EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest post by Glen Allsopp of PluginID.

Do you feel like there are a million and one things you want to do but you just don’t have the time? Do you find it difficult to organize life around the things you must do and the things you wish you could do?

If you answered yes to either of those questions then you’re in luck, because today I want to cover the topic of life balance. If you feel like you need more hours in the day or that you’re neglecting certain areas of your life then hopefully this guide will help you to rectify the situation.

Knowing what to work on and when to do it is a problem for a lot of people; after-all, there are so many areas of our lives that we can work on, how do you know where to start?

Without being too egotistical, my own story profiles an example of success in this area. When I was 17 I was literally working 7 days per week: 5 in college and 16 hours in a clothes store on the weekends. Yet, in that time, I was able to build and grow my own Internet business which now accounts for my full-time income. In fact, it supports me so well that I’m about to start traveling the globe based on the income that business provides for me.

If I can work on my passions, my health and other areas of life that are important to me while literally working 7 days per week then so can you…and I’m going to share exactly how.

Pick Areas of Your Life That Matter

Life balance is all about focusing on areas of your life that matter to you and having an adequate amount of time to be able to work on them. After-all, if certain things didn’t matter to you then you wouldn’t care if you got round to working on them or not.

Some aspects of life that you find important and require some of your attention may include:

• Health
• Relationships
• Personality
• Happiness
• Parenting
• Family Activities
• Finances
• Hobbies / Interests…

…the list goes on. Working on your finances could mean that you want to work on getting out of debt by budgeting or even be that you’re looking for ways to increase your income. Hobbies and interests could include building your skills at a certain sport or even something more practical like learning a new language.

It is important that you now take the time to identify areas of your life that really matter to you. I find that I’m far better at tasks like this when I use a pen and paper rather than a word processor on my computer.

The items in bold are the areas that I had chosen to work on for my schedule but everyone’s answers will be different. Once you have your list together, you’re ready for the next part.

Add Details to Each on How You Can Improve

It is quite ironic but it is often the case that we stress and worry about areas of our lives and let them consume our thoughts. Then, when our situation isn’t improving by its own accord we get even more stressful and anxious. Instead, wouldn’t it be much easier if we just set out a plan on how to improve each area of our life and then started taking action?

Now that you have a list of life areas that matter to you, jot down some points on how you think you could improve them or fit them into your schedule. For example, an area of my life that is important to me is my health and I knew I wanted to work on improving that. So, I would write down a few bullet points on how I can do just that:

• Go to the Gym 3x per week
• Take 2 Protein Shakes per day (I’m on a bulk)
• Try to eat healthy, regularly

That’s it; don’t make things complicated if they don’t need to be. If you want to work on a new language then write down how much time you would need to set aside to get to the level you want to reach. If you want to improve your relationship then list things you would like to do to work on that whether it is going out for a meal or setting aside time with your partner to discuss your issues.

Not every item is going to have some guaranteed time frame or task you need to do in order to solve it and not every item is going to have a recurring task. For instance, if you need to get out of debt, simply put down that you need to set aside time to work out where you could lower your spending and research increasing your income.

Fit Items into a Flexible Schedule

Depending on who you are and what matters to you in life you may have in front of you a huge list of items or a rather short list. There are 24 hours in a day and of course 7 days in a week, so this is the time frame that you are going to be working in. I think it is far better to work on a weekly schedule rather than a monthly schedule, and then add in extra items that aren’t recurring tasks or ideas afterwords.

Take my workouts for example; I work out three times per week and I know each session takes around one hour – therefore this must go into a weekly schedule of mine. I don’t work a regular job so I’m quite fortunate that I can literally do this any time of day. However, if you work 9-5 then you must set- aside time to do this either before you go to work (wake up sooner) or after work (get home later).

If this already sounds daunting to you then consider how much you really want to get your life in order and work on the things that matter to you.

Add all of the items on your list which have some kind of recurring task whether it is going to the gym or spending 2 hours learning French into a flexible schedule.

Put all my items into a schedule and my weekly plan would look something like this:

• Monday: Workout arms
• Tuesday:
• Wednesday: Workout legs, Public speaking club
• Thursday:
• Friday: Workout chest
• Saturday: Spend time with my family
• Sunday: Plan my week ahead, Check website stats

Note how basic and simple this all seems right now. The parts where I haven’t scheduled my time is where I will be working which is basically non-negotiable, it’s how I survive. So even if I have a 9-5 job Monday to Friday, I know that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I need to work out. I also know not to make plans for a Wednesday night because I go to a public speaking club.

Don’t feel like you need to put the obvious tasks in there like eat breakfast, go to work, wash the dishes and that kind of thing. Instead, make sure the items on your list are extras; or in other words, the things you would not normally do.

The reason it is important to keep this schedule flexible is because life will never be the same week after week. If something comes up on a Monday or I sleep in and miss my workout, then I can push all workout days back one day and catch up that way. If you find that your list has tons of items with lots of details and you can’t fit it all in, it’s probably time to prioritize.

If you are looking for something more serious and scheduled with exact details then I recommending checking out ToDoist which I use daily and would probably struggle without.

Come Up with ‘Mini-ideas’ for Other Areas of Your Life

Some of the things we would like to work on don’t necessarily need scheduled or recurring tasks to keep them in order. For example, if you like gardening, it’s not like you will have to do the same thing week after week to keep your garden looking nice. Instead, you could dedicate a few weekends to getting things how you like them, and spend a few hours per month keeping things in order.

Additionally, for your health, instead of doing a regular program like going to the gym, you could try a one-month detox where you only eat raw food and drink water. This will have amazing benefits for you and for only 30 days per year, it’s not exactly excruciating.

If you look at the first section of this post I bolded the word ‘personality’ as an area of my life that I would like to work on. By personality I mean my behaviours, characteristics and my values. I’m a big reader and I came across the idea of a 21-day challenge in the book Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. Therefore I decided to create a 21-day challenge for myself and it turned out to be an excellent mini-idea that I could use, and it also benefited thousands of my blog readers when I wrote about it.

Your imagination is your only limit when it comes to creating mini-ideas for areas of your life that don’t require schedules. You could spend a few weeks in another country to improve your language skills, take a Friday off work and enjoy a long weekend with relatives or even just buy a cook book and spend time to learn some new recipes.

If you can’t come up with any mini ideas then you could do some brainstorming online or re-evaluate how important this item really is to you.

Identify Time Wasters

As I’ve stated, there are going to be people with a list and plan far greater than mine. This is partly because my responsibilities are quite small and I’ve managed to turn my hobby into my income source over the last few years. For those of you who are struggling to see where certain things you want to improve are going to fit into your life, it’s a good idea to identify time-wasters.

Did you know that the average American by the age of 60 years old has spent over 10 years in front of the TV? 10 years looking at a screen that is probably most often showing the lives of fictional people. Remember that there are 24 hours in every day. Let’s say that your job takes up 9 of those and your sleep takes up 8. That is still 7 hours of free time that you have available; quite a lot if you think about it.

Even if you include making food, looking after your kids, getting up in the mornings to get washed and dressed then there are still a good 3-4 hours to work with every single day. Even if you have a 9-5 job and want to get all areas of your life in order, you still have plenty of time to do it…as long as you rid yourself of the timewasters.

Possible time wasters include:

• Procrastinating on jobs you are doing
• Waking up at the last possible minute, even though you’ve had enough sleep
• Browsing the internet for no real reason
• Gaming on your computer
• Watching the TV

Everyone reading this leads different lives, so it’s up to you to make an honest self-assessment and look at the possible time wasters in your life and eliminate those where necessary. Remember I managed to build the majority of my internet business today while working 7 days per week. I didn’t even have weekends to give me a solid run of directed effort, just a few hours here and there.

Even if you only find 3 hours in a week day, that could still be an hour for the gym, an hour working on building an internet income and some time devoted to your children are partner. Things can be simple if you let them be so.

Balance Will Only Make You Efficient, Not Happy

Balancing all areas of your life is an excellent idea for people who feel they may be neglecting things or even people. Taking the action steps in this post will also be great for people who have goals but need to make time for them in their otherwise busy schedule. However, if you are looking for life balance to make you happy, then I’m sorry to say that you’re searching in the wrong field.

