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The Joy Of Making Things

A lot of people today have forgotten the joy of making things.

The world today is filled with more and more means of consumption. Social networks allow you to connect with your friends and family, and even meet new people from time to time. News flows to you in a dozen or more different ways every day, and entertainment comes knocking on your door from hundreds of sources.

A lot of these things require maintenance, as well. You feel an obligation to respond to posts on Facebook, to clear your email inbox, go through your subscriptions, and answer any text messages you may receive. You may also be “required” to look at the latest picture, post, or other content from your friends.

All of the consumption of inbound information and entertainment combines with all of the “maintenance” to shadow and conceal one of the things that is most likely to bring true happiness and satisfaction… making something.

Three Kinds Of Energy – Physical, Mental, And Emotional

Emotional energy is the fire inside of you… your drive, your motivation, your passion. When your emotional energy is high you feel satisfied, maybe even happy… like you can handle anything. When it is low, you feel stressed, drained, depressed, and overwhelmed.

Emotional energy is different than the other two kinds of energy, physical and mental. Emotional energy isn’t used directly… it’s consumed or produced as a result of using physical and mental energy, both of which are used directly, and can be used either actively or passively.

Physical EnergyPhysical energy is the energy that you use to physically do things. That can be anything from simply being awake to running a marathon.
Mental Energy

Mental energy is a little less clear cut, but it is what you use to process things mentally. It is what you use to figure out solutions to problems, learn new things, and any other sort of work that is not directly physical.

Active use of energy is when you are actually focused on output of that energy in order to yield a desired result, whether mental or physical. Passive use of energy is more like a leak… energy drains away, but there is no real desired result. Active use of energy yields more emotional energy than you started with, particularly if you achieve your desired result, while passive use of energy ends with less emotional energy than the starting point.

How Using Mental And Physical Energy Affects Your Emotional Energy

There are basically three different “modes” of directly using energy: consumption, maintenance, and creation. Each one tends to have a certain profile of physical and mental energy use, active or passive, and therefore affects your emotional energy differently.

Consumption Consumption is input… when you watch television, or eat, or read the news, you are using energy in the consumption mode. You are accepting things inward, which uses mostly passive mental energy and mostly passive physical energy. This passive use has a negative effect on your emotional energy, which in turn has a negative effect on your total limit of physical and mental energy.The drain on emotional energy is directly related to the amount of consumption. An easy example of this is the difference you feel after eating (consuming) a large meal, versus a light meal… the more you eat, the more “drained” you feel. This can lead to a particularly vicious circle, too, as many people turn to eating to deal with the feelings that result from low emotional energy, causing an even greater drain, leading to more eating.
Life in the developed world today tends to center more and more around consumption, particularly the digital kind, whether it’s news (either traditional or Facebook “news”), entertainment, or something else. There is a corresponding growing drain on emotional energy, leaving people less and less happy.

Consumption can turn into an act of creation if it is done with a specific goal… that may be a chef coming up with a new dish while eating something, a sports player watching television to learn the upcoming opponents tactics and strategy (and use this to come up with a strategy to beat them), or anything else where something comes out of it, rather than just consumption.
MaintenanceMaintenance is the middle ground between input and output, usually involving a little of each. Maintenance includes things like exercising to maintain your health (exercising to lose weight or build muscle CAN be creative), sleeping for a normal six to eight hours, or, for someone like me, fixing bugs in programming. There are a ton of different things that can be maintenance, depending on what you do… if it falls between consuming and creating, it’s maintenance.Maintenance generally uses passive energy of one form, and active of the other. Exercising to maintain health, for example, uses active physical energy, but passive mental energy. Fixing bugs uses active mental energy, but passive physical energy.
The imbalance of active and passive energy basically cancels out the impact on your emotional energy, but still uses up some of the limited amount of physical and mental energy that you have, meaning that you won’t get ahead.

