Image Courtesy of Jimheid/Flickr

I spent last weekend on retreat, taking 48 hours out of my life to get away to a secluded countryside retreat center where I could have a chance to rest, relax and reflect. This opportunity made me think about what types of time we have in our lives: all hours are not necessarily equal, and time management advice doesn’t always address this.

These are six key types of time which we need:

• Creative and productive
• Physically energetic and active
• Playful and entertaining
• Learning and developing
• Reflective and spiritual
• Restful and relaxing

Do you have a gut feeling for which sorts of time you tend to focus on – and which you might be neglecting?

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Our lives are full of things we “should” do but for a range of reasons we don’t do them. Whatever it is – exercise, healthy eating, saving money – most of the time we choose to take the easier road, the road well traveled.

While I’m certainly not immune to this, there are plenty of things I don’t do that I know I should, I feel that understand the why is the first step to making real progress.

1. Being Comfortable (and Lack of a Burning Desire)

It all starts with how we feel about our life. How we feel greatly affects our motivations. Most people are in some form of comfort, but it’s a negative comfort. It’s a comfort where you’re not making progress towards your dreams but you’re not in that much pain either.

Don’t be in this space.

I’ve been comfortable. I live in a great area, there’s food on the table and I have shelter, and it’s this very reason that a bunch of my income dried up over the past couple of years. I’d been making great progress, which was motivating but then de-motivational forces (mainly school) and my own lethargy brought me into a false form of comfort. And now I have to work my way back to where I was.

The best motivators are pain and progress.

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Image Courtesy of Vogue

Jill Gets Ambushed, Again

The knot condensed like a heavy weight in Jill’s stomach. Suddenly gasping for air, she recognized she had been here before. Yet again, just when she thought she had finally put it all together, something had sabotaged the fulfilling life that she dreamed about. “Not again,” she announced silently as she looked forlornly at her scales, “I can’t believe I’ve gained the weight back.” Jill could feel the power to change her life slipping through her fingers – it had not been the first time.

Taking responsibility for her life and changing it for the better was something Jill took seriously. She tried hard. She practiced positive thinking, the law of attraction, visualization, goal setting, yoga – and she prayed and meditated regularly for abundance. Yet after enthusiastic initial successes, something unseen seemed to pull her back into her “de-ja-vu all over again”.

“It’s not that I have a bad life”, Jill reminded herself, “It’s just that I know there is more. And it’s right outside of my grasp. What am I missing? Why do I keep repeating the same thing over and over again? How do I really claim my potential?”

These four questions were about to change Jill’s life.
1. What Am I Missing?
2. Why Do I Keep Repeating the Same Things Over and Over Again?
3. How Do I Train the Brain to Disrupt Old Limiting Patterns and Create New Empowering Ones?
4. How Do I Open the Door to Claiming My Potential?

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If you’re ever going to achieve your ideal weight, you’re going to have to develop a diet plan that you can do “forever.” Of course, people often get excited when they first start a new diet plan, but this excitement often wanes within a few weeks.

They say “success leaves clues;” people who consistently follow their diet plan have several things in common. I’ve written this article as a way to identify the signs of a good diet plan.

If these signs are not present in your current diet, you may want to make some adjustments to your plan.

Here are the 5 Signs That Your Diet Plan Will Last:

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I’ll bet you’ve got a number of started or almost-started projects that you’d love to do. Perhaps you dream of starting your own business, writing a novel, learning a foreign language, or taking a qualification. Or maybe you want to get the attic cleared out, organise your files, or repaint the hallway. It could even be that you know you need to take the time to exercise, meditate or journal … but you never get around to it.

The problem is, your life is already full, and you end up busy with all the day-to-day things, unable to find time for what you really want to do. Here are some ways to make the time that you need:

Use Your First Hour

How often have you told yourself that you’ll get to your big project or your novel or your spring cleaning once everything else is done?

And how often have you reached the end of the day, and had no energy? How often has something unexpected cropped up that steals away the time you were going to spend working towards your goal?

An easy solution is to take the first hour of your day and use it for what really matters to you. Everything else can wait for just one hour.

