This post by Mark Cunningham originally appeared at Soul Shelter on 08 January 2008. The article has been revised for Success Daily.

My vocation entails years of labor often resulting in maddeningly unquantifiable results. Because this is so, it has revealed to me a few things about the elusive nature of fulfillment, both personal and professional.

Rewind to ten years ago, when I had the clearest epiphany of my life. I was nineteen years old and spending a college semester in London, and the bolt of lightning struck during a ride on the London Underground one afternoon. The girl I loved was sitting beside me (Iâ€d followed her from California to England, where she was studying for a year). I leaned and whispered my secret: “Iâ€m going to be a writer.”

The promise of personal fulfillment
Since earliest boyhood Iâ€d enjoyed dreaming up stories, Iâ€d kept journals and written poems for years, and knew I had a natural gift of kinds, so I nurtured a passionate desire to devote myself to the work of the pen. This vocation, of the many I could imagine, seemed to promise the greatest personal fulfillment. Immediately after returning home from London, in a craze of determination, I started working on a nonfiction manifesto. I knew virtually nothing of how to produce a compelling book, but believed passion and truthfulness, when bolstered by small native talent, would yield literary brilliance.

Perhaps itâ€s needless to say that my manifesto never saw the light of day. Another four solid years of hard work and perseverance were required before I managed to create literary material that merited publication—a short story.

During that four-year period I wrote and scrapped a second full-length manuscript, but the short story was published in a national literary magazine. Two years after that (six years since returning home from London) my first novel appeared in hardcover on bookstore shelves across the country. My second novel was published only recently.

That beautiful girl from the London tube has now been my wife for eight years, and all this time sheâ€s been an unflagging supporter of my by-no-means lucrative pursuit. We both believed, early on, in the true value of art: a humanistic, even spiritual value transcending money. We still do. This conviction has helped us avoid delusions of wealth. Despite todayâ€s countless stories of break-out novels and meteoric best-seller successes, literary art is one of the roughest, most overgrown and ill-maintained highways to financial security.

My wife and I have always worked hard to simplify our lives (see my post, “Simplify, Simplify!“), to reduce our material necessities, and have made some very difficult sacrifices in order to continue doing work that fulfills us (for six nervous years we had no health insurance). For my wife these days, fulfillment means teaching high school English. For me, as ever, it means writing books. You can see weâ€re a far cry from model capitalists.

In spite of some great successes (my first novel was glowingly reviewed, nominated for a prestigious award, and even earned me royalties) living by writing continues to be a struggle, requiring—as ever—extreme determination and ceaseless hard work. And naturally, this artistic existence would be completely impossible without my wifeâ€s moral and financial support (sheâ€s the breadwinner in our house). No doubt this will be the case for some time, for even now I receive a few rejections per week.

The feeling of fulfillment
What does it feel like to strive for such a personal vision, and how does fulfillment manifest itself?

Well, Iâ€ve slowly come to understand that Iâ€ll never attain my vision of “becoming” a writer, because every time I sit down at my desk I find myself beginning over again: reminded, by the hard work I do every day, that the feeling of being a Writer (with a capital “w”) will never arrive. I imagine this kind of thing is true for anyone who wishes to attain excellence in their work. Ultimately, attainment matters less than commitment. That, to me, is strangely comforting.

But when does fulfillment arrive if one is always at a beginning?

It’s all too easy, sometimes to convince myself that “fulfillment” and “financial security” are one and the same. In my worst moments I fall into fantasies of a golden prize that lies somewhere just ahead—a definitively measurable accomplishment that will eradicate all financial concerns and deliver a conclusive feeling of Success (with a capital “s”). Sometimes the fantasy is seeing my book title on the New York Times Bestseller list. Sometimes itâ€s having one of my novels adapted for a major motion picture.