Like consumption, maintenance can become an act of creation when done with a specific goal… reaching a goal in exercising, for instance (losing 10 pounds, increasing the weight you can lift by 20 pounds, etc.) or fixing a bug that is actually keeping things from moving ahead.
CreationCreation is all about output. It always uses active mental energy (otherwise it’s maintenance), and nearly certainly uses active mental energy… look at someone when they are making something, and you can see the focus in their body.Creation can be nearly anything… and something can be consumption or maintenance for one person, and creation for someone else (see the chef example above, for instance). Creation generates emotional energy, and the more closely it aligns with what you love to do, the more energy it creates.
For me, for example, creating something out of wood or creating a new program generates a lot of emotional energy. Creating a new page on an existing web site doesn’t produce the same amount of energy, nor does creating an article produce as much energy as creating a story (I’m still waiting on creating a book… I have to find more free time to finish it).

Creation can also become maintenance, if you do the same creation over and over, like adding the adding of a page to a website that I mentioned earlier. When this happens, the act loses its ability to generate emotional energy.

The Joy Of Making Things

The amount of maintenance in the world is not going down, while the amount of consumption is going up. That leaves less and less time and energy for creating. The process is so gradual, though, that it’s very hard to notice, even for people who are more self aware than the general population.

As you spend more and more time and energy consuming and maintaining things, your emotional energy keeps dropping further and further. This has a double impact, because not only do you feel worse, but your level of emotional energy is directly related to what sort of activities you look for, with low emotional energy focusing you on consumption, draining yet more of your energy.

This reminds me of a quote from the Bible: ”For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”

There are two ways that you can turn this around… you can reduce your consumption, and you can increase your creation. While either one by itself will certainly have an effect, when you do both the effect is not just added, it is multiplied.

And then you will rediscover the joy of making things.

Author

October 6th

Energy

7 Signs You Are A Creative Destruction Kind Of Person And How To Excel If You Are

Chaos is in my nature. I thrive when creating, and suffer when maintaining. I feel passion when building something and “stuck” when forced to focus on the details.

Does that sound familiar, or overwhelming? Does it sound exciting to throw caution to the wind and dive right into something, or does it sound scary?

In my last article, I gave a very broad overview of the two basic natures of people, chaotic and orderly. I mentioned, briefly, that I am of a chaotic nature (more so, in fact than virtually anyone I’ve ever met). Ironically, I am also very good at spotting the order in what seems chaos to others (something sometimes referred to as pattern recognition).

Below I’ll list seven of the major attributes of someone for whom creative destruction is the spice of life, and then a few things that don’t come easily, but pay back the extra effort they require many times over.

You feel alive when creating something new.

Crafting something builds your energy, leaving you satisfied and stronger, while assembling things leaves you empty and drained.
You see the whole more than the parts.

In the kitchen, you make a meal, not a recipe… in writing, you see the world, not its mechanics… in business you see how the whole is different than the sum of its parts.
You love creating plans, but have trouble following them.

Creating plans is fun, just like creating nearly anything usually is for you… when you are creating, you easily open up and pour your energy into things. When it comes to following the plan you have created, you start having to pay attention to details, and the fun goes away… and with it goes the energy.
You generally have little attachment to things.

Things are a part of the details, and therefore not something to which you become attached… the same often holds true for the majority of people that you meet.
You are easily frustrated when details keep you from advancing the big picture.

This one really rears up and bites me every now and again… when you get stuck on what seems like a minor (but necessary) detail, and it keeps you from making any major progress on the big picture, the frustration can build up to an extreme level very quickly.
You excel when given a free hand, but perform average at best when forced into a box.

When you have something to do, and the freedom to do it your way, you tend to excel, because it draws forth your energy as you create a solution. When you have something to do and have a prescribed way that you must do it, especially if you see a way that seems better, you resent it, and do not give it your energy.
You are frustrated by working with people who must follow step by step plans.

Sometimes life works better when you follow Nike’s advice and Just Do It. Some people, however, can’t operate that way… they need step by step guidance for everything. Of course, sometimes their way works out best, too.

There are, of course, degrees of alignment with either nature. Some people are extremely chaotic, while some are just mildly chaotic, and the same goes, of course, for those of a more orderly persuasion. The degree to which the points listed above apply reflects that level of alignment.

If you don’t recognize yourself in the points above, you almost certainly can name someone who does fit them right off the top of your head. While everyone leans one way or the other in their nature, the ones who lean the farthest tend to be more memorable.

That’s the first half… knowing that you are chaotic. The second half is knowing how to use your strengths to cover your weaknesses. Here comes your second list:

Find something you can do with passion to keep you going after the initial investment.

