantage.

Photo by Per Ola Wiberg

Note: This is a guest post from David Turnbull of Adventures of a Barefoot Geek

I live in the future. No, this isn’t a McFly-moment, it’s a always-have-my-thoughts-in-the-future moment. And it’s a problem.

Living with your mind focused on the future causes you to miss out on the now and our lives are made out of moments of now, not of moments of the future. By living in the future you don’t actually live at all.

Of course, it’d be nice to live so I’m trying to enjoy the journey – the present. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Focus

Pure focus is bliss. When your thoughts, actions and emotions are all directed towards a single function you are focusing and you are in the present. You should get lost in your work. Set a deadline for yourself to finish a task and see your level of focus skyrocket.

Right now I’m using e.ggtimer.com and have it set for 20 minutes to finish this article (which I’ve pre-outlined). Perhaps the deadline is too tight, but that’s great, because it’s a challenge that doesn’t allow for procrastinations or over thinking. Set a task and do it.

Go with the flow.

2. Mastermind

Two of my friends and I meet up every now and then to talk about business, ideas, and just random stuff really. It’s fairly flexible and unprofessional, but we still label it as a mastermind.

Although the very concept of a mastermind is focused on getting results in the future I feel there’s also a sense of living in the moment, because we all just sit around a table or outside on the grass and talk. There’s no fancy technology, very little note taking and it’s just pure discussion. And perhaps most importantly: it’s fun.

When we mastermind time flies. Just a couple of days ago we spent 6+ hours just talking about stuff and it was the most enjoyable 6 hours I’ve had in a while.

Find like-minded individuals and bump your heads together (figuratively – don’t get all Pachycephalosaurus on me).

3. Take it slow

Being in a rush doesn’t give you a chance to appreciate the present. I understand the various apparent urgencies you may feel in your life. For some time I was rushing to earn an income online and although a degree of hustle is required for any form of achievement, I find taking things slower and simply being patient more rewarding.

I’ve accepted that my writing career isn’t going to explode overnight and that any side businesses I build aren’t going to be insanely popular at launch. And with that comes a sense of calm. Yes, it may take years to reach goals I’ve set, but years I have, moments I need.

Slow down the speed of life. Urgency is rarely urgency.

4. Find balance

Or “The Middle Way” as it’s known in Buddhism. Anything in excess is dangerous. Practice the art of work-life separation and strive to do everything in moderation.

When you introduce balance into your life you become mindful of what you’re doing, giving you a chance to acknowledge moments for what they are: precious gifts of chronology. Don’t let anything consume your life.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Balance your life.

5. Be certain

Where are you going? Understand what you want the future to hold and set a plan to accommodate for that. This gives you perhaps the most powerful tool in achievement: certainty.

If you believe in something, are passionate about it and can visualise the end result so clearly that you can taste it, you feel certain that it’s inevitable. You’re no longer wondering if, but when. And this is powerful.

With this certainty you can stop stressing over what may or may not happen in the future because there’s simply no wondering – you’re going to achieve it and that’s final. Achievement simply becomes a matter of doing X to achieve Y.

This may seem like a cold way to approach life, but when the outcome Y is understood, each moment X can be fully appreciated as they aren’t bombarded by self doubt or uncertainty. You can live in the present because your future becomes a predetermined (but still open to spontaneity) mass of wonderment.

Set a direction for your life and enjoy the ride.

6. Unfocus

Productiveness isn’t always beneficial. It’s great to get stuff done, but at times it’s even better to sit back and lose yourself in something that has no tangible result, something that is simply fun.

Personally I love getting fish and chips with a friend and just watching the world go by, or playing some co-op video games if I’m in the mood for fighting hordes of aliens. You don’t need to dominate your life with getting things done.

Embrace unproductivity. Do things “just because”.

David Turnbull writes about peace of mind, simplicity and geekery at his blog, Adventures of a Barefoot Geek. He enjoys long walks and writing about himself in 3rd person.

Photo by lepiaf.geo

Persistence is important to achieve success, but giving up is also important. I’ve written about persistence before, so here I want to look at giving up.