I’m sure some of you are instantly thinking something along the lines of:

“If I get to quit my day job then I’ll be happy”, “If I get to work on my goals then I’ll always be smiling”

How do I know? Because I’ve been down the exact same path. It used to take me about an hour to get home from my job each day, most of it on foot. I kept saying to myself how amazing it would be to get to work on my projects full-time and how perfect life would be if that were the case.

Well, I’m now in that situation, and while I fully appreciate my opportunities, it’s not where my happiness comes from. True happiness comes from being here, in this moment, right now. Look around you, take everything in. The sounds, the smells, the energy of the environment and just everything you can sense. Stop resisting everything around you, even if the smells are bad and the energy is dull…so what. Feel your inner body and just let everything be. Everything right now is as it is, and it always will be that way.

Don’t wait for happiness to come to you, recognize it in your surroundings and inner-energy at any moment of time.

Be grateful for the fact that somewhere in this world you’re able to sit down, relax, and read an article on a subject that wants to help you transform your life. Are you going to be the kind of person that takes action, or are you going to sit back and watch the script of your life unfold like it will for those who view the past as something they regret.

It is up to you.

This is a guest post written by Glen from PluginID who writes on the subject of Personal Development. He writes on a variety of topics including personality development.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest post by Alex Fayle of SomedaySyndrome.com.

When you go to sleep each night, do you nod off content with what you have accomplished? Are you even aware what you did, or are your days full of just getting by?

If the latter, you are likely living on autopilot, letting the world decide your actions for you. When you live on autopilot, you don’t make active choices and you follow through on expectations without ever stopping and thinking about what really matters to you and what would make you go to sleep at night fulfilled by the actions of the day.

To turn off the autopilot you need to start making choices and that starts with deciding what you really want out of life. While that might sound like a daunting task, if you take it step by step you can not only figure out your dreams, but achieve them too.

Here are nine ways to figure out your dreams, turn off the autopilot and start living the life you really want.

1. Be aware of your life

If you live without paying attention to your day-to-day actions then you’ll never know what your dreams are, let alone achieve them. When you’re aware of your actions, then you can make conscious decisions that lead you to your dreams.

2. Stop focusing on the negative

While I love a good wallow, staying in a negative mental or emotional space will hold you back, stuck in self-pity, self-doubt and a life you don’t want.

3. Take off the rose-coloured glasses

Believing that everything will work out for the best is important, but belief isn’t everything. You need critical thought and action to go along with that belief.

4. Learn to direct your energy

Many of us have lots of dreams and to-do lists the length of our arms, however if we try to do it all, nothing will get done. That doesn’t mean having only one dream – I have three that I’m pursuing – but you can’t pursue ten at the same time.

5. Do what’s right for you

As kids you might have heard a lot about peer pressure and more likely felt it. Unfortunately it doesn’t go away when we grow up. And we can apply it to ourselves, internalizing what we think people want from us instead of pursuing what we really want.

6. Recognize the difference between dreams and daydreams

I love daydreams – I can pass the whole day dreaming about being the next JK Rowling – but the reality is that most writers never get published. While I have no doubt that I will be published one day, I don’t let my daydreams interfere with reality.

7. Create a simple plan

The emphasis here is on the word simple. Obviously you need to know where you’re going and what steps to take, but don’t over plan and get lost in the details.

8. Look for progress

Focus on how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go. I look at how much more work I have to do to get an agent, and a publishing deal and I forget that I’ve had short stories published and I’ve written a novel.

9. Live in the moment

As you move toward you dream, the future will call to you, drawing you into the perfect world where all your dreams (or nightmares) have come true and when that occurs, nothing happens in the now. Why bother acting when you already know the result?

If you follow these nine steps, you’ll not only find your dreams, but get started on the journey to completing them.

*****

Author bio:

Are you stuck in a life you don’t enjoy? Have you lost touch with your dreams? Have you *settled* for a daily routine that leaves you longing for a different life?

It’s time for a change.

Alex Fayle, of Someday Syndrome, is a former procrastinator who uses his visionary ability to uncover hidden patterns and help you break the procrastination obstacle so that you can finally find freedom and start living the life you desire.

Learn more about how you can start loving life again at SomedaySyndrome.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest post from Scott Quitter who blogs at A Couple of Quitters.

Ever have those days where you’re sitting on the couch with the TV remote in your hand going over the same tired channels again and again while you’re thinking, “Okay, I really need to get motivated!”? Has your life fallen into an endless routine of sameness where one day blurs into the next? Do you think about how just a few years ago, you were motivated, energized and very active but you don’t know how to get it back?

For some reason, many people, at one time or another, seem to innocuously slip into the no-motivation zone while their attention is somewhere else. We suddenly wake up and realize that we have no ambition anymore. Why? While there are a million reasons for this, you don’t need to know them all before taking steps to get your motivation groove back. Here’s a list of 12 motivation tricks that can give you the jolt you need to snap out of your sleep-walking life.

1. Start a new relationship. You don’t have to replace your boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse, but simply starting a new relationship with a new and interesting person with whom you have a lot in common can add some spice to your week and move you out of the doldrums. Go somewhere new and strike up a conversation. It works!
2. Pick up a new hobby. This is especially nice if you can involve a friend–perhaps a new friend! Also, if you have children, a spouse or significant other, start together and enjoy each other’s company. Picking up a new hobby or reconnecting with an old one can jazz you up and substantially boost your level of motivation.
3. Work out! Yes, I know this idea may hurt, at first, but if you don’t overwhelm yourself, in a very short amount of time, you’ll begin to feel like a million bucks. Grab a friend, set a goal, and hold each other accountable. Working out with a friend is a great motivator and so is losing weight and looking better. Don’t focus on what you’ll be losing (free time, excuses to be lazy), focus on what you’ll gain (feeling better, looking great). If you take exercise seriously, the gains you make in your energy level, your confidence, and your motivation will skyrocket.
4. Eat more fruits and veggies: Like exercise, if you can incorporate even a modest improvement in your eating habits, your psyche will turbo-charge your body and you’ll feel more motivated to take on new challenges.
5. Get inspired! Seek and explore inspirational teachers, coaches and people. Perhaps you need a life coach to get you inspired. Maybe you need a good book like the quotes of Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe finding some new music that has great energy is just the thing. Have coffee with someone who is very optimistic and ask what inspires her. Start or find a local group of people who get together once a week to talk about how to get inspired. Very often, looking for inspiration in the company of like-minded people will intensify the results. Whatever your source, finding a way to get inspired is a great way to quickly get your motivation muscles moving.
6. Teach someone a new skill. Find someone who is looking to learn a skill in which you are an expert. Spend some time teaching him. The reciprocity and motivation will flow both ways.
7. Have some fun. Sometimes we get into motivation a rut because we haven’t done anything fun for a while. Break out of your routine by participating in a fun activity. Go bowling, hiking or play putt-putt golf; find people to play board games with; go sight-seeing or antique shopping; play laser-tag, go roller-skating or bungee-jumping; spend the day at the zoo; visit a museum you’ve always wanted to go to. Make a list and do something fun!
8. Sleep more. If you’re running on four or five hours of sleep each night, not only will you feel lethargic, but your brain chemistry will be all out of whack. The brain regulates feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. The simple act of getting enough sleep can balance out these chemicals and increase them to their natural levels. This, alone, could restore your normal level of motivation.
9. Laugh out loud. Laughter is one of the best ways to quickly enhance your mood and electrify your motivation. Make a run to the video store and rent a few good comedies. Then, while your mood is all bubbly, go out and have some fun (see item 7) or call someone and make him laugh.
10. Set a meaningful goal. In the back of your mind, there is probably something you’ve always wanted to do, be or have. Set a goal to practice or start working toward your objective. Then take some action right away. When you’re done, decide on when you’re going to come back to it so you can keep moving forward. Nothing motivates like a meaningful goal and regular progress toward it.
11. Discover a cause. Sometimes in life we become uninspired because we’ve stopped moving forward. But finding a cause that we connect with such as building houses for charity, providing drinking water in depressed villages, giving coats to homeless people, or anything that gives your life more purpose while helping others can totally rock your world! Get involved and volunteer to help! Who wouldn’t feel motivated by doing something like that?
12. Motivate another person. One of the absolute best ways to get your own motivation groove on is to motivate another person. Seeing the other person getting totally excited and enthusiastic causes a mirror response in your body. You feel great for helping to motivate another person and suddenly you feel motivated too. And now you’re ready to take on the world.