But in my clearest, most truthful moments, I know fulfillment is to be found by recognizing something simpler and more profound. I guess you could put it this way: My destiny is already unfolding around me. What I want to happen is happening now. Iâ€m a published novelist and am living my life as a writer. My continuing struggles—rather than undermining my achievements—are reminders that itâ€s all for real. Iâ€m working, actively working, at the thing that fulfills me most. I was lucky, early on, to find some wise words in the Bhagavad Gita. Theyâ€ve helped to guide me for years now:

Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action. Avoid attraction to the fruits and attachment to inaction.

For me, thatâ€s what fulfillment means: sitting down at the desk and working — every day.

For much of my adult life I’ve been shackled by fear. I’ve been afraid to try new things, afraid to meet new people, afraid of doing anything that might lead to failure. This fear confined me to a narrow comfort zone. Recently, however, I made a single small change that has helped me to overcome my fear, and allowed me to get more out of life.

A few years ago, somebody at Ask Metafilter posted a question looking for books about self-confidence. One person recommended Impro by Keith Johnstone. Intrigued, I borrowed it from the public library. It blew my mind. Though it’s a book about stage-acting, several of the techniques it describes are applicable to everyday life.

I was particularly struck by the need for improvisational actors to accept whatever is offered to them on stage. In order for a scene to flow, an actor must take whatever situation arises and just go with it. (Watch old episodes of Whose Line is It Anyway to see this principle in action.) Johnstone writes:

Once you learn to accept offers, then accidents can no longer interrupt the action. […] This attitude makes for something really amazing in the theater. The actor who will accept anything that happens seems supernatural; it’s the most marvelous thing about improvisation: you are suddenly in contact with people who are unbounded, whose imagination seems to function without limit.

[…]

These ‘offer-block-accept’ games have a use quite apart from actor training. People with dull lives often think that their lives are dull by chance. In reality everyone chooses more or less what kind of events will happen to them by their conscious patterns of blocking and yielding.

That passage had a profound effect on me. I thought about it for days. “What if I did this in real life?” I wondered. “Is there a way I could adapt this to help me overcome my fear?” I began to note the things that I blocked and accepted. To my surprise, I blocked things constantly — I made excuses not to do things because I was afraid of what might happen if I accepted.

I made a resolution. I decided that instead of saying “no” to things because I was afraid of them, I would “just say yes”. That became my working motto: “Just say yes”. Any time anyone asked me to do something, I agreed to do it (as long as it wasn’t illegal and didn’t violate my own personal code of conduct). For the past few years, I’ve put this philosophy into practice in scores of little ways. But the power of “yes” has made larger changes to my life, too, has exposed me to things I never would have done before.

• I used to be afraid to meet and talk with strangers. As my personal finance blog has grown, so too has the chance to meet new people. Whereas I used to avoid situations that would have forced me to interact with strangers, now I say “yes” when these opportunities come along. As a result, I’ve met some amazing people.
• Soon after I started Get Rich Slowly, editors and agents began to approach me. I always turned them away. I was scared to write a book. Eventually, I realized I was blocking again. I decided to overcome my fears and accept an offer. As a result, I wrote Your Money: The Missing Manual, and I’m proud of the results. (Plus, I actually wrote a book!)
• After a disastrous radio interview a few years ago (more about this later), I swore I’d never go on radio or television again. But as part of my resolve to say “yes”, I’ve had to overcome my apprehension. Sure, I sound like a dork a lot of the time — and I even gave another disastrous TV interview — but I’ve actually grown more confident and capable. My interviews aren’t good yet, but they’re not disastrous either.
• The blog and the book have also provided all sorts of chances to challenge my fear of public speaking. One of my friends works as a career counselor at a nearby university. Every year, he asks me to present a talk to graduating seniors about the basics of personal finance. The old me would refuse out of hand, but only because I’m afraid. Now I say “yes”. I’ve also spoken at a public library, a bookstore, and in front of a regional organization of financial planners.
• And, of course, there have been countless other opportunities to say “yes” over the years. I’ve said “yes” to food, business deals, trips across the country, writing gigs, games and exercise, and more.