Why is it essential? Why is it necessary to give up? Because it allows you to focus your energy on the few things that are truly important. By giving up, you:

1. Stop unfruitful effort. What’s the point of spending your time and energy on something that doesn’t work? The more you spend your time and energy there, the more you waste your resources.
2. Avoid spreading yourself too thin. There are probably many things that you want to achieve. But you can’t achieve everything you want. Your resources are limited so you need to choose and prioritize. If you try to do too many things at once you will end up achieving nothing.
3. Reduce your stress. Pursuing too many things means giving yourself unnecessary pressure. Don’t let your ambition stop you from enjoying your life.
4. Free up time for your loved ones. Don’t be so busy that you don’t have time for your loved ones. By giving up, you ease your burden and free up time to build meaningful relationships.

In essence, here is what you need to do:

Give up the less important things so that you can focus and persist on the few important ones.

Here are several tips to help you apply it:

1. Find what matters to you

You need a way to know whether or not something is important. That’s why you need to find what matters to you. What makes you feel fulfilled? What gives you inner satisfaction? Be persistent on things that matter to you and give up the others.

2. Assess your life every now and then

Even if you already find what matters to you, the busyness of life can obscure it. As a result, you might get distracted by superficial things. So find time to reflect on your life every now and then. Look at how your life is going. Are you staying true to what your heart is saying?

3. Learn to let go

You may know that you need to give up something, but it might not be easy to let it go. This is especially true if you already spend a lot of resources on it.

This is where the concept of sunk costs is helpful. Don’t get caught in sunk cost bias. The fact that you’ve spent your resources on the wrong thing doesn’t justify spending even more resources on it. Those resources are already spent. Now you need to find the best way to spend the resources that are left.

The concept of opportunity costs may also be helpful. Holding on the wrong thing means losing better opportunities. The more resources you spend on it, the more opportunities you lose.

4. Refocus your effort

Once you’ve given up the less important things, renew your focus and effort on the few important ones. Now that you are focused, you have a chance to make a real difference.

Photo by Japokskee

Note: This is a guest post from Douglas Cartwright of Living Words

Recently, I was watching a television show about Dean Potter, an American ‘slack line walker’ who strings one-inch thick nylon ropes between high mountainous places and walks across them.

Whilst that’s impressive, you might think “I’ve seen tightrope walkers before.”

But Dean is different. He does it without a balancing pole, or a safety harness, and the line is, literally, slack unlike the traditional high-wire walker. So it moves in the wind as he walks on it.

That’s amazing – but what is more interesting is what he says about why he does it:

“When I’m on a slack-line the feeling that if I slip, I die, totally overwhelms me…I’m after a feeling of total control of my life…that’s what I’m after in all of my life…I’m drawn towards these obsessive goals…”

What Dean has got (whether he realizes it or not) are outrageously powerful reasons driving him for doing what he does. He fully admits he knows that his addiction could lead to his death – but he does it anyway.

What drives a man to do such things?

This is the power of intention, driven by reasons, created by values: things that are so significant and important to him that he can focus his entire mind into what needs to be done to get across that line.

What I am writing about here is focus – and one significant way to improve it using the power of intention.

Some people seem to be able to focus on their priorities at will; and some people seem not to be able to. When these latter people do – they can’t seem to maintain it for long.

Why?

We’re going to look at this and explore some of what we can do about it. But first, please settle yourself down and reacquaint yourself with some familiar (and maybe not so familiar) feelings.

Please picture this….

It’s Friday afternoon. You’re tired, winding down, and ready to chill out at the weekend. You lean lethargically over to your PC and check your email in the hope someone has sent you a decent joke.

Suddenly your boss appears by the desk and tells you he needs your sales figures (or substitute any other time-consuming report-type activity) by Monday morning, and it’s non-negotiable.

You must do it.

You hear your mouth agreeing, and your head nodding, but inwardly you hear your voice groaning and whining: “Darn! It takes ages to do these figures and I’m not in the mood – How on earth am I going to summon the energy or the focus to do this stupid thing?” You alternate quickly between flashes of anger, despair and frustration as you imagine the time it’s going to waste of your weekend putting this together.

If you work for someone else (and if you are a middle manager!) this is probably not unfamiliar to you – and if not so at work, then you can probably remember something like it happening when you were relaxing at home -someone has come to you with an urgent (to them) thing they need you to do; and you can remember the dragging resistance you felt to doing it even as you agreed.

Listen to the griping in your head. What kind of things do you say to yourself about it?