As mentioned above, when you create something, it’s easy for you to invest a lot of energy into it. When it changes from creation to maintenance, though, it becomes much harder to invest your energy. The counter to this is finding something that you are passionate about, so that your passion can keep you going between your bouts of creation.
Create smaller, short-term plans so that you can accomplish them before you run out of energy.

One of the best ways to keep going when you have a chaotic nature is to keep things in the creation mode as much as you can by creating short-term plans more than long-range ones. Create a plan for what to do today, rather than what to do for the month.
If you must create long-term goals, then break them down as soon as you can and forget about the long-term goal except for when you accomplish the shorter goals and need to see what the next short-term goal is.
Learn to shift exactly how big the big picture is.

Because we tend to see things in terms of the big picture, little details can become frustrating all out of proportion. One solution for this is to shift how big the big picture is… if you’re building a house, and the detail is an electrical problem, shift the big picture down to the electrical system of the house. This will make the detail not seem like it’s so disproportionately small, and can also make it feel like it’s the last detail, which can relieve a lot of the stress.
Create systems to help you with things where you know your nature is hurting you.

This is one area where I can definitely do better… the most obvious example for me is networking (and not in the computer sense). It is not natural to me to build and maintain network connections, but it’s clear that they make it far easier to succeed in whatever it is that you do. It is natural, however, for me to take a problem and build a system to solve it. I just need to apply that here. The same goes for other things where your nature works against you, like if you are absent-minded and forget what needs to get done, or what was highest priority… create a system to solve the problems your nature causes.
Find partners (whether in business or personal) who are more orderly than you, but understand your nature.

This is a big one, but has a catch, too… you need someone more orderly than you, but if you are at the extreme of chaos, you don’t want someone from the extreme of order. You’ll end up having so much trouble seeing things from each other’s view that you’ll have serious problems communicating properly and working together.
Someone who is a little more orderly than you, though, can be a great complement, with their strengths supporting you where you are weak, and vice versa. This is how it is with my wife and I, and it works out amazingly well for us.

Understanding who you are, what your nature is, and how to use that is an almost overwhelming advantage, as the vast majority of people never learn. If you can understand the nature of others and therefore how to best let them use their own nature, you’ll can, and almost certainly will, find success in both business and personal life.

Next article… signs and tips for the more orderly among us.

Author

December 29th

Awareness, Energy

Knowing Your Nature Is The Key To Happiness

Everyone in life has a nature that tends toward either chaos or order… knowing which one is your nature is essential to happiness and success.

What do the terms chaos and order mean in regards to your life? They are opposite ends of the same spectrum, just as they are in other things.

Order is a force of preservation, of structuring… order is all about maintaining what already exists, about keeping the status quo. Its impact is easily recognized in things like planning and scheduling.

Chaos is a force of both creation and destruction. Often the creation actually comes from the destruction… something gets taken apart, and the pieces get put back together in a new way to create something that didn’t exist before. Its impact is usually most easily detected in things associated with creativity… art, design, writing, etc.

Both of these forces are present in everyone’s life, and both are important in everyone’s life, as well. The key is to finding the balance between them in your life.

If you are like most people, your first thought about balancing order and chaos in your life is wrong.

Unless you’re a very unusual person, you can’t balance chaos and order by having equal amounts of both. That’s because your fulcrum, your center of balance, is highly unlikely to be in the center. Instead, you will, by your very nature, have more affinity for one side than the other.

If you are the kind of person who gets nervous at the first sign that something unexpected is happening, your nature is pretty far to the side of order. That means that you need considerably more order than chaos in your life to find balance.

If you are the kind of person who never plans unless they have to, who does nearly everything on a wing and a prayer, then your quite chaotic. Balance for you requires keeping the order to a quiet murmur.

It really isn’t hard to figure out which side you lean toward. If, when looking at a task, you see all of the pieces and then assemble them into the whole (like following a recipe when cooking), your nature is orderly. If, when looking at the same task, you naturally look at the whole and see where the pieces fit, your nature is chaotic.

Where you, personally, fall can be anywhere from nearly at one of the poles (pure chaos or pure order), to somewhere very near the center. As with most things that involve people, though, it tends to be somewhat of a bell curve, meaning that the farther toward the edges you get, the fewer people you find, though in my experience, the center of that curve, where you find the most people, tends to be more on the side of order than chaos.