These things may seem minor to extroverts, but for me these were big steps. These experiences were new, and I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t forced myself to just say yes.

Most of my experiences from my “just say yes” campaign have been positive, but not all of them. I’ve had some failures, too. Surprisingly, I’ve learned more from the bad experiences than I have from the good.

In 2007, for example, a Seattle radio station asked me to do a telephone interview about retirement savings. “I’m not a retirement expert,” I told the woman who contacted me, but then I realized I was making excuses. I was blocking because I was scared. “But I’ll do it,” I said. Ultimately my radio appearance was a disaster. I got stage-fright and became tongue-tied. But you know what? I don’t care. I failed, but at least I tried. After the interview, I e-mailed the woman to apologize and to ask for advice. She was sympathetic, and gave me some great pointers. Next time somebody asks for a radio interview, I’ll do better.

For too long, fear of failure held me back. Failure itself didn’t hold me back — the fear of it did. When I actually try something and fail, I generally get right back up and do it again, but better the second time. I pursue it until I succeed. But often I convince myself that I can’t do something because I’m going to fail at it, so I don’t even bother to try.

Since I’ve learned the power of yes, I’ve begun to act as if I’m not afraid. Whenever I feel fear creep upon me, I act as if I’m somebody else. I act as if I’m somebody stronger and braver. Motivational speaker Brian Tracy says:

If you want to develop courage, then simply act courageously when it’s called for. If you do something over and over again, you develop a habit. Some people develop the habit of courage. Some people develop the habit of non-courage.

Tracy recommends that any time you encounter the fear of failure, you simply tell yourself, “I can do it.” Say it again and again and then do it. What’s more, he says, tell others that they can do the things they’re frightened of. How many times have you seen somebody excited about a new project become totally deflated when others tell them why it won’t work. Don’t be like that. Tell the person, “You can do it.” Be supportive.

Tracy is famous for asking the question: What would you dare to dream if you knew you wouldn’t fail? This is a powerful concept. What could you do if you stopped telling yourself “no” and simply tapped into the power of yes?

Aside from learning the power of yes, there are other ways to fight fear and develop a more courageous attitude.

• Start small. Many people are afraid to make phone calls, or to approach a clerk in a store. Begin by practicing these little habits. A clerk in a book store answers hundreds of questions a month. There’s no reason to be frightened of asking yours.
• Try one new thing each week. It doesn’t have to be big. Learn a new skill, have lunch with an acquaintance, do something for a friend. Once every week, say “yes” where you might have said “no” before.
• Exercise mindfulness. When fear creeps into your head, name it for what it is, and let it pass by. I know this sounds new age and hokey, but it works. When somebody asks you to do something and your gut reaction is “no”, pause to examine that “no” and ask yourself, “Am I saying this simply out of fear? What would happen if I said yes?”
• Act like you’re somebody else. Do you have a friend who is a great negotiator? The next time you negotiate, pretend you’re this person. This is more effective than you probably think!
• Ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” Then ask yourself, “What is the best thing that could happen?” Most of the time when I make this comparison, the upside far outweighs the downside.
• Recognize that failures and mistakes are not the end. Often they’re the beginning. If you can pick yourself up after you do something wrong, and then learn from the experience, you’ll be a better person because of it.

Read more about conquering fear and worry:

• The Instigator Blog offers five reasons to say yes.
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie has a five-star rating on 107 reviews at Amazon, and rightly so. This is a classic book about courage in everyday life. Here’s a summary. (From the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.)
• Yes Man is a book by Danny Wallace that chronicles his adventures as he says “yes” to everything for an entire year. I haven’t read this, but I’d like to.
• Impro by Keith Johnstone is a book about improvisational acting. Sharp readers will find ways to apply these techniques to everyday life, to boost self-confidence and to overcome fear of failure.