Now, clear your mind and think what your reaction would be if completing that one report (or other task) meant:

• Significant promotion or major career boost.
• An extra 20K per annum tax free. Or any amount you want.
• A new house anywhere in the world you desired.
• Health and long life.
• Being with the partner of your dreams.
• Understanding what it meant to be close to God.

What if it meant all your dreams come true just because you got it done that evening?

Ok, I know. Now, just go along with me for a minute. I know that no one’s report is likely to mean any of those things.

But what if it did?

What if all you had to do was that one lousy report and all your problems would be solved?

How would that feel? What would your motivation be to do it then? Imagine.

Pause for a moment and clear your head. Ask yourself this: “Why would I do the report in the second case and not the first?”

Isn’t it obvious?

In the first instance the only thing motivating you is probably the fear of getting bawled out or fired.

But in the second you’ve got better or more powerful reasons to do the report.

Many or all of those things listed are what people value, what they work their lives for, what they give up their time and money for.

It is the reasons that we have for doing things that make all the difference. It is the meanings we give to the events in our lives that determine how favourably we respond to them – and how strongly we feel about doing or not doing them.

The reason (!) I told you about Dean Potter was to demonstrate that if a man can find reasons to do something that goes against almost every instinct most of us had (walking across a bendy rope 500 feet up in the air with no safety harness!) then does that not inspire you that you could find some powerful reasons to do what you need to do in order to achieve your goals?

There are some things in life that you have to do if you want to be successful and in some cases even remain solvent. There are things you have to focus on, things you have to give “regular focused sufficient attention” to – whether you like it or not.

You probably do know (some of) what you should be doing in order to ensure your success.

So why don’t you?

Could it be because your reasons for not doing it are stronger than your reasons for doing it? Could it be that although it should be, it’s just not registering on your gut-level importance meter? That you just don’t feel like doing it???

What we need is a method of producing strong and lasting motivation that will see us through our good and ‘other’ days. What we need to do is to find a way to generate feelings strong enough to overcome our resistance AND access those feelings on a regular basis so that we can do what we need to. This pattern is based on the Intentions pattern which was created by Professor Michael Hall Ph.D, creator and trainer of Neurosemantics.

THE TECHNIQUE:

You will need at least 20 minutes and a paper and pencil/pen to do this properly. It would also be good if you are somewhere you cannot be seen as you may want to stand up during the final part of the exercise.

1) First, pick an activity you know you ‘should’ be doing in order to increase or turbo-boost your progress towards your success. Pick something that in your heart of hearts you know you are resisting. Got it?

Turn your paper to portrait format.

Write the activity in the middle of the top of the page.

We will now use this activity as a reference point to explore and create your higher and more powerful mental motivations.

2) Answer the questions about ‘How is this activity important to me?’

I take it that activity is significant, right?

How is it significant?

How is it valuable?

How is it meaningful?

What else is important about that?

How many other answers can you identify about this activity?

Write your answers from left to right of the page about an inch below the activity. Basically write what looks like a paragraph of answers.

3) Take a mental step back. Well done. You’ve started to explore your mind set and ask questions about your motivations which is more than many people do.

Now, look at the answers you have just written. Your activity is important to you because of these things, right?

Now ask the following questions about your answers.

And how are these answers important to me?

What is important about having this?

And if you got these feelings and senses of value exactly as you wanted them, what’s even more important than that?

Write down the answers in a paragraph an inch or two below your previous answers.

[Please go with the question and consider your answers even if it seems a little strange to do so.]

Keep doing steps 2 and 3 until you find yourself just repeating the same sort of answers as you did in the previous paragraph.

4) When you can’t list any more answers, look at your final paragraphs and let yourself feel your response to them. It will probably be powerful. Now, (and this is important) think about your activity whilst feeling these feelings. Imagine DOING the activity whilst feeling these powerful feelings.

Doesn’t this begin to totally transform your perceptions of that?

How does this work?

The cut and dried version comes from paraphrasing the German philosopher Nietzchie (the one who supposedly said ‘God is dead’) : “A man can endure how if he has a strong enough WHY” [my italics]

Dean Potter’s why drives him to do extreme things. For the rest of us, making those business calls, building that shed, and booking that training seminar might be enough to start with!