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In my last piece I outlined the place that the sale of fear is taking in our life. I noted the role fear plays in creating illness. I highlighted the major role of particularly guilty industries: the pharmaceutical companies, politicians, insurance companies and the news and advertising media, to name just five. These are entities that go out of their way to create a culture of fear to sell their products.

Because it is not a one-way street, however, this is not the whole story. Here in FEAR II, I outline the role we play in putting our self at the mercy of fear and dread and the personal responsibility we must own to manage these feelings. If you are interested, I explain this in greater detail, with clinical examples, in my book.

The first difficult and complex reality is that fear and dread are a very large and significant part of being human. These feelings and others, like a sense of doom, are essential elements of the human experience. Repeat this to yourself: “If I want to be fully human then I accept that fear and dread are a part of what I am.” Only by accepting this can you utilize your essential inner energy and at the same time ward off salesmen selling you more fear. You already have a plentiful supply.

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Image Courtesy of Flickr Blog

If you are like me, no one ever sat you down and instructed you on how to choose a life partner.  Yet, this is one of the most critical decisions we will ever make in life – with potentially huge repercussions for a less-than-ideal choice.  A long-term relationship can be one of the most joyous and fulfilling experiences life has to offer.  Although you may not have learned it from your mother, here is what you need to know to choose the life partner who is right for you.

Consider qualities that are important to you

First, become familiar with the qualities that you desire in a partner.  It doesn’t matter what they are – what matters is that you are consciously aware of what is important to you.  Take some time to reflect, write a list if it helps you, and keep at it until you are clear about what you want.  Two qualities you might seriously consider are honesty and openness/flexibility.  You need to be able to trust your partner to be straight up with you – about money, preferences, things they are doing, people they are spending time with.  In addition, you will want to choose someone who is open to examining themselves, willing to take responsibility for their own behavior, and able to move with the ebbs and flows of life.

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If you have plans on becoming great, you’ll want to read this brief article.

They say success leaves clues; this implies, “if we look at people who are great, we’d find a common denominator, a golden thread tying them all together.”

Here’s what I think we’d find:

We’d find people who discovered their talent and then showcased that talent to the world in a ”new” and creative way.

Most of the people we’d find wouldn’t be doing anything “new.”  They would be doing something that’s been done before, in a “new” and unique way.

There’s nothing new under the sun

Take Thomas Edison the inventor of the everyday light bulb as an example; many scientist of his day knew that a heated piece of carbon filament would produce a light.  However, the light would only last for a brief moment.

…So what did Edison do?

Did Edison come up with a new idea?  No; Edison improved upon an existing idea through creativity and concentration, by finding a carbon filament that would burn for over 1500 hours if enclosed in an oxygen free case.  It wasn’t a new idea, but his improvement on an existing idea made him great, while most people don’t even remember who invented the first electric light bulb.  It was Humphry Davy back in 1800, in case you were wondering.

William Faulkner said, “The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said.”

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Is there an ‘essential key’ to personal development? One without which the ‘unlocking’ of your potential might be difficult if not impossible?

If we define personal development as growth involving the mind and the body, then ‘yes’ – I think there is.

Without this ‘key’ personal growth is slow, and sluggish. Without learning how to tap into this essential human ‘tool’, change will be sporadic or imposed from the outside.

And I believe the really important part is this: without developing this function of consciousness, all deep change will be difficult.

It does not matter what courses you buy, which ‘gurus’ you listen to, how many self-growth seminars you take. Because this is one thing you cannot do without.

The ability to self-observe, what some people call self-awareness.

Self-awareness meaning the ability to become aware of what is going on in:

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We’ve all been there: the alarm goes off, we’re feeling groggy, reach out and slap it to snooze. Five minutes later, the same things happens. We switch the alarm off again. The thought of getting out of bed seems like way too much effort. We know that, once we get up, we have to launch into the day – that to-do list we made last night, those  chores that need doing…

If you have to get yourself up to get to work by 8am, you’ll manage it. But if you work for yourself, if you’re a student, or if it’s the weekend, it can be a lot tougher.

Why do we end up talking ourselves into staying in bed … even when, if we think about it rationally, we’d much rather be getting on with something than going through the alarm-snooze-alarm-snooze cycle of supremely low-quality sleep?

Note: I’m not talking about depression here. If you think you might be depressed, please consult your doctor and get professional help and advice.

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