What's outside your box?

*NOTE: This is an excellent guest post by Hiten Vyas of HitenVyas.com*

You may have noticed the title of the post is stepping out of your box rather than the box.

The reason being, that if we are to overcome a problem and get out of our box, we need to take complete responsibility for getting ourselves in our box in the first place.

When we’re inside our box, we are usually stuck. Do it now. Think of something you’re finding difficult in life at the moment and you can use this example as you continue reading this post.

For me, as a person who stutters, it was a difficulty of doing what most people in the world take for granted – speaking.

When we’re inside our box, we usually see everything out of our own eyes, although we don’t do so clearly. We are full of worry, anxiety, frustration, anger even and we are seeing only what we think is there, based upon judgements we have made about those who we interact with, the situations we find ourselves in, and of course ourselves.

The desire to get ourselves out of our problem is obvious – yet on the face of it, might not seem easy to do. However, with effort and practice, one can become extremely skilled at it.

Below are some ways you can change the direction of your consciousness to see beyond your current problem, and access resources to help you deal with it:

Look Backwards

If something is making you stuck now, there is a good chance the beliefs behind it have been there from when you were a younger person, perhaps when you might have been a child.

And how old are you now?

Most likely, you’re a fully grown adult. As an adult, do you still need to view the problem as a child? As you realise you are an adult, and now decide to look at the problem with ‘adult eyes’, has it changed your perception? If so, how has it changed?

On the other hand, your thinking and believing may not have begun in your childhood. It might have happened as an adult. No problem, as the next change in perception is also relevant to you.

Look Forwards

Your current challenge is not ideal. But if you don’t do something about it, can you really tell yourself hand on heart that it will get better next week or next month, unless you do something about it?

Let me interject a little with my stuttering. By my early twenties, I had pretty much missed out on many aspects of normal life that other guys my age were doing. I missed out on going out with friends, having girlfriends, taking job interviews, and voicing my opinions.

I asked myself the simple question, “what will happen if I continued this way?” Or course life would only get worse. I had enough, and this was enough to drive me into taking action and making some serious changes in my life.

Look Even More Forward

There is the future, and then there is a time when we come near the end of our lives. There will be a time when your own kids will be grown up and you will look back on your life and think about all the things you did, and regrettably didn’t.

When you look back at the particular challenge you are facing at the moment, is this how you want your legacy to be remembered? As someone who wanted to push himself/herself out of his/her comfort zones, but allowed fear to hold them back?

Chances are, you’re not one of these people.

Make It Possible

Being stuck means not seeing the forest for the trees. Your current tree might have the name “impossible” attached to it. But there are many other trees around you. Many of these are named “possible”. You just haven’t allowed yourself to see them yet.

What if it were possible to overcome your particular challenge? Just imagine it for a moment. What would you be doing differently? What would you be seeing, hearing and feeling?

If you were able to, how would your life be different? How would it improve you as a person and help those around you?

Allow yourself to turn the ‘impossible’ into ‘possible’ in your mind, until it feels like it’s almost happened already. Then go out and make it happen!

Problems needn’t keep you stuck. Sometimes all it takes is a slight change in direction of perception. Doing so can help you quickly get out your box, to see beyond the trees, and to really start exploring the forest!

Hiten Vyas is a personal development coach. He is passionate about helping people increase their confidence and reduce anxiety. You can find out more at his website, Hiten Vyas.com

Image courtesy of Impact Instruction

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Would this heat you up?

“Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.” – Euripides

Last night, I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Chris Garrett for an hour.

If you don’t know who Chris is, he’s the co-author of the ProBlogger Book with Darren Rowse, and he’s an ‘online business consultant, teacher, coach, new media industry commentator, writer, speaker, and all-round web geek.’ His website, Chrisg.com, has over 25,000 RSS subscribers, and he’s well-known and referred to by some of the biggest names in blogging including Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, and Leo Babauta.

In a nutshell, he’s someone worth listening to.

So I was quietly thrilled when I was able to spend some time with him to talk about Unlock The Door and where I wanted to take it. As you may already know, I’ve wanted to turn my online adventures into something where I can make money doing what I love, and expand into more areas of self-help and personal development.

My call with Chris went incredibly well, and it was definitely worthwhile. I highly recommend you check him out if you want to provide your audience with more value and develop your online presence and reputation.

We talked about a lot of things that could help to improve my blog and my online influence, which I won’t go into detail here (top secret!), but the key takeaway from the call was about the worth and value of ‘focusing my efforts’.

The Candle And The Laser

Chris used an analogy to illustrate his point of focusing efforts – he talked about the difference between a candle and a laser.

A candle is a nice, warm flame that is pleasant to look at, and you can feel warmth emanating from its glow when you stand close. The candle is certainly noticeable, but it’s not very bright. In fact, in a room with the light already turned on, it would be very hard to find a candle unless you knew where it was.

A laser, on the other hand, is different. A laser is noticeable from a much larger distance. It’s pinpointed on a target and is deadly accurate. Due to its thin size, a laser is only felt by a select few people, but those people who are targeted by the laser will feel it much more than the candle.