We all have dreams, but most of us make excuses for not pursuing them. Often these excuses aren’t overt. It’s more a matter of inertia, of just ignoring the dreams, of maintaining the comfortable status quo. But you can break out of your comfort zone to get more out of life through the simple power of yes.

This article originally appeared on my Get Rich Slowly in a slightly different format.

In 1920, the Vir Publishing Company printed Touchstones of Success, a book of inspiration for young men (this was 1920, remember, and women had only just begun to push against traditional roles) in which 160 “present-day men of achievement” shared their secrets. Today’s “touchstone of success” comes from Hudson Maxim, an inventor and mechanical engineer from Brooklyn.

From my parents I inherited an iron constitution and great physical strength, with energy, ambition and a creative imagination. I was able, therefore, to plow through a great deal of hardship and adversity to get a start in the world.

When I was a boy [Maxim was born 03 Feb 1853], half fed and scantily clothed, down in old inclement Maine, I had the toughest kind of a time. I had neither hat nor shoes, even in winter, until I was thirteen years of age.

I had no opportunity of learning my letters until I was nine years old. In my youth I worked for two things — existence and education.

Whatever impedes a man, if it does not actually stop him, aids his progress.^cf Whatever hits a man helps him unless it hits him hard enough to break him or kill him. Cuts and bruises may bleed, but they build.

My father once said to me that the best safe-guard against wrong-doing is right work. At the age of twelve I made the resolution to make of myself all that I could, and to keep at it until I died, and I have never swerved from that resolution.

A man must always live with the man that he makes of himself, for all his actions keep him company. Therefore one should so live that he may be as good company for himself as possible. Every man is known to himself by the company that he keeps himself.

Every man who has done big things serves as a pace-maker to every young man with ambition to do big things. I have always been greatly influenced by the example of successful men.

I always realized , and every young man should realize, that the world owes nobody anything except what he earns. The only true estimate of a man is based on the use he is.

Every Saturday, Success Daily reprints one touchstone of success. Next week, Champ Clark, a congressman from Missouri, gives advice about hard work.

In 1920, the Vir Publishing Company printed Touchstones of Success, a book of inspiration for young men (this was 1920, remember, and women had only just begun to push against traditional roles) in which 160 “present-day men of achievement” shared their secrets. Today’s “touchstone of success” comes from Paul Bartlett, a sculptor from Washington, D.C.

Paul Wayland Bartlett was an American sculptor born in New Haven, Connecticut. When he was fifteen, he traveled to Paris to study under Emmanuel Frémiet. Bartlett’s masterwork was the House of Representatives pediment at the U.S. Capitol building, begun in 1908 and completed in 1916.

Bartlett’s short piece of advice from Touchstones of Success is:

My young friend, try to find what you can do best, and then do it all the time.

Simple, perhaps, but true nonetheless.

For many years, I struggled to be successful. I was depressed and had given up hope of ever finding any work that I loved. But I continued to practice my writing, and I eventually realized that writing is what I do best. I found a way to do it all all the time, and since then, I’ve achieved things I never thought possible.

Every Saturday, Success Daily reprints one touchstone of success. Next week, Hudson Maxim, an inventor and mechanical engineer from Brooklyn, gives advice about making good company of oneself. Photo by Andreas Praefcke.

This post by Leo Babauta from Zen Habits originally appeared at his site on 28 January 2007. The article has been revised for Success Daily.

One of the things that gives me most peace is have a clean, simple home. When I wake up in the morning and walk out into a living room that has been decluttered, that has a minimalist look, and there isn’t junk lying around, a calm and joy that enters my heart. When, on the other hand, I walk out into a living room cluttered with toys and books and extra things all over the place, it’s chaos and my mind is frenetic.

I’ve been a simplifier and a declutterer for over a decade now, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I’ve found that you have to keep coming back to revisit your clutter every once in awhile.