Anyone who actually knows me can tell you which source my energy tends to come from… I am definitely chaotic. I love to dig in, tear things apart, and build new things… but I don’t like doing the detail work.

My writing and my programming both reflect this… I jump in, build the structure, the skeleton, and make it work, and I generally do this very rapidly. Then I have to go back and fix or add all of the little details I missed. I love the first part… it definitely is my passion. I can do the detailed part, but I mostly do it without the passion, meaning that someone who is passionate about the details could likely do it better than I.

There is nothing better or worse about either way, any more than there is between brown and blue eyes. You may very well have a preference for one or the other, but neither is actually objectively better.

That being said, the there are things in life that align better with one side or the other, one of the most important being your work. Artists, for example, tend to see the things they are creating first, then shape the pieces to fit, whether those pieces be brush strokes, stone, or words. Managers and money people, on the other hand, tend to see the pieces and try to assemble them into a whole. Nearly every type of work, however, has some sort of role for those of the opposite nature… technical writers, for instance, are usually very orderly, while sales managers may tend to be chaotic (at least, if promoted from within the sales department).

True happiness is nearly impossible to find when you try to force yourself into roles and paths that originate, or mostly stay, on the other side. It is like the mental equivalent of wearing clothes that are too small for you… you can do it, but it is uncomfortable short term and can cause serious damage long term.

Take me, for example… In my last job, I was moved from a role that consisted mostly of creation to a role that was mostly organizing. I went from enjoying my job, and being very good at it, to intense dislike of my job and overwhelming stress, and doing average at best. In the beginning I was following my nature, and after the change I was fighting it. The move, even though it came with a higher title and more money, was a poor one on my part.

Happiness, and success, in life nearly always comes from following your heart, your passions… and your passions will always reflect your nature, be it chaos or order. When you follow your passion, you do things with your whole heart, your whole mind, and that is how great things come to be.

Your passion doesn’t have to be something the world admires, it just has to be yours.

Find your nature, find your passion, and find a way to follow it.

Follow-up article: 7 Signs You Are A Creative Destruction Kind Of Person And How To Excel If You Are

Author

December 28th

Awareness, Energy

Want To Beat Depression, Emptiness, And Feeling Overwhelmed? Watch A Child

Want To Beat Depression, Emptiness, And Feeling Overwhelmed? Watch A Child A huge number of adults feel overwhelmed or depressed on a regular basis. It can be from any of a huge number of sources, although any of those sources can be tied to one of the three areas of your life that I talked about in my last article.

Have you ever seen a young child depressed or overwhelmed? Even if you have, at one point or another, have you ever seen them stay that way for long?

Many adults (maybe even you) would respond that young children are not under the same stress as adults. While this is true, there is another secret that we know when we are young, and tend to forget as we grow older.

What is that secret? It’s simple, though not always easy… if you want to defeat feelings of depression or being overwhelmed, simply decide to do something and do it.

It doesn’t really matter what it is that you do, as long as it is a conscious choice to do it, though it generally works better if it takes more than just a couple of minutes. You can choose to go fishing, build something, or even make a nice dinner. It works even better, of course, if your action helps to work toward clearing up whatever had you feeling depressed or overwhelmed in the first place.

Children do this instinctively… watch a 3 or 4 year old, and see how often they sit still, not doing much. They will do so to watch TV sometimes, or play video games, but watch them after they do this… they will be grumpier and misbehave more often. It’s not because of what they watched or played. It’s because they ceased to be active, and became passive instead.

Passive activities drain your energy… they suck away your positive feelings and leave you feeling empty. Passive activities are, by nature, activities that take your time and your energy without a return: your energy still goes into the activity, but you get nothing back.

Active activities take your time and energy, also, but that energy is returned to you by the results of your activity. It may be returned when you eat the fish you catch, or when you see your home clean, or when you see your body change shape (if your active action happens to be physical). It may even be returned by looking at what you created, if you choose some type of creative activity (I personally happen to like woodworking… I’d like music and art, too, if I had any talent in those areas).