Of course, if you wanted to reach someone, you’d have much better luck with the laser than with the candle. And this is where Chris thought my blog fell down – it was taking the ‘candle’ approach rather than the ‘laser’ approach.

For varying reasons, Chris pointed out why a sharper focus would work well for me. He talked about choosing a particular kind of problem to focus on, finding a suitable market that has this problem in abundance, and working towards providing a solution or solutions for this market that will make them want to come back to you for more and more.

All this was straight-forward marketing stuff – I’ve read about it before and understood its principle and theory. But it’s one thing understanding something ‘in theory’, and another thing becoming an expert at it by putting it into practice. This is what I have lacked – putting the theory of ‘focusing my reach’ into practice.

I’ve wanted to turn Unlock The Door into a success for a number of months, and recently made steps to try and establish myself in the online world. But maybe I’ve stretched my net too far. Maybe I have tried to reach too many people, and so my voice has gone unheard. To paraphrase the theme of this post, it’s like trying to heat up an entire room with just one candle – it just won’t work.

So in order to get my voice heard, I need to generate enough heat to reach those who want to listen to me. I need to ensure my voice is heard by those who need to hear it. I need to become a laser.

An Example Of An Laser

The best recent example of a laser that I can think of is Scott Dinsmore at Live Your Legend. Scott spent the first 2 years of his blogging life trying different things, and not achieving much success with them. So after speaking with some influential people and discovering a new focus for himself, he set about creating a new website, Live Your Legend, in 2010. Today, it has over 11,000 RSS subscribers and his flagship product, Live Off Your Passion (not an affiliate link) made $30,000 in its first month of existence. This is a fine example of taking a laser approach.

If Scott has focused his efforts down to one particular kind of market and made substantial reward from it, what can I do to achieve the same? What strategy can I take to reach my target audience and gain recognition and reward? And how can I achieve my goal of making money from what I love?

It’s these questions that I’ll be asking myself over the next few days. Maybe it will mean an overhaul of Unlock The Door, or a complete new approach to blogging, or it could mean just a few things need changing before I embark on my adventure in earnest.

Whatever answers come my way, I want you to know that I don’t intend on quitting. That’s currently the last thing on my mind. The door to success may be locked and bolted, but that’s fine – I can go and find another door to unlock.

Image courtesy of Rain Shadow Labs

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Are your days in control?

“I wasn’t losing my focus but I was getting tired of focusing. What I was focusing on was becoming too routine, too ritual, not something that was interesting, new and exciting.” – Picabo Street

Have you ever felt like your day has been a waste of time?

We’d all like our days to work out fine for us. At the end of an ideal day, I bet you’d want to feel like you got all your chores and jobs done, you looked after yourself well, you spent quality time with your loved ones, and you managed to find the time to pursue a hobby or a profession that you truly enjoyed. It’s the same with me – when I wake up in the morning, I immediately imagine myself achieving so much in the day.

But instead of spending time diving into this fantasy, let’s turn to what happens on most days for us. We wake up, we go through our morning routine, and then we become engulfed in the many ‘small fires’ that appear:

• The kids need to be gotten ready for school
• The house needs to be cleaned for the friends coming round in the evening
• We need to watch our usual dose of TV news
• Our neighbours have popped round for a quick chat
• And so on…

All of this can quite easily happen in the space of a couple of hours. Before we have a chance to do anything about it, our aspirations of the day have vanished. There’s no longer enough time to do all that we wanted. Because of this, we sink into a mild depression and convince ourselves that we were stupid to think we could have achieved all that we planned at the start of the day.

To combat this, we decide it’s time to set a daily routine.

The Heroic Routine

Our routines are invented by us, for us. They’re meant to save us from chaos and disorder, and lead us to productivity and happiness.

So we plan out when we’ll do something we actually want to do, we plan out the times we start and finish certain tasks, and we plan out when to spend time with the kids and partner, and for how long. Initially, our routines look good – it feels like we’ll be able to gain some degree of control over our days. We begin to breathe easier, confident in the fact that tomorrow will be better with a routine set in place.

But there’s a problem. Even though we get more done and we feel more productive and proactive, something else happens instead. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the world and everybody else, we begin to feel constricted by our own routine. The very system that was designed to relieve our stress is now providing us with more.

No longer is the idea of routine a happy, fulfilling one. Our routines have only served to heighten our sense of overwhelm by adding more to our already full day.

We invent new routines because we feel like we need to ‘control’ the day. Our need for safety and security prompts us to try and control what happens in our day, leading us to become tyrannical dictators of our lives rather than compassionate leaders.

If something goes wrong in our day, then we don’t take kindly to this intrusion, and it stresses us out. As we didn’t plan for it, our minds haven’t accepted it as a ‘necessary event’ of our day. Because of this, we may try to resist or reject the unplanned circumstance instead of embracing it. What results is the feeling that our day hasn’t gone as well as we’d hoped, yet again.

Routines are certainly not ideal for us, because they don’t leave any room for the spontaneous moments of the day. There will always be unexpected events, no matter how well we plan. Life isn’t static enough for us to plan and predict with maximum accuracy and efficiency, the flow is too strong.