Here are my top decluttering tips:

Do it in small chunks. Set aside 15 minutes to declutter just one shelf, and when that shelf or that 15 minutes is up, celebrate your victory. Then tackle another shelf for 15 minutes the next day. Conquering an entire closet or room can be overwhelming, and you might put it off forever. If that’s the case, just do it in baby steps.

Set aside a couple hours to do it. This may seem contradictory to the above tip…and it is. It’s simply a different strategy, and I say do whatever works for you. Sometimes, for me, it’s good to set aside part of a morning, or an entire Saturday morning, to declutter a closet or room. I do it all at once, and when I’m done, it feels awesome.

Take everything out of a shelf or drawer at once. Whichever of the two above strategies you choose, you should focus on one drawer or shelf at a time, and empty it completely. Then clean that shelf or drawer. Then, take the pile and sort it (see next tip), and put back just what you want to keep. Then tackle the next shelf or drawer.

Sort through your pile, one item at a time, and make quick decisions. Have a trash bag and a give-away box handy. When you pull everything out of a shelf or drawer, sort through the pile one at a time. Pick up an item, and make a decision: trash, give away, or keep. Don’t put it back in the pile. Do this with the entire pile, and soon you’ll be done. If you keep sorting through the pile, and re-sorting, it’ll take forever. Put back only what you want to keep, and arrange it nicely.

Be merciless. You may be a packrat, but the truth is, you won’t ever use most of the junk you’ve accumulated. If you haven’t used it in the last year, get rid of it. It’s as simple as that. If you’ve only used it once or twice in the last year, but know you won’t use it in the next year, get rid of it. Toss it if it’s unsalvageable, or give it away if someone else might be able to use it.

Papers? Be merciless, unless it’s important. Magazines, catalogs, junkmail, bills more than a year old, notes to yourself, notes from others, old work stuff — toss it! The only exception is tax-related stuff, which should be kept for seven years, and other important documents like warranties, birth and death and marriage certificates, insurance, wills, and other important documents like that. But you’ll know those when you see ’em. Otherwise, toss!!!!

If you are on the fence with a lot of things, create a “maybe” box. If you can’t bear to toss something because you might need it later, put it in the box, then close the box, label it, and put it in storage (garage, attic, closet), out of sight. Most likely, you’ll never open that box again. If that’s the case, pull it out after six months or a year, and toss it or give it away.

Create a system to stop clutter from accumulating. There’s a reason you have tall stacks of papers all over the place, and big piles of toys and books and clothes. It’s because you don’t have a regular system to keep things in their place, and get rid of stuff you don’t need. This is a topic for another day, but it’s something to think about as you declutter. You’ll never get to perfect, but if you think more intelligently about how your house got cluttered, perhaps you can find ways to stop it from happening again.

Celebrate when you’re done. This is actually a general rule in life: Always celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small. Even if you just decluttered one drawer, that’s great. Treat yourself to something delicious. Open that drawer (or closet, or whatever), and admire its simplicity. Breathe deeply and know that you have done a good thing. Bask in the peacefulness.

This post by Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar originally appeared at his site on 24 January 2007. The article has been revised for Success Daily.

A while ago, I discovered a technique that helped me clarify my goals and dreams. It took some time (about an hour and a half), but when I was finished, I had constructed a tool that keeps driving me towards my aspirations, giving me specific actions I could be doing instead of spending money at the bookstore or watching television.

To do this, you’ll either need a big sheet of paper (I used a big piece of brown packaging paper and a Sharpie) or a program like FreeMind (an open-source mind mapping package) or KeyNote (an open source note-taking package).

In the middle of the paper, write your name and circle it. Why? You’re at the center of your own life; everything you do connects back to you in some fashion.

Around that circle, write down your main goals in life.

• Do you want an amazing home?
• Do you want to be a good husband or wife?
• Do you want to be a good parent?
• Do you want to be a millionaire?
• Do you want to retire and become a freelance writer?