Be sure to join Scott and his wife as they seek to escape the 40-hour work week at their blog A Couple of Quitters.  Also, don’t forget to follow him on Twitter @ScottQuitter.

I had the privilege to talk blogging, business and proactive living with Jun Loayza the other day on his blog Viralogy.com.  Enjoy!

By the way, I’ve found Viralogy to be one of the best blogs for young entrepreneurs to learn from those who have ‘been there – done that’.  If you haven’t checked it out yet I would highly recommend it!

Eric

The last few weeks have been a little less than insane as I’ve been bombarded with all kinds of different life experiences and seeming to only have 23 hours a day to do it all.  I’ve enjoyed the steady flow of traffic from zenhabits as I’ve been promoting my different online ventures with Leo’s awesome blog.  I’ve been trying to maintain a level of quality with my blog posts that has kept me from just taking a quick break and tapping out an average message.  This has kept my post count quite low, but I think it’s worth it to keep my homepage packed with, as Leo calls them, ‘High Impact Posts’.  And finally, Liz birthed us a little baby boy on Tuesday, the 19th of this month.  That event shook things up well beyond normal and just past insane!

First, Let’s Talk Baby

OK, so the baby stuff is what most of you want to hear about, or maybe I’m just most eager to share, but either way, he’s finally here and I’m finally a member of club dad.

At 5lb 15oz’s little Tyson really lived up to his LT name.  He’s actually 20 inches long so he’s no shrimp, but he’s got my thin bone structure that makes people wrap their hands around your skinny wrists and say, “DUDE, I could like wrap my fingers around like three of your wrists!”  (Once they realize I don’t have three wrists, I’m already gone…but enough about. me )

Labor was quite intense to say the least.  Liz started having contractions at about 10:30pm Monday night, but they weren’t past the, “Wow, I think I just had a contraction?” stage until about 1 or 2 am.  By 3:30am she was starting to panic a bit, saying she wasn’t sure about the fact that we were still at home.  By 3:45am we were waiting for the Dr. to call back and running around the house in a controlled panic (if there is such a thing).

We arrived at the hospital by 4:30am and Liz had the wonderful pleasure of screaming all the way up the elevator.  OK, so she held it in pretty well, but the poor thing was hollering on the inside, I could tell.  By the time we got to our room, she was in the bathroom hollering on the outside.

The Dr. came in to check on her and could tell by the noise that she was definitely in full labor.  So we spent the next few hours laboring in different places, from the tub, to the oddly shaped bed to the birthing ball.  Refusing the epidural, Liz was left with a few shots of Fentanyl to take the edge off.  This got her through a bit more of the birthing pains, but by 6am she was pretty spent.

She laid in her bed while the Dr. came into tell her, “Your 6 centimeters.  If you plan on having and epidural, now is the cutoff time.”  Liz, being beaten down by the intense contractions, started to question her resolve.  She wasn’t sure if she could take much more of the pain without some kind of relief, but because we had spent a lot of time over the past month talking about the subject, I encouraged her to stick it out (women reading this, please don’t punch me through your computer screen.  I promise she was glad I did. )

I knew it was her spirit that was most badly beaten so I got her to stand up and do the slow dance I like to call ‘the 8 centimeter Waltz’.  For the next 2 hours we rocked back and forth, her head on my shoulder, working through each contraction.  Our focus was to forget the past, relax in the present and not worry about the future.  Without this, she would be in constant stress over everything that had happened, was happening and was about to happen (kind of like life, you know).

By 8am Liz told the nurse that she felt like the baby was much further down, as if he might drop out.  So she checked her and sure enough she was 10 centimeters and ready to push.

Liz later said that the pushing was an amazingly empowering process.  That it was the part of the labor where she had some form of control.  Finally she was able to do something with the contractions, not just bare them.

The time between the first push and Tyson’s first little cry was only about 45 minutes.  Being right there to see the whole thing (heck, I held her left leg for each push), I was blown away at the amazing process that takes place to bring a baby into the world.  And when he found his way onto Liz’s chest for the first time, we looked at each other with an amazement and joy that seemed to erase the past 10 hours of pain and uncertainty.

We had a son, he had a full head of dark brown hair and…we had a son!

Everything is going great and we’re loving every minute of it!  OK, so there have been a few hiccups here and there and we’re not quite enjoying the sleep routine that we once had (though it’s Liz that is baring the brunt of that burden…I can’t work if I can’t keep my eyes open…once again ladies, please don’t hurt me…)  Seriously, Liz is loving every minute of motherhood.  And speaking of mothers, hers has been in town for the last week helping us with everything from meals to shopping to feeding to just giving her motherly moral support.  Mother-In-Laws get a bad wrap, but mine is nothing short of amazing!

OK, Now Let’s Get Down To Business

I just wanted to update you on my latest biz banter, if you don’t mind.

I’ve had the wonderful privilege of renting a bit of prime advertising real estate on zenhabits for the last month and will be able to utilize it through the month of June as well.  Let me first say that I know few banner spots better on the Internet for reaching a rich audience of loyal blog followers.  Leo’s readers are some of the nicest, most valuable web surfers to grace the digits of my Google Analytics.  I’m not a sales pitch kind of guy and they’re not interested being pitched a sale.  I just get to share my products and services to a much larger audience and it’s been a real blessing to say the least.

Turning a product into a service and a service into a product.

My two online businesses, frugal Theme Dot Com and frugal Site Design, are a perfect match of product and service.  I’ve created a product, the frugal Wordpress Theme and I use that particular theme to serve those who need a custom website.

I’ve been giving the frugal Theme away for free for the past few months now, but have recently created a Premium version that I sell, along with single and multi-use licences.  There’s still a free one available, but both the free and Premium versions have been updated with cleaner code and many enhancements.  And for those who just want it all done for them or who need a professionally customized version, they contact me over at frugal Site Design and hire me for the job.

By the way, for anyone interested, there’s a 40% payout for affiliates on all frugal products!  (I just had to throw that in. )

It’s been a great fit for me and seems to have been a good one for my clients as well.  So I couldn’t be happier about the venture and hope to take what I’ve learned and am continuing to learn about the unique challenges of online business and share them with my wonderful Motivate Thyself readers.

Finally, About Blogging

I know this isn’t a blog about blogging, but I figured I could sneak this in here and hope no one really notices.

I’ve really changed my blogging/writing style over the last 4 months or so as I’ve had less time and less desire to create ‘pretty good’ content.  I’ve dropped my 4 to 5 posts a week schedule and picked up a more ‘post when you’ve really got something worth sharing (and the time to effectively share it)’ kind of mindset.  I couldn’t get out of my head the idea that as a blogger who wants to regularly WOW his readers, I can’t afford to let my home page fill with mediocrity.  That words should not tap into the confines of my frugal Theme framework without first passing the test of personal passion for the piece in mind.

One of my fears when I first considered this shift was that I would lose a lot of my regular traffic.  I was afraid that my readers might come to think I had closed shop.  Yet I was pleasantly surprised to instead find a much greater influx of both regular readers and now and again traffic.  More of my content was being shared with the rest of the blogging community and I found a greater respect for the voice I was sharing.

This is not to say that every blog is meant for heavy hitting posts a few times a month.  Certainly the world of blogging would get quite boring if every place we landed tried to feed us a few thousand words in a sitting.  This is what I love about blogging and Internet content in general.  We can go from one place that gave us an inspiring snippet of encouragement, to another that teaches us an important new skill and then to yet another that makes us lol so hard that we can’t help but tweet about it.  It’s all essential stuff and all apart of a wonderfully complete blogging experience.