There will always be distractions, so instead of deciding what time we start and finish every task to the minute, how about letting most of the chores and minor problems arise as they naturally do, and deal with them accordingly?

An Alternative To A Routine

This may sound absurd to you, but it does work. I used to have daily routines set out until I discovered that the one I had set didn’t work out after a few days. I’d then try another routine, and the same thing would happen again.

After a while, I realised that perhaps the problem wasn’t the style of the routine – it was the routine itself. I’d tried a number of different systems, but I couldn’t get them to work out for me after no more than a few days. The idea of the ‘routine’ I had in mind was flawed, yet I didn’t realise it until I had tried and tested a number of routines.

So I tried a different approach, an approach that I’m still using today. I decided to set myself a number of ‘goals’ that I knew I had to do on that day, and left the rest to chance. No more than that was planned, just the goals.

This has worked out well for me – the goals I set are important, but because I only set a handful (no more than 3), they don’t take up too much time. What’s more, I can do these goals in the morning, afternoon, or evening depending on when I can or when I have the most energy. The rest of my day is then left free for whatever comes my way.

I believe this approach will also work for you, particularly if you’re struggling to establish some form of order in your days. Try setting only 3 goals for the day which are the day’s priority – it doesn’t matter what time these goals get done, as long as they’re done before you go to bed at night.

If necessary, work these goals around any prior ‘set time’ commitments you already have such as taking the kids to school or a meeting at work. Your goals can even be scaled down to accommodate your prior commitments if they are important themselves. If these commitments aren’t that important, and aren’t at a fixed time, organise them with your goals to find a system that works best for you.

Try setting a few goals now for tomorrow. Think of anything important that you could do tomorrow. If tomorrow is a particularly busy day, just set 1 goal. If it’s likely to be quiet, be brave and set 3.

However many you set, make sure that you get them done on the day you set them for. Results breed confidence, and the more often you achieve your set goals for the day, the more you’ll be inspired to keep the practice going.

Image courtesy of AllAboutMe

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Can we use pain to motivate?

*NOTE: I’m back from Edinburgh now, and preparing to resume the blogging crusade. Whilst I prepare, here is a guest post from Brad Volz from writingtofreedom.*

Pain as motivation and fuel for change. What an interesting perspective.

A friend of mine shared this inspiration from his Tony Robbins’ workshop. It got me thinking about this last year. It has been a challenging one for me. As with most things, it depends on how we look at it.

Some might see the good in my life, of buying a new home, reconnecting to my spiritual path, making new friends and starting this ‘joy journey’. Others might see the bad, of losing my job, disliking the neighbourhood, not having a work direction, and losing about 40% of my savings in the stock market.

Focusing on the negative in my life created a huge wave of pain that I almost got lost in. In retrospect, I noticed that the more I thought about my problems, the more emotional pain & despair I felt.

Over the past 10 years, my set emotional level had become ‘neglect’. Too often I had taken the easy choice, or worse yet, made no choice. My reasons for inertia were classic self sabotage - I often felt tired, afraid, confused, and lazy. My life was getting very painful, and still I was stuck.

The disappointment from not living my dreams and goals was weighing down heavily on me.

The Message In The Pain

Finally, I woke up.

I woke up to the realisation that I must take action to change my life. This awareness provided the motivation for the creation of my blog and ‘journey to joy’.

To begin with, I first made the decision to be more proactive in my life, to steer my life in the direction of joy and my dreams. Then I decided to share my journey via a blog.

Both of these decisions have been followed by actions. I’ve learned in these first few months that action helps to anchor my dreams and goals. What’s also interesting is that, as a result, my feelings improve too. Actions can lead our feelings to a better place.

Many times I’ve wanted to wave a magic wand in order to fix my life, to change it with wishful thinking and nothing more. I wanted this because it was the easy way out. Now I’m not saying that positive thoughts can’t positively impact our lives, but I’ve found that dreams untested tend to fall. Without action, dreams will slowly disappear and die.

It was this summer that I got fed up. I looked in the mirror and saw the passing of time in my life. It really hit home how far my life was from my dreams. From this, I learned that pain can be a great motivator.

I’m determined to stop being a passive passenger in my life. More and more reminders of how one choice leads to another keep reappearing in my life.

Sometimes all we can do is change the scenery, take a break, or sleep. Any step in the direction of our dreams is useful. I decided to acknowledge that I’m slightly closer to my dream of joy and abundance – I’m no longer staying stuck in fear and despair. Life brought another challenge to me, but this time, I remembered to get back up.

So, the three lessons that I have learned from my joy journey are

1- Keep switching to better feeling thoughts.
2- Anchor my dreams with concrete action.
3- Celebrate any progress no matter how small.

Brad Volz is a new blogger exploring the world of writing as a creative expression. His blog writingtofreedom.wordpress.com is intended to share tips from his personal journey to be more proactive in my life, starting with creating more joy. You can also find him on Facebook.

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Not just for Christmas?