A lot of adults are passive most of the time. They let their energy drain away into nothingness, with nothing to show for it. This can usually be traced back to a specific event, something that they didn’t want to deal with. They then sought passive ways to “escape” from that event, which started the process of bleeding away their energy and positive emotions.

Once that drain starts, it makes it harder and harder to stop being passive, as you have less and less energy to use actively. That leads to being even more passive, and even more drain, until sometimes it adds up to the point that you feel like you have no energy left, like you are empty and dying inside. Life feels overwhelming because you have so little energy to grab it and take what you want and need from it.

If you want to beat those horrible feelings (I know how bad they are… I’ve been to the bottom of that barrel), you have to put a STOP to those passive activities that are draining your energy. You have to turn off the computer, turn off the TV, get out of bed, and do something.

The easiest way to start is to take a shower and get cleaned up. Even that is a start on becoming active. Once you are cleaned up, get out of the house (or apartment, or wherever it is that you live)… it doesn’t really matter too much where you go, although some place that you enjoy is an easy choice when you’re just getting started. Once you’ve gotten started on this, try inviting someone else to do something with you… it can be a friend, a family member, significant other, or complete stranger. Activities that involve more than one person get more result for less energy spent.

This can be a fragile time, right at the beginning. It can be very easy to fall back into the passive activities that you were just doing, so the best thing to do is to keep away from them as much as possible. Any time that you’re not at work (where your job may require it), stay away from the computer, the TV, and the video games (unless you have someone over who is doing it with you, and even then don’t do it for long).

The more you stay away from your old passive activities, and the more you continue in your new active activities, the easier it becomes, and the more “full” your life will generally seem to become. This will bring about positive results not only for you, but for everyone around you. Your relationships are almost certain to improve (providing, of course, that you don’t neglect them in your pursuit of one of your new activities), your self-esteem and self-respect will improve, and you will generally be more pleasant to be around. You are also likely to do better at work, and even like your job better. Depending on the activities that you choose, you may even find another means of income or a new job.

You can get started on this today. You only have two ways to spend your time and energy: actively and passively. If you choose to stop your passive activities, you will find that you HAVE to choose active ones to replace them.

Let your “inner child” out… let them out to do and to play (which is active, of course). Do things that you enjoy, and find others who enjoy those things too. You will soon find that the emptiness that seemed to fill you is, itself, being filled.

Author

January 13th

Energy

What You’ve Been Taught About Home/Work Life Balance Is Probably Wrong

What You've Been Taught About Home/Work Life Balance Is Probably Wrong You’ve heard before about the need to balance your home and work life. This is generally said to tell someone that they are working too much.

Balancing your life is great… without balancing it, eventually something will slide too far and you will generally end up feeling miserable, whether because of loneliness, financial stress, or something else (it depends on what you let slide).

The problem is that there are not two aspects, there are three… and each one has a different “weight” for different people, meaning that how much of one you need varies.

What You Are Balancing

The three aspects of your life that are required to remain in balance for you to have a truly happy, fulfilling life are: work, social (family and friends), and personal (you). Each of these areas has both a positive and a negative side. The positive side adds to the overall positive energy and feelings in your life, while the negative side drains from the same.

The fact that each aspect contributes to (or detracts from) the whole of your life means that any one of them being too far into the negative can damage the others, too. Think about it this way: If your work life is negative enough, it is going to be harder and harder to overcome that to have truly good time with your family and friends, which makes it even harder to have the good time for yourself.

The Details Of The Aspects

Work
The positive side of the work aspect of your life is the feeling of doing something useful, of accomplishing something and being a necessary part of the “team”. Along with this is the need to be appreciated… even if you feel like you are useful, or even critical, if you do not feel appreciated, it will overall be negative (in the long run).