Consider this carefully, and ask yourself what values you hold central. You should be able to come up with three to six of these. Write them around the central circle, spaced as far apart as possible, circle each one, and draw a line back to yourself, showing the connection. This is the innermost wheel, and from here we’ll add more wheels.

Now, for each main goal, identify two to four specific subgoals goals that you’d like to achieve in the next ten to fifteen years. At this point, we’re moving from the intangibles to the tangibles. Let’s say one of your goals is to be a great parent. Related subgoals for the next ten to fifteen years could be to guide your child towards adulthood, teach them a solid set of values, aid in training them in their favorite activity, or be an active part of their education.

Write each of these specific goals outside of the inner circle near the associated main goal, circle each one, and draw a line back to the main goal. Maybe you find that you have a goal that associates to two or more main goals; if so, write it twice and draw a dotted circle around one of them so you know it appears elsewhere in the circle. These should form another large circle.

Now start breaking them down. What can you do in the next two to five years to reach each of these specific goals? Again, you should be able to come up with three or so steps for each one. List those and add another wheel. Then create another wheel outside of these listing the things you can do in the next six months to two years to reach each of those goals.

At this stage, I was identifying things like “paying off a student loan” (in with my larger goals of being a good husband and a good father -> providing a financial backbone for my family -> eliminating all debts) and “growing The Simple Dollar to great heights” (in with my larger goal of keeping my creativity and thinking alive -> being a full-time professional writer -> getting published).

Now the final piece of the puzzle: For each of these short term goals, make a list of one thing you can do for each goal in the next week. Some of these tasks will be mundane, like paying bills or calling your stockbroker or doing some research, but they’re powerful things! You’re basically building a to-do list for the next week that you can directly connect back to your primary life values. When I did this, I wound up with a 121 item to-do list for the next week — and it felt absolutely invigorating. Why? I understood how each item on the list connected directly back to a primary value in my life. I felt empowered to tackle lots of things.

I’m planning to redo this exercise on a regular basis, so that I can keep up to date with my own goals. I expect the overall picture to evolve over time as my life evolves. In order to make sure I do this again, I added a final item to that to-do list: Remake your life map.

Photo by Johnny Goldstein.

Photo by Prabhu B.

In 1920, the Vir Publishing Company printed Touchstones of Success, a book of inspiration for young men (this was 1920, remember) in which 160 “present-day men of achievement” shared their secrets. Today’s “touchstone of success” comes from E.C. Simmons, a merchant and manufacturer from St. Louis.

The way to success in life is as plain as the way to market. Every young man who enters mercantile life should ask himself this question: “Am I willing to pay the price?” Naturally he would want to know what the price is, and that is what I propose to sate in this article.

It is integrity of purpose and deed — good habits, earnest and persistent hard work. Having employed many thousands of young men, and having developed a considerable percentage of them successfully, enables me, I believe, to state some truths on this subject that may be of benefit to some young man who reads what I say.

One of the most important matters is that a man should select a business he likes. Let me illustrate by saying that I love the hardware business — having been it, without intermission, for sixty-four years, and the fact that I love it has assisted me greatly in the success I have attained.

Perhaps the reader would like to know how he should arrive at a decision as to what business he will like, when he is only a boy, say of fifteen to eighteen years of age. That is a problem that you must solve and nobody else can help you with it. You must think it out for yourself.

Among the necessities for success is absolute truthfulness and perfect fairness in business. Don’t try to be smart — don’t have any short cuts or sharp practices. Tell the truth — the plain and simple truth, and all the truth in everything connected with your lives, and especially yours business experience.