Douglas Cartwright is a personal breakthrough and effectiveness coach and trainer. He helps self-motivated people who are ‘stuck’ get moving and start taking action. You can start to untie your psychological ‘knots’ at www.livingwords.net and pick up an outrageously powerful implementation technique for free at www.overcomingprocrastination.co.uk

Photo by John Loo

Do you want to live a happy life? I’ve written before about being happy, but here I want to take a different angle and look at one important cause of unhappiness: loving stuff. Many people try to fill the void within them by buying more and more things they don’t need. When new gadgets come out, they buy them. When their friend has a new car, they want it too.

But why does it happen? Why do people love stuff? The reason is they believe it will make them happy. They believe the more stuff they have, the happier they will be. Is that true?

The answer is no. Perhaps they think they are happy, but they can actually be much happier if they do it differently. This isn’t just my opinion; scientific research supports it. I will discuss it more thoroughly below, but first let’s see some disadvantages of loving stuff:

1. It makes your life cluttered. Each thing you have consumes not only your physical space but also your mental space. Acquiring one more thing means having one more thing to worry about.
2. It creates wasteful spending. Buying stuff you don’t need means spending your money unnecessarily. Wouldn’t it be better if you spend it on something that’s truly useful and meaningful?
3. It promotes materialistic point of view. The more you love stuff, the more you send the wrong message to the world. The message you’re sending is that stuff can give you happiness. As a result, more and more people around you will fall into it.
4. It isn’t a good way to make you happy. There are better ways for that. More about it below.

So what should we do? Here are some tips on how not to love stuff:

1. Realize the negative side of stuff

When you realize the negative side of stuff (as discussed above), you will think twice before introducing more clutter into your life.

2. Realize that experiences – not stuff – contribute more to happiness

Instead of buying stuff, use your money to buy experiences. Research shows that experiences contribute more to happiness:

Another theme that has emerged in similar research is that money spent on experiences – vacations or theater tickets or meals out – makes you happier than money spent on material goods… “We generally found very consistent evidence that experiences made people happier than material possessions they had invested in,” says Van Boven.

3. Avoid impulse buying

Impulse buying is one of the main causes of acquiring too much stuff. This is something I learn firsthand. Since I love reading, I used to buy a lot of books. And guess what? Many of them end up unread. Realizing this, in recent years I become more careful when it comes to buying books. I only buy books that I’m sure I will read.

The way I avoid impulse buying is by first putting the item I want to buy into a wish list. I then wait for at least one month and see if I still want to buy it. In many cases, an item could stay in my wish list for months before I buy it.

4. Think ROI

ROI (return on investment) is a useful concept to help you minimize the number of stuff in your life. When you buy something, think of it as an investment. The question is: can you get good return on your investment? The return here isn’t financial. It’s the overall value you get from the stuff. Will it make your life considerably better? Will it give you long-term happiness? Invest your money only on things that give you good ROI.

5. Give

Giving is the ultimate way to both avoid loving stuff and make you happier. Research clearly shows the power of giving:

First, they surveyed 632 Americans on their general happiness, along with what they spent their money on, and found that higher “prosocial spending” – gifts for others and donations to charity – was indeed correlated with higher self-reported happiness. They followed this up with a more detailed look at 16 workers before and after they received a profit-sharing bonus from their company. They found that the only factor that reliably predicted which workers would be happy six to eight weeks after the bonus was their prosocial spending – the more money people spent on charity and gifts for others, the happier they were.

The conclusion of the research is clear:

Money makes you most happy if you don’t spend it on yourself.

Photo by striatic

In The Medici Effect (here is my review), there’s a term I’m interested in: the Intersection. It’s a place where ideas and experiences from different fields meet and form new ideas. It’s a fascinating place to be because excitement from different fields come together at one place. Even more, you can get a lot of fresh ideas that make your and other people’s lives better.

Living in the Intersection has always been a dream of mine. The question, of course, is how. One good way to answer it is by learning from those who are already there. Specifically, there is a certain kind of people with Intersection experience I want to discuss here. They are the polymaths.

Polymaths are people who are extraordinarily intelligent in multiple fields. They live and thrive in the Intersection. Perhaps the most famous one is Leonardo da Vinci but there are still many others. Two examples of modern polymaths are Nathan Myhrvold and Jared Diamond.

I’m not saying that we should be polymaths but I believe we can learn from them about how to live in the Intersection. Here are several lessons I learn:

1. Be curious

Curiosity is perhaps the most obvious characteristic of a polymath. It’s their deep curiosity that fuels them to explore many different fields. They want to know about the world from different perspectives. They want to experience new adventures.