The negative side of work is feeling like you are not important, or that you are not appreciated… that your work is not valued. There is also negative available when you are TOO necessary, although that is also linked to the appreciation factor… if your work was properly appreciated, you would get the support you need to be able to do what you do and still be able to step away (to your social or personal aspects).
Social
The positive side of your social life is the feeling that there are people with whom you can relax and be yourself. You do not have to keep up a front, and you can let most of your walls down. These are people who you can call on for help without needing to specifically do something to pay for it. Spending time on this aspect of your life helps to let you mentally recover from any drain work may have placed on you.The negative side of your social life is when the balance of helping each other gets tipped too far one way or the other, although the most noticeable, of course, is when it gets tipped in the direction of others. This can be when you have people in your friends or family who are always taking from you, whether mentally or materially, but it can also be when you are always taking and not giving back… either one eventually makes for a drain from the social aspect of your life, instead of a positive contribution.
Personal
The positive side of the personal aspect of your life is feeling the satisfaction of doing what you want to do, the feeling of having time when you do not have to worry about taking care of anyone but yourself. Positive personal time is time spent on something you enjoy, with no deadlines. This time is absolutely critical to an overall positive balance in your life.The negative side of your personal aspect comes from having time to yourself, but not doing anything productive with it. The definition of productive here is different than what you might think, however… it can be productive to simply sit and do nothing, as long as you are actively choosing to do that. Non-productive time is when you just default to doing something (time spent on the computer can go this way rather easily, as can time in front of the TV) rather than actively choosing to do something.

The most commonly neglected aspect is the personal. It can be easy for a person with a giving nature to concentrate on work, then after that take care of social, and never really get around to personal. I am personally guilty of doing just that… I often forget the importance of actively taking time to do something for myself. Even when I have time, I often simply default to doing something… this is something I intend to change.

So… do you want to make your life better overall? If so, sit down and take the time to examine all three aspects of your life, and see where you are getting a positive contribution and where you have a negative drain. Once you have determined where the drain is coming from, take a look at that area and see if you can specifically find out why there is a drain and work on fixing that thing.

Let me know (in the comments) if there is something in particular that you have a problem with, or something that you have overcome, or if you have anything else interesting to say!

Author

January 2nd

Energy

Achieving Your Goals – Negative Motivation VS Positive Motivation

When it comes to motivation, it can be broken down into two categories: negative motivation and positive motivation. Negative motivation is "push" motivation… you are trying to push something you don't like away from you. Positive motivation is "pull" motivation… you are trying to bring something that you DO want closer to you.

Each has an area where, generally speaking, it is more effective. Negative motivation is good for getting you started, for getting that initial movement that is often the hardest part to achieve. It does not, on the other hand, last all that well. Positive motivation is just the ticket for that… positive motivation can be a lifelong thing, but in general is not as great for getting the first sparks together to "light your fire".

Negative Motivation

Negative motivation is very good for getting you moving. It provides a sharp stimulus that is congruent with out instincts… that thing is unpleasant, get away from it. Our instincts don't make a distinction, in this case, between physical unpleasantness and mental unpleasantness… either way, our instinct is just to get away.

This can work very well… if your doctor tells you that you have cancer, and that unless you do what they say you are going to die, that provides some really strong motivation to change your ways and do what they say. The motivation is sharp, strong, and focused… do what you need to (what the doctor tells you) in order to avoid something unpleasant (dying of cancer). Since motivation is linked to action by way of a cost/benefit ratio, you can see that the cost (doing what the doctor tells you) is very low in comparison to the benefit (not dying).

Negative motivation has a very definite weakness, however. It can be quite strong, enough to get you moving when other things wouldn't, but what happens when you take the negative stimulus away? The motivation dries up almost instantly.

In other words, once you feel like you are safe from whatever the unpleasantness was, there is no more motivation from that source, though you may keep up whatever changes you have made out of habit.

Positive Motivation

Positive motivation is generally not quite as good at getting you moving. The natural instinct to avoid unpleasantness is not triggered, thus leaving you without the added boost that brings. Even if there is something you really, REALLY want, unless the path from here to there is pretty obvious, there may be some doubt, some fear, about your ability to achieve that thing, making it harder to get started.

On the other hand, positive motivation doesn't necessarily have a defined end, either. If you lose weight because your doctor tells you that you have to or suffer some really unpleasant problems, then once you lose enough weight, that motivation goes away. If you lose weight because you want to feel more fit and healthy, however, that motivation doesn't really go away. You're still going to want to feel fit and healthy, even after you've achieved your original goals.

Positive motivation gets stronger as you go along. Seeing progress toward your goal, whatever it may be, reinforces your positive motivation at the same time that it weakens your negative motivation… after all, you're getting closer to your thing you want (positive, or "pull" motivation) and farther from the thing you want to avoid (negative, or "push" motivation). Positive motivation can also help you conserve momentum when moving to a new goal after completing your current one.