*NOTE: I have a guest post published at Erica Allison’s blog. Let me know what you think!*

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.” – Wayne Dyer

There are millions and millions of blogs in the world today, but how many of them are worth it?

How many of these blogs are generating any income for the blogger, or providing the blogger with some form of satisfaction in their life, or even still active?

Unfortunately, the majority of blogs don’t fill these categories. The majority of blogs are left by the wayside, too time-consuming for the once-enthusiastic blogger who dreamed of making thousands from blogging.

Although there are an increasing number of blogs out there who are generating enough income and ‘life satisfaction’ for the blogger to thrive on, the current trend is that blogging isn’t a ‘safe’ option for a career. In fact, blogging isn’t really touted as the answer to anything these days. It’s not a consistent high-earner, it’s too time-consuming to be a hobby, and it’s too technical and cold for those who prefer to connect with people away from clicking ‘Like’ and ‘Tweet’ buttons.

So why do people blog?

Why People Blog

There are a wide variety of blogs today, from cooking recipes to social media gurus, and from funny-looking cats to psychology. But these blogs generally have one thing in common – their reason for existence. The reason why so many people set up a blog in the first place falls within a very small circle:

• They want to connect with people around the world and meet new friends
• They want to share what they’ve learned about their chosen topic with others
• They want to make a lot of money
• They want to help others in ways they wouldn’t be able to otherwise

Look at this list now and ask yourself: which reason best describes me?

To help you out, I’ll use myself as an example.

My Love Affair With Blogging

I first set up Unlock The Door because I wanted to connect with loads of different people. I also had been a member of a few self-help forums and spiritual forums, and wanted to learn more about this ‘online community’ buzz that was repeatedly drawing me in, especially as I enjoyed the conversations with like-minded people.

So I read a couple of blogs to get me started. After a short period of time I came across an eBook called ‘Cloud Living’ by Glen Allsopp. In this book, Glen explained how to set up a website and a blog, and described why they were worth the time and effort to do so. I decided that this was something I wanted to do, and opted to try this thing called ‘blogging’ first. I figured a blog would be the perfect place to journal my thoughts, connect with new faces, and have a little fun.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any fun to begin with. My initial ‘niche’ was actually three niches – writing, acting, and personal development. I thought if I wrote a post on each, people would appreciate the diversity and versatility of my blog and come rushing back to read more. I thought wrong.

After a while, I realised that what I was doing wasn’t going to get me anywhere I wanted to be, so I changed my tactics and slowly began to build Unlock The Door into what it is today. But instead of regaling you with ‘that’ story, I want to point out my initial reason for starting a blog – connecting with others around the world.

The Frustrations That We Experience

Over the past few weeks, I have witnessed a recurrent theme – bloggers quitting blogging.

Everybody will have their own individual reasons which some of them, such as John Sherry and Steve Roy, have been open enough to write about on their own defunct blogs. But the feeling of frustration seems to be the same. Bloggers want to feel like all of their time and effort is producing some form of result.

If a result is being reached, such as a thriving community or at least a trickle of money, then that’s good and the blogger can feel like their work isn’t in vain. But if nothing is happening for them, and/or their blogs are starting to feel like a chore, then severe frustration can kick in. This can then lead to the dawning realisation that blogging just isn’t for them.

It’s a shame to see more and more bloggers reaching this conclusion. There are good bloggers out there, who are also good people, and their lives are suffering because of their blogs. Where once a blog was a nice hobby or an attempt at financial freedom, it has morphed into a time-sucking nightmare.

If Blogging Is To Work, It Must Fit In

So what happens when you reach this realisation that blogging is no longer all it’s cracked up to be? Well, first I believe you should take stock of all that is in your life right now. Is it worth spending all those hours on that blog anymore? Do you think blogging is no longer worth it?

After you’ve thought on this, I reckon that leaves you with two choices:

• Quit blogging, or
• Decide on what your blog truly means to you and pursue it

You see, if blogging is to work out for you, it must be a part of your life. It must fit in with your life, not around your life. If you have too much going on right now, and you can barely spend an hour with your blog, then I recommend you stop worrying about it so much and focus on what needs to be done with the rest of your life. Step away from the blog and re-think things through.

Those who have turned their blogs into a success are those who have treated it as an important part of their life. They haven’t left it on the side – they’ve embraced it, spent whatever spare time they had on it, and figured out a business model that would eventually lead them to where they are today. It’s worked for them because they put in the work.

Your Decision

By this point, I want you to reach a decision. If you decide that you don’t want, or can’t put in the time on your fledgling blog, then that’s fine. It’s a responsible and respectable decision, and I wish you the best with your journey.

But if you decide that you want to make your blog work and turn it into a success, then come jump on the spaceship, grab a seat next to me, and let’s turn this into something incredible.

Image courtesy of Go Places to Play

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Can you get back up...again?