Final Thoughts

I guess what I’m finding as I’m typing these words, is that my time is limiting, but my experience is richening.  I’m working harder than ever, but on projects that matter to me and with new family members that constantly make me smile.

The Internet has been good to me.  It has allowed me to work at home and watch every minute of my sons first moments while assisting my wonderful wife as she cares for him.  It has brought the world to my fingertips and me to the world.  It has introduced me to an amazing community and allowed me to gain new friends and enjoy their loving support.

Thanks for taking these moments to catch up on my latest life experiences and I hope you maybe even took away a tip or two.  Either way, I just wanted to thank all who have been so supportive over these stressful and tiring weeks and just let you know that I won’t forget it.

’till my next post (or a little shoulder tap on Twitter )…

Eric

P.S. You’re always welcome to follow me on Twitter, but if you’re interested keeping up with Liz and her exciting new adventure, be sure to give her a follow as well.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

When Apple designed the beautifully simple iPod, with its minimalist interface, they must have faced a conundrum: How do you keep things simple when there are always other important features you want to add, new buttons that add so much more functionality?

In the software world, this is known as “feature creep” — new features are added and added until things are no longer simple, but complex.

In the world of simplicity, things are never as simple as they seem. Things tend to grow more complex over time — simplicity takes hard work to maintain.

How does Apple keep its minimalist interface if it wants to keep adding new features? How does the designer of a simple WordPress theme keep things simple if he wants to add new features for his users?

How do you declutter a room and keep it from getting cluttered again? How do you simplify your work routine — and keep it simple?

The short answer is thoughtful reduction, and routine editing. The long answer is below, in six steps:

1. Be very clear about your mission. This is crucial — without it, simplicity for simplicity’s sake is worthless. What are you trying to deliver to the customer? What are you trying to accomplish for yourself? Apple could keep its interface simple because it knew what user experience it was trying to deliver: A simple way for people to listen to their music. Know your mission, and the rest is details.

2. Figure out what matters most. This is really the logical progression of Step 1 — what is most important to delivering on your mission? If your mission is to have a simple room for sleeping and dressing, what items do you need? A bed, a dresser, maybe a simple closet for hanging clothes, and perhaps a mirror. That’s all you need in a simple bedroom with those two purposes. Not tons of storage space or chairs or bookshelves or anything else.

3. Thoughtful reduction. This is taken from John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity — after you’ve figured out what’s important, reduce the rest thoughtfully. It doesn’t really need more explanation than that.

4. Set limits. Once you’ve gotten down to simplicity, setting limits is a great way to force yourself to stay simple. Basically, you set limits on whatever you’re trying to keep simple: the number of buttons on a device, the number of features in a program, the number of pieces of furniture or clothing or emails you answer or tasks you set out to do each day. With a limit, you force yourself to choose, and force yourself to eliminate the non-essential rather than allowing things to grow more complex.

5. Organize. As Maeda said, “Organization makes a system of few appear simpler.” Group similar things together intelligently, and aim for a small number of groups. If you have 20 things, and you organize them well, you now might have only 4 groups — which makes things simpler. Be sure the grouping, however, doesn’t make things more complicated.

6. Edit routinely. Set a regular interval for what I call “editing” (I’m a writer — it’s how I see things). So if you want to keep your to-do list simple, you could set a reminder in your calendar to prune your to-do list down to 10 things (an example of a limit) each Monday (for example). If you want to keep a room decluttered, set a calendar reminder to declutter it every two months. If you’re designing software or a WordPress theme, edit before each release.

Read more about simplicity and productivity in Leo’s best-selling book, The Power of Less, or follow him on Twitter.

Let me just start by saying that I’m one of the biggest people pleasers out there.  Show me a possible moment of displeasure and I’ll jump in and fill the need as fast as I can in hopes of both harmony among those involved as well as positive feelings toward little old me.  I’m not a saint by any stretch, I just have the disease to please.

In the long run, we’re pleasing nobody.

One of the great misconceptions among people pleasers is this idea that we’re ‘good people’ who are just trying to make everybody happy.  As I stated before, it’s not so much our great concern for another human being, but our obsession with the way others may perceive us.  As a result, we tend to say yes to everything and rarely stick up for ourselves.  Even if someone blatantly wrongs us, we are usually the ones who absorb the hurt and then stand in the corner, fuming to ourselves.  It’s not a pretty site.

The fact is, when we try to please everybody, we end up pleasing nobody.  Tired from the burnout that comes from the over extension of ourselves and frustrated by the fact that we keep letting others take advantage of us, we quickly become ineffective in helping others and often times end up resenting everyone around us. Then, when we finally run into a situation where our help is truly needed, we are too depleted to help out.  Also, our ability to decipher a real need from that of someone trying to take advantage of our people pleasing nature, is quite skewed.  In our minds, every ‘need’ is a requirement for us to act and in time, this wares us down to worthlessness.

Huh?

To some, this may sound a little off beat.  Maybe you’re wondering, “What’s your point and where are you going with this?”  The fact is, if you are a people pleaser, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.  If not, then this won’t make much sense and might not even be worth your time.  Today I’m speaking to the people pleasers in hopes that I can help some of you break free from this awful addiction and start living your life more effectively and with a freedom you never thought possible.

A Brief History

I’ve always been the easy going type.  Easy to get along with and an all around positive person.  In many conversations I’d be the first to encourage others or just be plain agreeable.  If someone was down, I was there to help pick them up.  I just couldn’t stand to see others in any sort of pain.

I figured I was a pretty darn good person.  Compared to many around me, I stood out as the peace maker.  But soon it became apparent that much of my good nature stemmed from the fact that I couldn’t stand to not be pleasing to others.  My sensor for acceptance was way out of wack as I perceived a neutral stance as negativity toward me.  Though I genuinely wanted to see others happy, I had to come to terms with the fact that much of this desire was selfish in nature.

As I grew into the real world and began my computer consulting business, I quickly realized the devastating effects that people pleasing had when carried beyond adolescence.  I could barely handle the slightest bit of negativity from a client and often times became their doormat, as I’d let them walk all over me.  In the name of neutrality, I would do most anything.  I was a slave to my fear and the need to be liked.

As the years went by, I began to realize my need to break free from this bad habit.  Not only was I unable to grow a healthy business as a practicing people pleaser, but by letting myself get beat up by the world around me, I would come home each day in a state of despair.  Liz and I would talk and it would quickly become apparent that I had once again fallen prey to my people pleasing mentality.  She would encourage me to stop saying yes to everything and start standing up for myself.  I would then feel rejuvenated and ready to break free from my personal bondage.  Yet, within days and sometimes even hours, it became quite apparent that nothing had changed.

Finding a fear that is greater than that of rejection.

When breaking any kind of habit or addiction, it is imperative to find the source of the problem and then counteract it with its opposite and hopefully stronger sibling. For me, the fear of rejection was the source of my addiction.  But recently I’ve come to fear a much greater element of life; failure.  OK, let’s step back for a second.  When I say fear of failure, I’m speaking of the healthy kind of fear.  We could even rephrase the word fear with ‘healthy respect’.  My fear of rejection was the kind of fear that kept me up at night, while my new found respect for failure is the kind that motivates the heck out of me.  There’s a BIG difference here.

I’m not saying that I am no longer a people pleaser.  Far from it!  Just like an alcoholic is always an alcoholic, recovering as they may be, I’m am just a recovering people pleaser.  I still struggle with my fear of rejection and often find myself seeking to please others for the sake of feeding my need to be liked, but as my fear/respect for failure grows in strength, my focus is less likely to allow capture from this awful addiction.

What does failure have to do with people pleasing?

So I now fear failure.  Why?  Well, much of my frustration in life has been the result of this disease.  I’ll go against every instinct in my body to please another human being and then pull my hair out in dismay when the result is the complete opposite of forward progress.  It’s one thing to fail because you made a mistake, but when you miss out on opportunity because you were too busy trying to make things right with the world, you find a frustration that is not easily matched.  Once this healthy respect for forward progress made its way into my mind, I started seeing the hold that people pleasing had on me, weaken and wither.