Summary

The trick of motivating yourself is to know how to combine the two, and which to use when. Negative motivation is good for getting started, which is why many people who speak about reaching your goals will tell you to share your goals and time frames with someone else. This induces the negative motivation of not wanting to look bad in front of that person. That can range from a medium to a very strong negative motivation. At the same time, however, it makes you start framing the way you look at your goal in terms of that negative light. This can lead to you looking for ways to avoid both working on the goal and the person with whom you shared that goal.

That's where positive motivation comes into play. Once negative motivation gets you moving, you can start to see your progress toward your goal, which helps to strengthen your positivel motivation into a force that can support further progress. As you make more progress, and the end point (your goal) becomes clearer, positive motivation becomes even stronger, getting to the point where it can really drive you to the next goal once the current one is achieved… as long as you don't slow down too much. Once you slow down, you may need the kick from negative motivation once again.

So… that's a really simple look at the differences between negative motivation and positive motivation. Do you find that you use one more than the other? Will you change how you attempt to reach new goals after thinking about the difference? Let me know in the comments.

Author

October 10th

Energy, Feed Your Mind, Goals, Motivation, Perseverance, Planning, Polarity

A Simple Way To Easily Keep Your Focus All Day Long

We all have a natural tendency to start losing our focus as the day drags on, especially when we're working on something other than what we really want to be doing. It becomes harder and harder to pay attention to what you're doing… your mind starts to wander and pretty soon you're working at a fraction of your peak efficiency. Sometimes you may even become annoyed at yourself for it, but that doesn't really help, it just makes it even harder to focus.

There is, however, a fairly simple way to keep your focus all day long, and it doesn't even take much time. And, as a bonus, not only will it help you to keep your focus, but it will also help you to train your subconscious in what is important to you, and thus which choices and opportunities to bring to your attention.

And now onto the meat of article, how to keep your focus all day long:

Preparation

The first thing you'll need to do for this to be the most effective is a list of specific things in your life that you want to improve. The easiest way to get such a list is to sit down with pen and paper (or electronic equivalent) and write down whatever comes to mind as something you would like to improve. Anything that is really general, like "I want to be more successful", refine down to one or more specifics, such as "I want my income to increase".

Now take that list and narrow it down to something like 4-6 items that are the most important to you. Take those items you have left and put them into a positive and current sentence. As an example, if you chose from above the specific of "I want my income to increase", you could take that and turn it into "My cash flow is increasing." That's positive, as opposed to something like "I'm not going to smoke", and current, rather than future like "I will make more money".

So… that's the one time preparation, although you can, of course, revisit the list at any time if you find that one of the things on it is no longer of as much importance (or if you simply find something of more importance). There is also daily preparation, done each night just before bed. Each night, just before bed, make a short list of things you need to do the next day. This shouldn't be more than few of the most important things, not a comprehensive list of everything you have on your plate.

Now, onto the next phase…

Execution

First thing in the morning, soon after you wake up, take five minutes of quiet time for yourself. Start this quiet time with deep breathing, concentrating on feeling your breath slide in and out. After you feel your body relax and your mind achieve quiet (which should only be a couple minutes if you do this regularly) repeat to yourself the phrases from your list… "My cash flow is increasing.", etc. Focus on each one for just a moment, then move to the next. After you have finished that list, quickly review your to do list from the night before and decide the order in which you are going to do those things. Now you're ready to go start your day knowing what you need to do and where you want to go… and your focus should be sharp.

You should repeat this process every two or three hours throughout the day. It should only take a few minutes each time, and the time it takes is likely to go down as you get used to doing it. It gives your mind a chance to clear out all the debris that working builds up, refocuses you on what you want to improve in your life, and offers a chance to review what is left on your to do list, letting you see your progress and keeping you from straying off too far with distractions.

Each of those three things is important, but the thing that helps the most is clearing out the mental debris. This builds up constantly during the day and most people only clear it out at night when they go to sleep. If you keep it cleared throughout the day, however, it's not there impeding your ability to focus, and also lets you get to the good sleep faster, since there is little built-up debris to clear first.