*NOTE: This is a guest post from Tanja Gardner. If you aren’t aware, Tanja provided the copywriting and editing for the Value 101 eBook, and did a great job with it! Her writing skills are just as impressive, and I present them to you here.*

Once upon a time, going for a walk taught me an important lesson or two…

In April 2011 – nearly 8 months ago now, although it feels like it was only yesterday – I went for a walk.  OK, I know that doesn’t sound like much. But when you consider that the walk in question was 100km (that’s 60 miles) of mostly-offroad trails in under 36 hours, it gets slightly more noteworthy.

Looking back now, the most important thing about Oxfam Trailwalker (that’s the name of the walk I did) wasn’t actually the distance. Or the time I had to do it in. Or how fit I had to become to cross that finish line.  The most important thing was what I had to learn, and who I had to become to finish it.  Because those lessons are what have stayed with me long after the blisters and the tiredness and the muscle aches went away.

I learned that I can keep getting up after I fall down if I want it bad enough.

For most of my life, my personal mantra has been the ancient Japanese proverb: Fall down seven times, stand up eight.  Unfortunately, up until last year, I couldn’t always (or even often) say I was living it.  Still, I loved the concept of always being willing to get back up no matter how often I fell. It epitomised the kind of person I desperately wanted to be, but could never quite manage in practice.

Last year wasn’t the first time I’d attempted Trailwalker.  In 2007, a group of friends and I got together, intending to do it the following year.  After a couple of months of training, we regretfully concluded we wouldn’t be able to build the fitness we’d need in time.  Then, in 2008, we started training for the 2009 event. We made it to the start line that time… but I had to pull out at the 88km marker – an exhausted, miserable and thoroughly defeated wreck.

I swore, as I limped dejectedly away from the checkpoint, that I would never do that to myself again.  But somehow, the need to prove I could get back up again – to prove I could defeat the damn event – won out six months later. And so I found myself contemplating Trailwalker for the third time.

I learned that sometimes you have to face (and deal with) unpleasant truths before you can move forward.

My first task after deciding to tackle Trailwalker 2011 was to take a hard look at what had gone wrong last time.  I concluded that my two biggest problems had been being overweight, and being under-trained.

Let me stop here and say that I fervently believe in “Health at Every Size”. And I freely acknowledge that in many cases, fitness and bodyweight have very little to do with each other.

But I couldn’t help noticing that every time a team member shouldered my ~10lb pack for me, the grueling uphill climbs grew noticeably easier. I also knew that I’d been carrying 200⁺lbs of bodyweight on a 5’3’’ frame at the time. So I could only imagine that if losing 10lb of ‘pack-weight’ helped so much, then losing 30-40lb of ‘me-weight’ would be exponentially more effective.

I hated having to acknowledge that – hated it with a passion. As someone who’d only barely started to accept herself after a history of disordered eating patterns, I found the idea terrifying. But it also seemed inescapable. So because I so desperately wanted to beat Trailwalker once and for all, I put together a flexible, sensible plan to slowly, steadily and above all healthily lose that weight. And then I successfully followed it – despite nothing having ever worked for me long-term before.

I learned that success often consists of simply showing up day after day after day.

My other key realisation from my review of Trailwalker 2009 was that I simply hadn’t trained enough.  Although my regimen had felt unrelenting at the time, the reality was that sometimes the weekly team-walks were the only ones I did. I knew I needed to be far, far fitter next time around. So I decided that rather than signing up for the next possible Trailwalker, I’d give myself an entire 18 months to build the fitness I’d need instead.

In that 18 months, I committed to walking as many longer-distance races as I could: 10ks, half-marathons, trail races and anything else I could find. I figured the races would help to keep me motivated by providing shorter-term goals, and they’d also ensure I didn’t slack off on my training. So day after day, week after week, I showed up. I walked. I got fitter. And in the first four months last year, I logged something like 1000km.

Those lessons weren’t easy to learn… but they were SO worth it!

I’d love to say that I’m the kind of person who gracefully accepts the teachings of the Universe with balance and equanimity. Alas, I’d be lying through my teeth if I did!  The truth is that every one of those lessons came hard to me – often with tears, anger, frustration and no few knuckle-bloodying boxing bag sessions. But the victory I felt as I FINALLY crossed that finish line, and the gifts I’ve gained from the lessons are worth every single tear.

So if you’re considering taking on a challenge: whether it’s a marathon, a new job, or just a new habit, I’d like to offer a few suggestions:

• Fall down seven times, stand up eight: or eighty. Or eight hundred.  The number really doesn’t matter, as long as it’s one up on however many times you’ve fallen down.
• Look at the past and learn from it: it’s all too easy to look back in frustration or embarrassment or disgust for the things we didn’t do right. Don’t. Instead, look at what you can do differently next time, and try that instead.
• Keep showing up: over and over and over again. Things won’t always work; and some days, nothing goes according to plan. But it’s what you do day after day that makes a long-term difference.

And now I’m curious…

Chances are that if you’re a regular reader of Stuart’s blog, you’ve achieved some fairly awesome things yourself. So I’m interested. What challenges did you set yourself in 2011? What did you learn from taking them on?  I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Tanja Gardner is a copywriter, word weaver and story spinner at Crystal Clarity Copywriting Ltd.   She helps difference-makers like you write with concise, creative clarity that your readers intuitively “get”.  That means they understand EXACTLY what you offer – which opens the way for you to make a difference in their lives.  To connect with Tanja, say hello on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Image courtesy of Adventures in Lymeland

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I made it to the big 100!