Losing Your Flavor

As individuals, we all have our own personal flavor.  Some are sweet, some salty and others plain bitter.  But as a people pleaser, because of our skill of going with the flow at all costs, we lose our flavor all together.  We try to blend with every personality we come in contact with and as a result our own personality fades.  What makes you, YOU, is your own blend of Yes’s and No’s.  It’s our beliefs and values and preferences that give us our spice.  Lose this and you lose yourself in the process.  Before long, you end up forgetting what you’re all about.  This can be a scary realization and one that should be harnessed to help push us out of our people pleasing ways.

Losing Proper Perception

Another thing we lose when blending in with the world around us is our ability to properly perceive a healthy need from a selfish desire.  Just like children, adults need to be told no from time to time.  If everyone got their way 100% of the time we’d be one messed up society (at least more messed up than we already are).  So it’s our job as an individual to stand up for what we believe is right.  If someone needs assistance and we can accurately determine the need to be sincere, it is our job to address that need if at all possible.  Not necessarily to say yes every time (just because YOU are asked for help doesn’t mean that YOU are the one to help out), but to remain open to the assistance of others.  But if someone selfishly requests our attention, it is equally imperative that we say no.  The more we let others walk all over us, the less clarity we will have as we try and assess the needs around us.  And there’s nothing worse than not being able to address a real need because our time is being consumed by our inability to say no to the squeaky wheels that surround us.

Signs of a People Pleaser

• Someone who says yes, even when their mind says no.
• Someone who is devastated when they think someone doesn’t like them.
• Someone who would rather feel personal pain than displease another.
• Someone who cringes at the first sign of friction.
• Someone who is willing to fail in the name of pleasing another.
• Someone who has lost their own sense of unique personality and belief.
• Someone who is not willing to speak up for themselves.
• Someone who loses sleep over the slightest altercation with another.
• Someone who feels out of control when they think another human being may disagree with what they’re doing.
• Someone who starts to see their desire to please others as a separate part of themselves.  Separate from the rest of who they are as an individual.

Tips to break free from the shackles of people pleasing.

1. Find a greater fear: As I stated earlier, the best way to overcome people pleasing is to “…find the source of the problem and then counteract it with its opposite and hopefully stronger sibling.”  What is people pleasing keeping you from doing or being?  Figure this out and then use that knowledge to find a stronger source of fear to feed on.  As I mentioned earlier, this latter kind of fear should be the healthy kind.  A respect that keeps us motivated.
2. Stop saying yes until you can accurately separate the real need from the non-essential: After years of putting our YES reaction on autopilot, we may find it hard to determine the validity of the incoming requests.  The only way I know to bring this barometer back to a balanced state is to go through a time of constant No’s.  After a while it will become more clear when you are turning down a non-essential request and when a real need is not being addressed.  During this process, be sure to remind yourself that even those valid needs that you are turning down will be addressed by another.  Which leads me to my next tip…
3. Let go of your need to control: Believe it or not, one of the strong characteristics of a people pleaser is the need to control EVERYTHING.  If anything, our pleasing ways are nothing more than a subtle manipulation to retain control of the situation.  We are trying to control what others think of us and how they act toward us.  This leads us to feel that we are also responsible for every need that comes our way.  I truly believe that each individual was made to assist others in specific ways.  Therefore, it is impossible that we should take on each request that comes our way.  Even those that are truly sincere and equally valid, are not necessarily the needs we are supposed to address.  Over time, as we begin to see clearly once again, we will be able to accurately address those needs that are specific to our nature.  The rest we will redirect elsewhere, confident that they were not meant for our attention.  So let go of this idea that you can/will/should take on the troubles of the world and let go of this control that you think you have.
4. Stop placing your peace of mind in the hands of others: I love it when I get in a flow of positive productivity.  I’m knocking out task after task and I feel like I can take on anything.  Then, all of a sudden, I have a conflict with another.  Maybe they sent me a nasty email or maybe it was a phone call, but somehow I was given notice that they were not pleased with me.  My world shrinks and my drive dwindles into nothingness.  Out the windows goes my productivity as I place everything on hold to sulk at the situation.  I lose sleep, my appetite and my clarity of thought.  Only recently have I clearly seen the insanity of this silliness.  Why am I placing my own peace of mind and future progress, in the hands of someone who may have just been having a bad day?  This has got to stop and I/you are the only ones who can make this happen!
5. Fill your desire to please with healthy opportunities to help others: One of the wonderful characteristics of the people pleaser is their honest desire to help others.  Yes, we can be manipulative bastards, no doubt, but we truly DO want to help.  The problem is that when we are ‘practicing people pleasers’ we are unhealthily distributing our assistance.  This just keeps us unclear of the real needs around us and frustrated as we try to help.  Instead of this madness, try to proactively address the needs that you see as necessary.  Enjoy these moments and let them feed on your desire to help.  Over time, this desire to care for another will be less out of control and you will find it MUCH easier to say no when no is the necessary word.
6. Once again, PROACTIVE assistance: I just mentioned the word proactive in the previous tip.  This is CRUCIAL!  As people pleasers, we are so overwhelmed as we take on every request of assistance that comes our way, that we have no time or energy to address the issues that WE see as fit for our attention.  Think about how CRAZY this is!  What we are essentially doing is assuming that everyone else’s idea of our time well spent is more accurate that our own.  We need to figure out for ourselves what needs we should be addressing and then go out and address them.  Stop waiting for the world to dictate your attention and start attending to the needs you were meant to address.

Final Thoughts

I’m only just starting to break free from this debilitating disease.  I have a long way to go and though I’m starting to feel the taste of real freedom, I remain partially captive to this struggle.  This is MY attempt to proactively help others by hopefully sharing thoughts that are helpful in their journey to regain their personal freedom.  If you are someone who struggles with any of the things mentioned above, by all means, share your thoughts in the comments and feel free to shoot me an email if that seems applicable.

Eric

What is value?

Let’s start with a simple definition.

Value = Relative worth, merit or importance.

So the value of a dollar is relative to what you can GET with it.  The value of a college education is relative to what you can DO with it.  Where does this leave an individual’s words?  Do we even put a value on a particular person’s thoughts?  The fact is, we do it every day without even knowing it.

Every time we ignore someone we reduce the value of their ideas and every time we listen, we increase it.  It’s human nature to gravitate our attention toward those we feel are worth the most to us.  Having someones attention is equivalent to a dollar bill receiving one dollar’s worth of goods in trade for itself.  Remove the receiving end of a thought and you might as well be playing with Monopoly money.

The value of a Tweet.

Twitter is an amazing barometer for value.  In a numbers driven society we are taught that more is always better, but Twitter helps clearly debunk this idea and shows us what really matters.

When someone tweets one of my posts, I may receive a bit of traffic as a result.  Depending on the tweeter, this traffic may barely hit my radar or it might open the flood gates of traffic and re-tweets (I apologize if you don’t know about Twitter, but all I can say is, “Remove head from sand…now open your eyes and enjoy the 21st century! )

You might initially think, “Sure, the tweeter that gave you all the traffic had a bunch of followers.”  This is not necessarily the case.  I see time and time again, tweeters who may only have a few thousand followers, yet command attention ten times more effectively than one with 50,000.  For some reason, this person has become so valuable to their followers that when they speak, EVERYBODY listens.  Heck, people go out of their way to make sure they didn’t miss anything.  So when I see this occur, I can’ t help but ask myself, “How did this person build their worth to a place of such high value?

It’s NOT by accident!

It’s easy to look at these attention commanders and think that it’s only their celebrity status that commands such a following.  It’s convenient for us to blow it off this way so we can get away from the idea that we somehow have control over our own value.  But their fame is only the RESULT of their actions.  Something they did established this credibility and now they reap the rewards that comes with this power.

Commanding attention opens almost EVERY door.

Whether we’re talking about our job, our family or even our social life, being able to be noticed and absorbed is crucial to our success and well being.