Among the rules that governed me in my boyhood or younger days were the following:

• I never was a clock watcher. I never kept my eyes on the clock to see what time I could quit my work to go off and frolic or play with somebody. Work came first with me always, and everything else was secondary in the highest degree.
• I never asked for a raise in compensation. I felt that I would receive the reward that was coming to me or due me for my ability and painstaking efforts. [J.D.’s note: This isn’t good advice for 2010, and was questionable advice for 1920. Yes, work hard. But you should absolutely know how to ask for a raise and how to negotiate your salary.]
• I endeavored to find out what my employer expected from me, and then not only to do that, but to do more.
• Don’t think you are overworked. Don’t whine and say you have too much to do, but rather say “I can do more”. Finish up your work, do it well and then ask for more.
• Don’t ever think you have the hardest job. Others have just as hard jobs as you have, and perhaps still harder.
• Take a careful inventory of yourself. This inventory should show your weak spots rather than your strong ones. Write it on paper; don’t let anyone else see it; after you have written it and read it over several times, destroy it.
• I am a great believer in the value of “Early to bed and early to rise.” I recommend to all young men who want to succeed in life, to put that into practice. Don’t allow yourself to be influenced to frolic and keep late hours in such a way as will prevent you form getting to work early the next morning, fresh, vigorous, and clear-headed.

In addition to the above — quite equal with it and perhaps superior to it — is the fact that you must be a hard worker, as well as an early worker and a late worker. If you do not expect to work hard, do not go into business. Sit down and suck your thumb or get an easy and soft job. There are plenty of those, but the man who takes one must be satisfied to remain a mediocre man all his life.

Last but not least is the question of your habits. Many a time one single bad habit will stand in the way of a man’s progress in life and cause him to be a failure. Let me give you an incident.

Some years ago as I was coming into our store, I saw a very bright looking young man out in front — he looked so bright that he caught my attention, but he was smoking a cigarette. I went into my office, took up my work, and in a few minutes I was told there was a young man who wanted to see me. He came in to apply for a situation. I talked with him a while, and during the entire conversation of perhaps half an hour, I could not help but think of his bad habit of smoking cigarettes, and I turned him down.

Therefore, I say to you, boys, if you have any bad habits — cut them out. If you don’t cut them out, and don’t succeed in life, blame yourself — it will be all your fault.

Every Saturday, Success Daily reprints one touchstone of success. Today’s passage was abridged. Next week, Paul Bartlett gives a very short piece of advice (and I fill in with text from the Wikipedia).

This post by Mark Cunningham originally appeared at Soul Shelter on 17 December 2007. The article has been revised for Success Daily.

In the vocation of writing, poverty is a prerequisite for greatness. At least thatâ€s what I told myself back when I was nineteen or twenty years old. I had only recently committed myself wholeheartedly to “becoming a writer.” I harbored a zealous admiration for literatureâ€s impoverished, ill-fated greats: John Keats, Stephen Crane, Henry David Thoreau — all were paupers, and all died young.

As I saw it, those literary greats were able to remain intensely focused on the eternal verities because they werenâ€t after fame or fortune—just beauty, just truth. It was their raw existences, lives close to the bone and suffused with awareness of natureâ€s riches, that made possible their immortal works. I eventually came to realize Iâ€d romanticized their poverty, but even today I believe my naivete served a powerful purpose, and laid a foundation that has helped me for a decade now.

On Walden Pond
In my twentieth year I packed a large cardboard box with belongings and headed east by train to begin my artistic life in Massachusetts, 3,000 miles from California, where Iâ€d been born and raised. I wanted to live near Walden Pond and commune daily, in nearby Concord, with the wise ghosts of Thoreau and Emerson. The closest I could get was the city of Lowell, birthplace of the American industrial revolution—a ramshackle town cluttered with eerie decommissioned factories and mills. But from Lowell I could get to Concord by train as often as I liked.

I set up my new life in a 300 square-foot studio apartment 14 miles from Walden Pond as the crow flies. My sole furnishings were an inflatable mattress, a plastic patio chair, a small lamp, a pile of books, and a radio/cassette player. In the cardboard box, I had packed the essential kitchen wares: a can opener, a spatula, two plates, two cups, two forks, two knives, two spoons, and a frying pan. More importantly, I had packed a word processor and a ream of paper.