“It’s when ordinary people rise above the expectations and seize the opportunity that milestones truly are reached.” – Mike Huckabee

This is my 100^th published post on Unlock The Door, and it feels good.

First off, thank you for coming to read this post today – whether you have recently discovered Unlock The Door, or you’ve been mad enough to stay with me from the very beginning, thank you anyway. It’s your support that keeps this place alive.

I was thinking about celebrating this milestone, and that Unlock The Door ought to be given a shake-up so that I can announce my serious intentions to the world. Well, I don’t plan on celebrating any more (other than the thank you), I do want to share some intentions with you.

The Vision Ahead

How often do we enter the blogging game with the aspirations to make money online, or to have a safe place to journal our thoughts, or to connect with people around the world, or to share our favourite links and material? I’d say it’s pretty often – in fact, I’d say these four reasons represent 90% of the blogs today. The only differences are those who have turned professional and their blogs have transformed into businesses, such as ProBlogger, CopyBlogger, and Smart Passive Income.

That’s where I want to be.

I want to be in a position where I can make enough money to live from what I love. I want to be able to turn my ‘non-paying love’ of helping others into a ‘paying love’ where I’m consistently learning more about the art of helping others, and more about myself. And the best part of all of this? I believe it’s entirely possible.

My friend Arvind Devalia recently posted about youth not being a barrier to greatness, and I completely agree with him. I’m 25 years old, and it’s been just over 4 years since I had my ‘awakening’. A lot has changed in those 4 years, but I feel deep down in my heart that a whole load more can change, and will change in the months and years to come.

I don’t want to remain stationary in life, and I certainly don’t want to be in a situation where this blog hasn’t made any income whatsoever by its second birthday. I’ve already been blogging for over a year, and I no longer feel that it’s just a hobby for me to share my thoughts every so often. I now view this website as a business model, one which will serve as a platform for me to align my current life with the life I was meant to lead.

I guess the ultimate goal here is to live a life of happiness.

Examples Of Happiness

That ever elusive feeling, happiness, is what I base my thoughts and actions on. If what I’m doing, or what I’m thinking, isn’t bringing me happiness, then I must look to it and figure out why. There’s no time to waste on doing or thinking that which leads me away from my true alignment – life is too precious to waste.

Another friend of mine, John Sherry, recently made the decision to quit blogging. If you have the chance, head over to the post and wish him well in his journey.

Although I feel sad to see him go, I completely honour and respect his decision because it will bring him happiness. John realised that his true path lay elsewhere, away from blogging. I’d imagine it was a hard decision for him to take, but sometimes these decisions are unavoidable. We must find the courage within us to deal with them directly.

But sometimes we can find happiness not through tough decisions, but from other people. Sometimes, we meet people who bring out the best in us, and the decision to spend time with them, perhaps romantically, infuses our lives with happiness. This has happened with my girlfriend Sam, and I.

In fact, Sam was very kind to write up a short piece on her happiness and reveal how she found it. If you wanted to compliment her for it, visit her Twitter or Facebook profiles. Here it is:

“How do we know when we’re truly happy? Many people see happiness in different ways. It can affect our day to day lives and is measured by how we truly feel on the inside, but also on the outside. For example, we might display a constant smile or even have a change of mood. People have their own views and have their own ways of showing happiness.

Happiness can also be found when we’re with people, like finding that special person in our life. I have recently experienced this and I know I am truly happy as he is all I can think about and he knows how to make me smile when I’m ill or feeling down. It’s about knowing that this special person will be there when you need them the most. This is the same for family too, we all need our family around and we can’t live without them. It can also be related to hobbies or sports that you love and make you happy. Really, it can be anything you like!

When I think about the signs to look for happiness, I don’t think there is a real answer to this. You just know when you’re truly happy as you feel different, and perhaps act different. There are no real signs to look for, just individual feelings and emotions. People perceive happiness in many ways, and I feel happiness is something we should all experience. Life is so much better if we’re happy and this makes the world a much better place.”

The Next 100?

So what happens next? What happens for the next 100 posts?

In an ideal world, I’d say that I gain an incredible amount of subscribers from my posts here and elsewhere, I’d start generating at least a liveable income from my ventures here, and I’d have written an eBook or two. However, the ideal world isn’t completely in reality, although I believe in my ability to make a lot of this happen.

Instead, I’ll predict now that I will continue to write here and that there will a 200^th post. I predict that I’ll continue to have fun with UTD, in one form or another.

And most importantly, I’ll predict that I will do what I can to align myself with my true path. Because that’s where happiness lies.

Image courtesy of Japanese Jiu Jitsu

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Lori Gosselin

“I have always loved to talk about life, to hear what others think about life; I have always sought to understand “how it works”. And community building is something I’ve long been passionate about.” – Lori Gosselin

I have decided to present another interview to you, the second after my Q&A with Sibyl Chavis. Today’s interview is with another top female blogger, Lori Gosselin of ‘Life, for instance’. Lori has done an incredible amount of beautiful work there, and has even written and published her own eBook, something which I hope to do soon!