At work it may be that we’re shooting for a particular promotion.  If we have gained the respect of our boss and therefore their attention, we have a much greater possibility of getting that prize.  But if we just blend in, it may a lost cause.  As individuals we want to be heard and understood.  If we can’t extend our thoughts to the rest of society in such a way that attention is gained and sustained we start to feel mentally and emotionally isolated.

When I was a kid, my brother who is 6 years older and I, and my mom, would chat away in the car as we drove around town.  I always sat in the back, waiting for my opportunity to jump into the conversation.  Being much younger and less mature, I had a hard time getting much sustained attention and this led me to begin the bad habit of interrupting and talking SUPER fast.  I felt that if I didn’t shoot right through my thoughts, I may lose my audience.  The problem was that this tactic left me chasing after attention, instead of commanding it naturally.

Over the years I have learned to speak with more clarity and not rush through my thoughts.  I’ve had to re-train myself to assume people are listening, not that they are waiting to flee from my sound waves.  What I’ve realized, though, is that it’s not as simple as making that assumption.  I’ve had to learn some key communication tactics to attain the attention I desired.  It has been through these tidbits of talk tactics that I’ve found my voice and successfully begun to connect with the world around me.

10 Tips To Enhance Your Voice While Maintaining A Respectful Tone

1. Speak less often: Just like selling a product, if we flood the market, the value of our goods goes down.  Say too much, even if your words are golden, and you will overwhelm your audience and lose their attention.
2. Carefully choose your words: Lay down a few too many worthless words and you will drive down their value.  By carefully picking the ideas you present to others, you are maximizing the attention they give you.
3. Carefully choose your audience: Often times it’s not the words we share, but the people we are spewing them to that makes or breaks the power of our presentation.  After you’ve picked your content, make sure you’re audience is ripe for its message.
4. Don’t be shy | Confidence is KING: I’m a total introvert so it can be a bit scary to speak to certain types of people.  But the fact is, the posture we present when conveying our message will play a big role in how and if it’s absorbed.
5. Speak softly: If you are speaking the right words, to the right audience, with the right posture, you should never have to speak loudly.  Those around you will naturally focus on your words and do whatever necessary to take it all in.  In fact, just like a loud, obnoxious TV commercial, too much volume will inevitably reduce the desire to listen.
6. Listen to others: We ALL want to be heard.  It is a natural and healthy desire.  If you are never listening to those around you, you will find it much harder to be heard.  I know for myself, it is more appealing to give attention to someone who gives me the time of day.  (Also, we can learn a lot from those around us.  Get too caught up in your own message and you will lose out on the wealth of wisdom that exits the minds of others.)
7. Help others communicate THEIR message: One of the most powerful presentations comes in the form of sharing the ideas of another.  You not only gain their respect, but you take an already formed idea and add your own perspective to enhance its value.
8. Speak from experience: Clarity is key when it comes to effective communication.  Try and audiblize an experience that has not yet been acquired and you will lose the sharp edge of your message.  By speaking from experience we are able to add the exact sights, sounds, smells and feel of the context in question.  This enhances your clarity while defining your expertise.
9. NEVER embellish: It is quite natural to want to turn up the heat on your words to attract the most attention possible.  The problem with this tactic is that you are improperly establishing the expectations of your audience.  You may initially receive more listeners, but they will quickly become disappointed as they are made aware of your enhancements.
10. Be patient!: Building respect can be a long, uphill battle, but it is ALWAYS worth the trip.  Losing it, on the other hand, can be accomplished in an instant.  Never go with the desire to rush into your words.  You can easily add to a previous statement, but what has already been spoken can never be unsaid.

Final Thoughts

The more I share my voice online, the more evident it becomes that these principles are not only important, but crucial to acquiring an effective tone.  I’m finding that gaining respect and building the value of my message is a requirement, not only in the blogging community, but in every day life.  We are so often drawn to the powerful voices around us that we can easily neglect to seek that same resonance with our own.  Carefully walk your words into the outside world and you will inevitably increase the value of your message and the authority that goes along with it.

If you found this post to be useful and want to stay up-to-date with future insight, be sure to subscribe to Motivate Thyself by Email and/or RSS.

Eric

How do you categorize something with the title ‘How To Be Successful’?  Do you file it under ‘Goals’?  I mean, success is all about accomplishment, right?  Or maybe you should put it under ‘Health’.  Good health, to many, is a number one priority in life.  What about ‘Relationships’?  Doesn’t a strong relationship make for a better life?

As we set out to define how to be successful and touch on what I believe makes for a successful human being, we have to keep in mind that success is truly in the eye of the beholder.  So it’s not about a specific prize, a ‘holy grail’ if you will, but the ability to successfully pursue those things in your life that bring you the greatest purpose and satisfaction.

Meet Bill

Bill is a forty something entrepreneur from Chicago, raised in a fairly average home, with average parents and an average lifestyle.  Bill did OK in school and even made it halfway through college.  After two years of hitting the books hard, Bill decided that school had played its part in his life and it was time to move on.  So at the expense of his parents peace of mind, Bill dropped out and started looking for work.

Fast forward by about 20 years and you will see Bill, working in one of his many offices, running his successful international company that he built for the ground up.  To put it plainly, Bill is a wealthy man.  Not just financially, but Bill has managed to maintain good physical health, land the love of his life and still put aside time for his precious children.  Bill is no superman, but he knows what he wants and is dedicated to living that lifestyle that fits his idea of success.  It’s not about fame or fortune, but staying true to his clear vision of what life should be like for him and his family.

Meet John

John, also from Chicago and pushing the same forty year old status, is not so happy in his current situation.  Coming from a similar background, but managing to make it all the way through college, John now finds himself struggling to get by.

About ten years back, John got divorced.  A marriage that was doomed from the start, this relationship defined Johns inability to sense a healthy situation.  From the middle management position that brings him zero satisfaction, to the devastating debt he’s accrued over years of trying to buy his own happiness, John is lost when it comes to defining his desires and properly pursuing them through the necessary channels.  Not only is John not successful, but he’s depressed by the fact that he may only be half way through his lackluster life.

Switching Places

One cold winter morning Bill received a phone call.  It was his accountant and Bill could tell that the news was not the good kind.  “What is it Joe?” Bill asked his CPA.  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Bill, but your company has gone bankrupt.”  “What?!  How can this be?!  There were no signs of this.  Last quarter alone brought us an increase of 15%.  Where is this coming from?”

For the next 30 minutes, Joe explained how some of his employees had been embezzling money from the company for the last 2 years.  They managed to doctor the books so the stolen funds did not seem to be missing.  By the time they were caught, the companies financial infrastructure had been deteriorated and could do nothing but collapse.  Bill was both devastated and broke.

Around that same time, John had found out that after a distant, wealthy relative had passed away, he had come into a small fortune and a large piece of property.  John was elated!  He felt that all his troubles were over and he could finally enjoy life.  He quit his job (burning bridges with his spiteful departure) and moved into his new, much larger, home in the suburbs.  John was finally successful…or so he thought.

A year has passed…

Both Bill and John had now had time to ease into their new situations.  The sting of Bill’s great fall had dulled and John’s new found happiness was starting to dwindle.

Shortly after Bill lost everything, he started working in the same company that John had left.  Coming in as a cashier, Bill quickly moved up the ladder as assistant manager and then manager.  To help lighten his load, Bill’s wife began working part time.  Their kids were in school so they could manage all of this without missing out on the life they previously enjoyed.  Bill valued family above all else and he was not about to let these unfortunate circumstances take away time with his wife and kids.

From the very get go, John had managed to put a massive dent into his new found fortune.  Going on spending sprees, buying all the things that used to seem out of reach, John was determined to debunk the idea that money can’t buy happiness.

He also began hanging out in bars as he hoped to meet Mrs. right.  Using the phrase, “Drinks are on me!” time and time again, John was constantly trying to attract others with his fake confidence and half hidden insecurities.  But when rejection seemed even more prevalent, John slowly found his way back into his discouraged state of mind.

5 years later…

About two years after starting his position as a cashier and then quickly moving up, Bill had learned everything he possibly could about the business he was working in.  Not willing to settle for less, Bill began the process of starting his own company that would sell the same products, but to an International audience.  Before too long, Bill and his family had found themselves right back in their sweet spot, opportunities abound.