So build your curiosity. Don’t take things for granted. Keep an open mind and be on the lookout of interesting things.

2. Be enthusiastic

One thing I notice when watching polymaths speak is their level of energy and enthusiasm. Often their energy and enthusiasm are so contagious you can feel a fire ignited within you. They don’t do something because they have to. They do something because they love it.

So find things that make you excited. Find things you are passionate about and follow them.

3. Focus on one field before moving to a new one

I especially notice this with modern polymaths. Nathan Myhrvold got his doctoral degree in quantum physics and worked on cosmology. Later he moved to information technology until he became Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer. Jared Diamond, whose book Guns, Germs and Steel requires deep understanding of multiple disciplines to write, has similar story:

After graduating from Cambridge, he returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became Professor of Physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties, he also developed a second, parallel, career in the ornithology of New Guinea, and has since undertaken numerous research projects in New Guinea and nearby islands. In his fifties, Diamond gradually developed a third career in environmental history, and become a Professor of Geography at UCLA, his current position.

A polymath is like a serial entrepreneur who focuses on one business and makes it successful before creating a new business. By doing it this way, he doesn’t spread his effort too thin. He has the focus necessary to gain deep understanding of the field.

So dig deep into a field before moving to a new one. This will later help you connect the different fields better.

4. Connect different fields

This a big advantage the polymaths have over many other people. While specialists usually just see from the perspective of their field, polymaths can connect one field with another. When they approach a field, they bring their knowledge and experiences in other fields with them. This enables them to see things with fresh eyes. They can see things that other people can’t.

You should do the same. When you are dealing with a field, bring your experiences and ideas in other fields with you and find connections. This is how you get fresh ideas.

Photo by OliBac

Note: This is a guest post from Jonathan Beebe of Develop Minds

You may know all the reasons why you should keep a journal, but if you’ve never written in a journal before, or have limited experience with it, you may not exactly know how to get started. You’ve got your notebook out, and a blank page staring back at you… now what?

Of course, there’s no set rules to writing in a journal. You can write in it however you like and it’s effective either way; however, if you need just a little guidance to get you started on the right foot, I’ll show you an effective journal “template” that you can use day-to-day, and modify as you wish to suit your needs.

Remember, none of the “sections” listed below are required to be long. They can be as long as a few paragraphs, or as short as one sentence… it’s all up to you, after all, it’s your journal :-)

Gratitude

A good way to start any journal entry is to begin listing a few of the things you’re grateful for. If you do this on routine, it helps to write a few words as to why you’re grateful for each particular item, so you really feel grateful, rather than just writing from memorization.

Even if you only name one thing you’re truly grateful for, what this will do is help bring you into a positive mindset for not only your journal writing session, but for your entire day. Gratitude is one of the best ways to ignite positivity… and we all have something to be grateful for.

Personal Reflection

I then begin writing about where I’m at with the current goals that I’m working on, or touch on some of the things I mentioned in my previous entry (if applicable). For example, if I had planned on posting an article to my blog and also taking my wife and daughter to the park today, I’ll write whether or not I ended up following through and how it went (or why I didn’t end up doing it). If I see somewhere I need to improve as far as my goals go, I’ll recognize that as well.

This section of the journal entry is for making a “status check” of yourself to see where you’re at, evaluate your strengths, and assess your weaknesses. I recommend you also use this section to write down how you feel about certain things, and express your emotions.

Goal Focus

This is where you can make plans to fix the areas you’re weaker at, set goals for the next day, etc. The previous section was used for evaluating and assessing, and this section is for planning and thinking about the “next” step.

For example, let’s say my goal is to lose 25lbs and I took a nice walk the previous day to work towards my goal. In the “Personal Reflection” section, I can recognize the fact that I took some time to work on my fitness, but also take note that I should have probably ate less snacks during the day. Then, in the “Goal Focus” section, I could state that because the walk wasn’t very challenging, that I plan to go further the next day and cut back on my daily snacking.

What the above journaling template will do for you is:

• Get you started on the right track, with a mindset of gratitude.
• Allow you to assess your feelings, your strengths, and areas you could improve (whether it be goals or general personal growth areas).
• Ensure you are taking at least baby steps towards your goals each day.
• Allow you to have a clear “action plan” as to what you’re planning on doing next (whether it be later on that day, the next day, etc).