She leads by example and her website is a place of wisdom and joy, where other like-minded souls gather to discuss various topics and themes presented by Lori. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did putting it all together.

Stu: Why did you decide to start a blog, and why focus your efforts in the personal development niche?

Lori: I decided to start a blog for many reasons. The most exciting one was that it would give me an excuse to get back to my writing and hopefully build a platform for when I published my work.

I never really thought of “Life, for instance” as a personal development blog until people started calling it that. The intention for “Life, for instance” is to focus on life and its many issues and to create a place where people can come together with all their questions and throw them on the table where together we can discuss them.

Could you explain some of the inspiration behind ‘Life, for instance’, and why you decided to use this theme for your blog?

The blog had to be about life because talking about and figuring out how life works is something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember.

There’s a funny story about the name “Life, for instance”. When I wrote to my Terra Cotta Pendants contact list to test out the idea of starting a blog I went into a long diatribe of what it would be about. Later, when my kids and coach and I were meeting to flesh out the idea and come up with a name, my daughter suggested I read aloud that letter I’d sent to my contact list. At one place I had written “…We can talk about the things that matter to us, things other than aromatherapy, say life, for instance!” She stopped me, “How about Life, for instance?” she said and we all just looked at one another. Then we promptly registered the name!

What would you say is the most important aspect of ‘Life, for instance’, and why?

Community building for the sake of community building! I’m passionate about this. I love the saying; we’re all in this together. This is the feeling we want to create at “Life for instance”.

What inspired you to write and publish your first book, ‘The Happy Place’? Do you have any plans for another book?

The inspiration for ‘The Happy Place’ came while I was on a trip to Greece with my daughter. At first I thought it was a part of a bigger book I’ve been planning to write for years now. But as I sat to write it I realized it was at least one of the books which would come before the big one.

I opted to self-publish because, thanks to Kindle and Amazon, this was simply the most logical and expedient way of getting my work out there!

I thought I knew where I was going next with my writing, but now I know I don’t know! So I’m taking a break from it and focusing on Life, for instance while I await the muse before I begin to write a second book.

How would you define the topics of ‘personal development’ and ‘self-help’ to someone who is completely new to them?

To me, these terms mean finding a way to live your best, happiest life.

You say in your ‘About Me’ profile that you and your family run ‘Terra Cotta Pendants’. How does this relate with your work with ‘Life, for instance’?

The kids are still involved with TCP, even though they are both away at university. My daughter often visits LFI and my son keeps an eye on it, but it’s really more my own baby; a personal project!

One of the purposes of starting a blog was to create a place where we could relate differently to our clientele and at the same time bring more traffic over to Terra Cotta Pendants.

If you could do one thing right now to improve your life, anything at all, what would it be?

I am working on establishing a morning routine which includes meditation, exercise and energy work. I also am working on the skill of taking a power nap. These two things together will give me more clarity and energy.

If you had 20 seconds to say whatever you wanted, and the whole world was listening, what would you say?

You can be and do and have whatever you want in life!

Thank you for your time and passion Lori.

Thank you for taking the time to subscribe. I really appreciate you reading what I have to say :-)

Sibyl Chavis

“We can take care of everything we need to while we also take advantage of the possibilities that today offers us to learn, improve and live in the most amazing way where we feel really alive, connected, happy and get everything we want out of life.” – Sibyl Chavis

Hello all, I hope we are all well?

First, I’d like to apologise for the delay in between posts. It has been a busy few days with the performance of a stage play, as well as full-time work, and only now am I getting some time to really focus on blogging. I’m not complaining, but I feel I owe all of you an explanation.

Now, onto the interview. Today’s guest is someone I’m very proud and honoured to introduce. You see, there are some people in the blogging universe who I feel ‘need’ to be featured in this interview series. I believe they bring wisdom and clarity wherever they go, and I take up the chance, whenever I can, to have them answer a few questions for myself, and more importantly, for you who read this.

Sibyl Chavis, of The Possibility Of Today, is one such person. She has inspired me from my very first weeks of blogging, and she continues to shine her light brightly in the blogging universe. I hope you enjoy her answers to my questions.

Stu: How did you first come to hear of ‘blogging’?

Sibyl: It is actually a pretty funny story. My husband was really into  blogging. He used to spend all of his free time working and writing on his blog. I used to wonder what on earth he was doing and how could he continually put so much time into something that was really only a hobby. I think I saw him doing it so much that he subliminally influenced me to try it out. One day I finally found the time to sit down and put something together and I have been addicted ever since.

Why did you decide to focus your blogging efforts in the personal development niche?

Actually, I wouldn’t really say that I am really focused on the personal development niche (believe it or not). I really created my blog to just discuss how we could live a little better every single day. I thought it would be interesting to look at the things we encounter during our everyday lives and discuss what works and what doesn’t. A by product of living today better than yesterday may actually support personal development, but becoming a personal development blog wasn’t something I ever really aimed to do.