John’s situation was not quite the same.  Managing to waste most of is willed wealth in the first 3 years of his obtaining it, John was now looking for work to pay down some of the debt.  With no other choice but to sell his home, John started apartment hunting in the city and crawling back to his old job.  Unfortunately, after his bridge burning departure, instead of re-entering as a manager, John had to start back at the bottom, ringing up customers as he pined over what went wrong.

Interestingly enough, Bill had been the one to buy John’s house in the ‘burbs.  By that summer, there were fresh flowers in the garden, clean cut grass and the sense that a heart transplant had taken place in that home.  Even the neighbors seemed happier as their new next door tenants finally did justice to the beauty of that big old house.

What is success?

People often say that success is a state of mind.  That if you want to be satisfied with life, be satisfied with life.  But this doesn’t deal with the fact that a desired destination requires the proper mindset and discomfort in the current state.  Not that we can’t be satisfied every step of the way, but that if that satisfaction becomes too comfortable, we risk standing stagnant, never venturing forth into the world of possibility.

John was all about comfort.  A man of the moment, he never planned for the future or learned from his past.  John’s vision of success was extremely insignificant as he accepted his new found fortune as a quick fix for boredom and low self-esteem.

While John spent a lot of his time figuring out how he was going to spend his next dollar, he missed out on the big picture.  He couldn’t seem to visualize the pitiful life he lived.  He was oblivious to his lack of relational connection.  He mistook money for a brief moment of fun, while great opportunity floated on by.

Bill, on the other hand, was less interested in when his next lunch break was and more so in the possibilities that were right around the corner.  He fed off the love of his family and never grew restless as he worked hard to pull himself back up.  He enjoyed each moment, but couldn’t help be aware of a much bigger picture.

Where John could see his job as nothing more than a way to pay his bills, Bill was taking every opportunity to learn from his new circumstances.  Neither one was given more from the start, but while John was lost in his own sea of self-medicating escapism, Bill knew nothing more than a healthy, happy life.

To answer the question, ‘How To Be Successful’, we have to see the key ingredient to success.  It’s our mindset that makes or breaks our ability to succeed.  It’s our comfort or discomfort in different circumstances that determines our direction.  Just like John could no more be successful than then sky could be orange, Bill was incapable of settling for less than success.  For Bill, it wasn’t a matter of thinking through each situation and determining which way to fork when following the road to greater opportunity, but instead it was his natural instinct that led the way.  Just like a cat could never be comfortable in water, neither could Bill just sit in a situation that failed to bring him and his family closer to their own personal goals.

10 Keys To A Successful Human Being

I wrote a guest post on this at Pick The Brain called ‘10 Traits of a Successful Human Being‘, if you’d like to go further with the topic, but here are 10 more tips to expand on my points.

1. Know How To Be Happy: If you don’t know the ingredients of a complicated recipe, I’d suggest that you find them before you start cracking open eggs.  If you are unable to be happy right where you are (not necessarily satisfied, but happy), than you will have a hard time reaching your goals.  Distraction is one of our greatest deterrents to success and few things take away our focus more than being unhappy.
2. Know How To Motivate Yourself: No one is going to push you harder or more effectively than yourself.  It is up to us to light our own internal fires and push ahead with vigor.  We need to know the ins and outs of our deepest desires, the triggers to our forward motion.  Dreams are made and goals are set, but with out proper self-motivation, we’re dead in the water.
3. Know how to love and be loved: We assume that because we have feelings, we know how to enjoy a healthy relationship, but anyone who has enjoyed a successful one, knows it’s a lot of hard work.  If we are unable to enjoy those around us, how can we consider ourselves a success.  There are many millionaire misers out there who are no more successful than a homeless person sleeping on the streets.
4. Know that the steps to success come one at a time: In this hectic 21st century society, it is so easy to be deceived into thinking that taking on the World has to happen all at once.  The fact is, this mentality does nothing more than overload us with busyness.  To be successful we need to be efficient in our pursuit of goals and a deluge of to-dos is not going to get us there.
5. Know the value of JUST ENOUGH: John never knew exactly what he wanted.  All he knew was that he never had it.  Bill, on the other hand, always new his sweet spot in life and rarely wandered far from this place.  Being successful in life isn’t about how much we have, but how close we are to having JUST ENOUGH.
6. Know how to deal with negative feedback: Whether it be constructive criticism or hateful slander, we can be assured that our road to success will be bumpy as we endure the blows of those around us.  We can’t afford to be unprepared.  Motivation turns into momentum, but improperly filtered feedback will stop us dead in our tracks.
7. Know how to relax: As important as motivation, rejuvenation is certainly a key to success.  Knowing how to get a good night’s sleep as well as reaching a relaxed state in the heart of a stressful situation is crucial for both current satisfaction and future destination.
8. Know how to get out of your comfort zone: One of the greatest deterrents for success is our inability to breach the boundaries of our comfort zones.  Fear of the unknown, coupled with a soft, un-calloused psyche, we see no other option, but to stagnate.
9. Know how to avoid self-destructing: We often have the perfect plan in our heads as we start our journey of success.  We base our future actions on what we believe is right around the corner.  But what happens when things go much differently?  How do we react when stage 2 can’t happen because stage 1 took us in a different direction?  We must remain flexible and ready to adjust our course when necessary.  We can’t control life, but we can control our reaction to it.
10. Know that it’s never to late to change your life: Whether we’ve been stuck in a hole all our lives or have just recently fallen into one, there’s no time like the present to dig ourselves out and make the move toward our own brand of success.  To know how to be successful is to know that tomorrow is ALWAYS a new day.

Final Thoughts

John’s vision was anything but robust.  Easily distracted by activities of insignificance, John could never truly know a life of success.  He was condemned by a minute mindset and falsely established idea of happiness.  John wasn’t unsuccessful, he was completely blind to it.

Bill may have seen his days both on the top and on the bottom, but as far as he was concerned, it was all apart of the journey.  Never seeking a definite destination, Bill only desired wisdom, good health and strong relationships with those around him.  For Bill, success was a mindset that turned into a positive physical outcome, not a single action that resulted in riches. You could take away Bill’s achievements, but you could never separate him from his passion for prosperity.

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” ~ Albert Einstein

Eric

If you want to delve deeper into this question of how to be successful, I would encourage you to check out these additional articles:

• 5 Fundamentals for Success in Life
• When Success Becomes Meaningless, It’s Time to Drop Out
• Re-Centering: Finding Your Way Back To The Life You Meant To Live
• Sink or Swim
• The Personal Development Dilemma: Striving Vs Self-Acceptance
• What is YOUR value and how do you MAXIMIZE it?
• Personal Development Roadblocks – “The Situation”
• How To Start A Small Business
• The Tradeoffs Of Owning Your Own Business Vs Working A Day Job
• Ask For What You Want

Feeling the sting of a verbal attack

I recently received an email from one of my websites that was anything but positive in nature.  I was basically told, by a total stranger that had just laid eyes on my site for the very first time, that I was a worthless piece of @#$%.  This person seemed to go to great lengths to tare me down as quickly and effectively as possible.  I had been having quite a tough week and this was just one more stone that had met its intended target.

I started to reply, trying to stay calm and not be a jerk right back, but I was having a hard time not getting defensive.  So I got Liz to read the email and asked her opinion.  The second she had finished reading the words of this viscous verbal assault, she looked at me and said, “Eric, why would you even give this person two seconds of your time?  Just delete it and move on.”  Realizing the foolishness of trying to defend myself to someone who had no intention of having a two way conversation, I deleted the email and tried my best to forget about it.

Later that day, while walking our dogs, Liz and I discussed the situation.  She admitted that it was easy for her to tell me to forget about it, but that if it had been directed at her, it most certainly would have bothered her, but that paying attention to that kind of feedback will do nothing but bring you down.  That absolutely NO GOOD could ever come from responding to the kind of hate that was in that email.  I agreed and I moved on.