I was determined to begin my writerly life in the spirit of Thoreauâ€s proclamation in Walden: “Give me that poverty that knows true wealth.” Thoreau, living for two years in his tiny cabin on the shores of Walden Pond in the mid-19th century, had proven conclusively to the industrialized world that simplicity and “mean living” were the highest spiritual ideals, for they refined oneâ€s sense of beauty and truth. “Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau, and I wanted to heed his advice. The fewer my possessions and the smaller my quarters, the loftier my hopes could be—and the freer I could remain to realize them.

My rent in Lowell was $400 dollars a month. With roughly $1,500 in bank savings, I could conceivably live and write — and do nothing else — for about three months. I set to work. I spent nearly every day clicking away on my word processor, and every evening reading. Intellectually, Iâ€d never been wealthier. It was an education unlike anything provided by my years of schooling.

Practically everything in my life had been cleared away for the sake of writing. And only years later would the true nature of this apprenticeship period become clear to me: more than learning how to be a “starving artist,” I was learning how to be grateful for what little I possessed.

The freedom of simplicity
The residence in Massachusetts proved successful. I returned home that autumn unafraid of poverty, able to work for five to six hours at a stretch, and in possession of a 150-page personal manifesto. Iâ€d become a writer.

Maybe itâ€s needless to say that my “manifesto” never saw the light of day. At the sentence-level it was truly awful, but however far I remained from producing publishable work, Iâ€d committed myself to my craft, and knew that if I nurtured this commitment my words would find their way, sooner or later, into print. Four years later thatâ€s what happened, when my first short story was published in a national literary magazine.

Since that idealistic Massachusetts adventure, Iâ€ve never lost my grasp on the importance of simplicity (though living simply remains a day-to-day challenge). Simplicity frees one to make any range of choices and pursue any range of possibilities. And such freedom is hindered by complexities like financial demands, time constraints, and the baggage of material belongings. By consciously seeking simplicity in life, one places oneself in a condition of gratitude. And gratitude, by instilling an awareness of oneâ€s blessings, clarifies oneâ€s vision and helps one establish goals.

Iâ€m lucky that I had the opportunity, back at age twenty, to romanticize things and be naive. Through the years since, those early ideals have helped me recognize real happiness. I continue striving to be grateful, and to live up to Thoreauâ€s wise exhortation: “Simplify, simplify!”

Walden Pond photo by Pablo Sanchez. Typewriter photo by Twylo.

This post by Leo Babauta from Zen Habits originally appeared at his site on 24 January 2007. The article has been revised for Success Daily.

I love the simple philosophy of Zen Buddhism, find peace in zazen, and love the minimalist aesthetic. I chose Zen Habits as the title of my blog because it describes its philosophy in a concise way.

The “zen habits” philosophy is all about simplifying, improving your life, being mindful. But I believe that any changes in your life — especially ones that are worth making — are ultimately achieved by building good habits. Do I want to complete a marathon? Then I must cultivate the habit of running four or five times a week. I must cultivate the habit of positive thinking. It also helps to become an early riser, a healthy eater, and a non-smoker, as I’ve done.

Good habits aren’t born overnight. You can’t tell yourself, “Hey, self, I’m going to become an early riser, starting tomorrow morning!” (Well, you can tell yourself that, but if you think that it’s going to happen so quickly, you’re fooling yourself.)

No, good habits must be cultivated through daily practice. It’s my belief that you must practice a habit, as focused as possible, every day for a month. When I only practice a new habit for a week, it doesn’t take hold. But when I stick with a habit for a month or longer, it does take hold. And that doesn’t mean that I’m successful each and every day…but the important thing is that I try, and when I fail, I learn from my mistakes.

The zen in “zen habits” is simply a way to remind myself to be present, to live simply, to keep myself centered and at peace as I make my slow journey to creating good habits and achieving my goals.