Could you explain the decision to leave ‘Alternaview’ and start ‘The Possibility of Today’?

When I looked back at all of my writing, I realized that many of the things I was discussing were centered around how to really take advantage of the day that is in front of you in the absolute best way possible. I was working with Corbett Barr at Think Traffic on my blogging strategy and as we were working through things, something just felt right about “The Possibility of Today”.

If you didn’t blog, what would be the one thing you would love to spend your time on?

Oh that’s easy … reading (and relaxing). Does that count as one thing?

Sure, why not! What was the reasoning behind your decision to ‘not complain’ for 40 days?

I realized I needed to change things up a little. I had been going through a period of time when things were just not feeling as right as I knew they should. So, I thought a good first step was to remove some of the negativity and free up my mind to focus on things that were really important to me.

What’s been your biggest accomplishment to date?

Not complaining for 40 days

It’s a great accomplishment. What could you do right now to improve your life?

Focus 100% of my attention on the moment that is in front of me.

If you had 20 seconds to say whatever you wanted, and the whole world was listening, what would you say?

Each day we are given a new set of 24 hours and we get to decide how we use those 24 hours … what we do, what we think and what we learn. We can make the best use of that time, make improvements Today and know for sure that those improvements will allow us to live even better tomorrow. That is the real possibility of Today and every Today that follows.

Thank you for your wonderful answers Sibyl.

Thank you for taking the time to subscribe. I really appreciate you reading what I have to say :-)

Is the pain getting too much?

*NOTE: Before I get into today’s guest post, I wanted to direct you towards a guest post of mine that has recently been published over at Ken Wert’s place, Meant To Be Happy. I hope you enjoy!*

This is a guest post by Jake O’Callaghan

Pain As The Barrier

I couldn’t think about it. I just had to do it. For 20 minutes I lifted my leg for 10 seconds, rested 15 seconds, then did it again. Electric shocks went through my knee the entire time.

It was painful. I had been through knee surgery just a few weeks before. My knee wouldn’t work, but I was making it work.

2 weeks before, I was lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. There were times when the pain got to be too much, and I cried. It was after a few days of this that I gave up. I didn’t want to do anything anymore.

When I got to physical therapy, the therapist gave me some advice. “Use it.” I thought he was crazy. Use it? I emphasized that the pain was a 10 out of 10. But he insisted.

The next day I got out of bed and walked without crutches. It was the most pain I ever faced. But I didn’t cry. In fact, I felt better. Instead of laying passively feeling sorry for myself, I was doing something.

I kept it up and for every hour I worked, the pain went down. It was a sigh of relief to everyone.

Comfort Leads To Pain

Instead of cowering from pain, I embraced it. Instead of taking the easy path, I went the hard way.

And that’s what made it feel better in the long run. The more I worked hard in the short-term, the better I felt. If I babied it on the other hand, the pain didn’t go down, it increased.

Through surgery I learned an important lesson:  being comfortable is nice and easy in the short run, but it leads to pain in the long run.

This – I think – is the process that happens to many adults. They start out feeling optimistic. They dream and feel passion. But as life goes by and as the pain and failure becomes more and more, they just give up. They become passive. They lie in bed, passively treading through life.

Pain Leads To Happiness

How does one fight this fate? By making changes. By trying new things and facing pain. And by understanding that this path can be painful, especially in the beginning.

But compared to the alternative, it’s nothing. You may avoid short-term pain, but you will feel it long-term. You will suffer regret that you didn’t take the pain to gain long-term satisfaction.

No one wants to face pain. So it’s understandable that I didn’t want to do it either. But I finally gave in and did, and facing the pain made me stronger. Eventually, it also made me happy.

Eating that cake is easy and nice now. Skipping physical therapy is nice now. But both lead to pain both physically and mentally in the long-run, and this is often worse.

Most people don’t understand this important aspect of change. That things often hurt before they get better. Ask a person who dropped 30 pounds. Ask an ex-smoker. The thing is, the most important changes are often the hardest. They hurt – no one says they don’t.

But it’s short-term pain. It may hurt to do leg raises when your knee can barely move. It may hurt to quit your life-sucking job or leave the relationship that’s holding you back. But the long term effects of not doing this things hurts much, much more.

So start today. You don’t need to make a major change right now. You don’t need to run a marathon. You just need to make the effort to make change. You can make a tiny change.

And you can start on a large or hard change slowly. What’s important is that you make the effort to change, and that you keep it up for the long run.

I have to do daily physical therapy for over 6 months (starting 2 days after surgery). It’s a long time. But I can keep it up, and I know you can keep up your change, no matter how hard or how long it takes.

And remember that you have permission. You have it from me, and you have it from others. Get up. Create a life that’s great, that’s beautiful, that changes the world. I know you can do it.

Jake O’Callaghan is passionate about teaching and helping people change. Slowchange is his blog on making simple, lasting change. zenteen is a blog he created to help teens simplify and deal with the crazy teenage life.

Image courtesy of Revelife

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