The effect of feedback

I don’t know about you, but when I have a couple of days that are filled with nothing but positive reinforcement and encouragement, I can’t help but feel light on my feet.  I have more energy, get more done and tend to be a more positive person.  But this can easily be brought to a screeching halt if the right words are used.  Something like that email I described above can really take the wind out of my sales if I let it.  I like for people to like me and I enjoy sharing positive experiences, not baring the brunt of someone else’s bad day.  I want to help people when they are in need, not get stepped on when things don’t go their way.

There’s a saying, “Water off a duck’s back.”  This usually pertains to a situation where an individual is criticized, but not affected by it.  Somehow this person is able to let the negativity just roll right off their hypothetical back.  This is rare and often times falsely mentioned.  We are VERY effected by feedback from others and it is near impossible to completely disregard the different colored sound waves that find their way to our acute audible sensors. So let’s not kid ourselves.  We generally DO care what others think about us and both positive AND negative feedback will usually have at least SOME effect on us.  The question isn’t, “How can we ignore certain sound waves?”  But instead, “How can we properly channel the different tones that take aim at us?”  Just like certain martial arts may teach, it is better to go with the force of the attacking blow and use its energy to benefit yourself, than it is to try and fight it, or in many cases, try and ignore it.

How To Stop Letting People Make Or Break Your Life

So you’re like me in that your mindset, motivation and productivity are sometimes dictated by the feedback of the people around you.  You’re sick of working hard to build up momentum, only to be taken out at the knees by a barrage of negativity.

Let’s stop handing over the keys to other people’s opinions and bring stability to our personal perspective of ourselves.

Tip #1:  Determine the usefulness of the negative feedback.

As we all know, just because something is negative doesn’t mean it is wrong and/or can’t be turned into a positive.  When we first receive feedback that threatens to bring us down we need to ask ourselves if there is anything useful we can take from it.  Are we doing something wrong?  Can we learn from this to improve our tomorrow?  If there is merit to the comment and we can learn from it, we should determine the lesson, learn it and then go about our business.  But if it turns out to be a difference of opinion or just negativity for the sake of negativity, we must see it for what it is (someone esle’s problem) and move on.

Tip #2:  Beware of the dangerous Half-Truth

When others attempt to bring us down, they often do so by using the good old half-truth.  They throw in JUST enough truth to get us second guessing ourselves and then naturally becoming defensive.

Think about it.  When you have received negative feedback, was it the completely false statements that effected you most, or those that had a bit of truth sprinkled in with the lies?  When there is some truth involved, we naturally pay attention and often try and pick through the statement to figure out what exactly needs to be done.  We think, “Well, that one part is true and I KIND OF do that thing they pointed out, but the way they spin the idea is completely false.”

The problem with this is that we can find ourselves stuck in a pointless cycle of trying to reason out what may just be a bunch of false information that had no intention of constructively criticizing us.  We spin our wheels attempting to effectively determine a defense, when no defense is needed or even advisable.  This is often a complete waste of time.

So how do we deal with these deceivingly destructive accusations without lowering our standards and losing valuable time?

It’s quite simple, actually.  We just need to look at the ENTIRE statement and not just the individual points.  Let’s say you own a bakery and specialize in blueberry muffins.  One day the owner of the bakery across the street comes in and says,”You sell your muffins for less than I do.  (TRUTH)  From what I can tell, you’ve found a way to get the same ingredients for less than I can get them (TRUTH) and have come up with a way to make your muffins in half the time (TRUTH).  Way to go!  You’ve just brought down the standards of the muffin making industry!”  (FALSE)

OK, so this guy obviously had it in for you from the get go, but he DID lay down a bunch of truths.  Up until the very end, he was describing your actions with great detail.  But he then managed to spin those facts into one final false accusation.  Now you’re thinking, “Is it possible that my actions are wrong in some way?  Should I re-think the way I’m doing things?”

We need to realize that a statement is either true or false.  Their may be some truths and some lies mixed in, but the entire statement is saying something specific, and it is the point that it’s trying to make that is either true or false.  So if we were to look at this competitor’s statement as either true or false, we could clearly see it as false.  But fall into the trap of picking it apart and we only confuse ourselves with conflicting information.

Another trick is to remove the false parts of the statement and then repeat what’s left, but in a positive tone.  Let’s picture an appreciative customer who’s eating one of your delicious blueberry muffins and positively saying the exact statement, minus the last bit of lies.  “You sell your muffins for less than the baker across the street.  From what I can tell, you’ve found a way to get the same ingredients for less than he can get them and have come up with a way to make your muffins in half the time.  Way to go!”  Same statement, minus the lies, with a positive tone.  COMPLETELY different statement!  So remember that it’s often times not the words being said, but the intentions behind them that determine their tone.  If changing the intentions changes the tone, then you’re most likely dealing with a mere opinion and not a fact of any kind.

Tip #3:  Determine WHO you will listen to

As much as that email was hurtful with its malicious message, the author in no way fit the profile of an individual I would ever care to absorb opinion.  It’s absolutely crucial that we know exactly what kind of person we care to mind and therefore what type of individual we will pay NO mind.

For myself, I will always at least hear out family and friends.  This is, for the most part, a given.  But even here we need to be cautious.  Be sure this loved one has proper perspective to be paying you thought.  Even a friend isn’t always going to give good advice.

But what about mere acquaintances or even total strangers?  Some great advice has been given to me by strangers, so their lack of relationship to you should never keep you from learning from their insight.  It then comes down to their values, their mindset when sharing the thought and what they have to gain by your reaction to the comment.

It was obvious to me that the author of this email was not acting from a healthy set of values.  That this individual was not in a good mindset when they typed the hateful words and that the only thing they had to gain from my reaction was a sense of twisted satisfaction that they had knocked me down a notch.  It was obvious to me that this person did NOT hold an opinion that I needed to be mindful of.  And Once I realized this, it made it much easier to disregard them as someone having a bad day and frankly, not my concern.

Tip #4:  Accept your imperfections

We may be fully aware that we are not perfect people, but it can still sting when that imperfection is pointed out by another.  We try so hard to think things through and cover all the bases, but sometimes we drop the ball.  When this occurs and you get some flack for it, lean to take it in stride.  Quite often I find myself over focusing on a pointed out imperfection, trying to determine what went wrong and what I could have done differently.  This in itself can be a good thing, a way to learn from our mistakes, but once we find ourselves feeling discouraged as a result, we need to step back and accept the fact that EVERYONE makes mistakes.  The more comfortable you are with the fact that you’re going to trip up from time to time, the quicker you’ll bounce back when others make your imperfections known.

Tip #5:  Take a breather

The worst thing you can do when dealing with negative feedback is let your pride get involved.  You may want to lash out at someone or stoop down to their level.  This is NEVER a good thing.  You either continue a useless conversation or stoke the flames of a fire that only burns as long as two continue to tango.

Instead of reacting (and quite possibly over-reacting), sleep on it.  Give yourself some time to get away from the situation and even forget about it for a bit.  Let your subconscious chew on it for a while and see what it thinks.  The following day you can re-visit the issue and determine your course of action with a much greater chance of choosing wisely.  You may decide like I did that no response is necessary.  Or that becoming defensive will serve no purpose.  Whichever rout you choose, you’ll be doing so from a level perspective and not an in-the-moment reaction that might very well create more problems than you started out with.

Tip #6:  Build momentum regardless of reaction

Just as much as we should not let negative feedback knock us down, we need to be cautious about how much we rely on the positive to push us forward.  There’s nothing wrong with riding the waves of encouragement, but if this is the foundation we chose to build our future success, we will see our personal development crumble, time and time again.  Our motivation should come from knowing we are moving in the the right direction and that we are unwilling to settle for less than awesome.  We can enjoy the pats on the back when they come, but our identity needs to be formed from a foundation independent of those around us.

Final Thoughts

The bottom line is that as long as we are striving to better our lives as well as those around us, we should never fear the negativity that will inevitably come our way.  Some will be true and some, half-true, but none should make us feel any less capable than before.  Learn to properly filter this feedback and you will always maintain your motivation and proper piece of mind.

Eric