As I mentioned earlier, there is no “right” way to write in your journal, but if you’re unsure how to get started, following the above template will definitely give you an effective head start!

Jonathan Beebe is the author and creator of Develop Minds, a personal development blog dedicated to providing free content aimed at helping you improve you life by increasing your consciousness, intelligence, and teaching you to fully develop your mind in a positive way.

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What is your favorite way to make money? Obviously, there are many ways to make money. You can work for a company or have your own business. You can earn money from salary, dividend, commission, bonus, and many others.

My favorite way is to earn passive income. I’m sure this is not new to you. I’ve heard about it for years but only recently did I begin to understand its nature. I’m not saying that this is the best way or that everyone should do this. This is just the way I like most.

The main reason I love passive income is freedom. With passive income, I don’t need to be actively involved to make money. I do need to work hard to build the system in the beginning, but once it works I can leave it alone and the system will continue earning me money. All I need to do is checking it every now and then to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I can improve the system if I want to, but that’s optional. I can spend my time on a hobby or a new project.

Differences Between Active and Passive Income

To better understand the nature of passive income, here are some differences between active income (income that requires your active participation) and passive income:

• With active income, you can quickly get full-time income. For example, if you receive monthly paycheck then you will get full-time income within one month. With passive income, it may take a long time before you get it.
• With active income, when you stop working your income drops to zero or near zero. When you work you maintain your income level or slightly increase it. With passive income, when you stop working your income stays at the same level. When you work, you increase your income level.

From these two differences, you can see that building passive income is long and difficult. But once you make it, you will get the big reward of financial freedom.

Steps to Build Passive Income

From the characteristics above, here are the steps you should follow to build passive income:

1. Build a side business. Since it takes a long time to reach full-time level with passive income, don’t leave your day job. The active income from your day job will cover your expenses. At the same time, you should start building your passive income through a side business. Start early because it will take time. These passive income resources might give you some ideas.

2. Focus. It’s important that you focus on just one business and make it successful. Don’t be all over the place. There’s a price to pay for something to be successful and only with focus can you pay the price before you burn out.

3. Leave your day job. Once your passive income reaches full-time level, you can leave your day job. This is where you start enjoying your financial freedom.

4. Diversify. Now that you have more time, you need to diversify your sources of passive income. Work on new income sources. This way when something goes wrong with one source you still have other sources to cover you. This also is a good way to increase your income over time.

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What do you think it takes to get good luck? There are many opinions on this. One popular one is to prepare yourself so that you will be in the right position to capitalize on opportunities when they come. This is summarized in a Louis Pasteur’s quote that says “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

But there’s an interesting take on it that I found recently in The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. There the author gives a simple tip to get good luck: be generous. You should be generous if you want to be lucky. In other words, you should make other people feel lucky to be around you.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Here are three reasons why:

1. The quality of the people around you reflects your quality
   Twyla Tharp is a choreographer and this is what she writes: To be a great choreographer (or teacher), you have to invest everything you have in your dancer… Without that generosity, you’ll always hold something back. The finished work shows it, and your audience knows it.
2. People will reciprocate
   Reciprocation is one of the weapons of influence described in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. The law of reciprocation is wired into us. Whenever someone does something good for us, we feel obliged to give back to her. The more you are generous, the more people are willing to reciprocate and the more opportunities will come your way.
3. You will be known as a value provider
   Not only will the people whom you help feel obliged to reciprocate, but they may also tell their friends about you. They may tell their friends about how much value they get from you. That will attract these friends to come to you. They may then tell their friends and it becomes viral. All these people attracted to you means more opportunities for you.

Here are two things you should do to apply this principle:

1. Increase your value
   Before you can give to others, you need to have something you can give. You need to have something that make other people want to come to you. If you have nothing, how can people feel lucky to be around you? So work hard to increase your value. Build your expertise in the field you choose and expand your network. Coincidentally, it means that you are also preparing for opportunities. By wanting to be generous you build yourself a “prepared mind.”
2. Share without holding back
   Now that you have something worth sharing, what you need to do is sharing it without holding back. It may take practice to do that, but over time you will feel more and more comfortable to share what you know. Again, the key here is not just to give but to be generous.

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