And that brings us to the final phase…

Review

First thing in the morning is the most important part of the execution phase, because it sets the tone for the day. There's another very important part of the whole process, though, and that comes at the end of the day, just before bed. This is the time when, after doing your deep breathing and review of the areas where you want to improve, you review your to do list to see which things on the list were accomplished. This can be a good way to feel like you got something productive done that day.

After you review your list for the day, take the time to make a new one for the next day. You can include anything that wasn't completed from the day just past, as well as anything new. Take a moment to picture yourself the next night with your new list accomplished, and then put it away until the next morning.

It's also a good idea to mentally set a time that you intend to wake up in the morning, and use another phrase, something along the lines of "My sleep is restorative and refreshing. I awaken each morning focused and alert." This combination, setting a specific time and essentially telling yourself that you are going to sleep well, can help you to actually sleep well and awaken in the morning feeling refreshed and mentally clear.

Summary

This process generally takes no more than 30-40 minutes of your day, in 5 minute chunks, and will more than compensate for that time by keeping you focused and operating near to your peak efficiency. It also helps you to keep an eye on what areas of your life you want to improve, teaching your subconscious to bring situations and opportunities involving those areas to your conscious attention. If that isn't enough to talk you into trying it out, remember that it also helps you to focus on getting the most important things done each day, with reminders throughout the day of what you wanted to accomplish.

All of that works out to help you easily keep your focus all day long. It also helps you to reduce your stress, frustration, and feelings of not getting anywhere, bringing more peace into your life. It can even help improve your relationships, as that can easily be on both your "areas to improve" list AND your "to do" list.

If you have any suggestions for ways to improve this process, or other things that you can add to it, please leave them in the comments.

8 Ways To Put Procrastination Off Until Tomorrow

Author

October 4th

Awareness, Body/Mind Relationship, Energy, Feed Your Mind, Internal Quiet, Planning, Priorities, Subconscious

A Foolproof Way To Not Care What Others Think

There is a really simple, foolproof way to not care what others think. It's not difficult, it doesn't take long, and everyone is capable of doing it. It only takes one sentence to tell you this amazing secret.

I'm going to go about this all wrong and give you the answer right up front, and hope that you stick around afterwards for the explanation. It'll be worth it, I promise.

The foolproof way to not care what others think: Give up telepathy (mind reading for those of you who don't know).

"Give up mind reading?" you might say. "What does that mean?"

Here's what it means: You can't possibly know what other people think, unless you can read minds. So you can't worry about what people think… you can only worry about what you think they think.

Even if someone were to tell you what they think, they might very well be deceiving you. After all, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, right? People are taught from a very early age to misrepresent certain feelings in the name of politeness. This isn't necessarily a bad thing… if no one were polite, it's likely there would be a lot more violence in this world.

On the other hand, it makes it even less likely that you will ever know what someone is thinking. When you worry about what other people think, you're not REALLY worrying about what they think, you are worrying about what you think they think. You are worry about the shadow of a shadow… their thoughts as a shadow of their feelings and actions, and your thoughts of what they think as a shadow of the real thing.

Then there's the fact that you can't really control what other people think, even if you could actually know it. In spite of your best efforts, others can, and will, misinterpret your words and actions, and think things other than what you want about you. Ever said something completely innocent like "Nice weather" and had someone decide that it meant something far more, like you were bored and didn't want to be with them, etc.? I have… and it just brings home the fact that people will think what they want, adding or subtracting meaning from whatever you say and do.

So now you can't control their thoughts, and at best can make a semi-educated guess at what they (the thoughts) are anyway (that smile might be for the person they just left, not for you… or the anger could be at something that happened in their childhood, not what you just did), so you're spending your time and mental energy on something you can't know or control. You're giving it importance in your life by giving it your attention… attention that you could probably find a better place to spend, something that will actually bring you benefit.

There's no magical way to not care what you think other people think, but maybe now that you think about it, and realize that you don't really care what others think, but about what you think they think, and that what they DO think isn't even necessarily a reflection of what you say or do, then maybe it will help you to realize it's sily and give it up.

Author

October 2nd

Awareness, Communication, Energy, Feed Your Mind

Discard Your Life And Find The Real You

What is the real you? What is it that makes up the true you, what belongs to you and only you? What do you get when you see past the surface, past the anger and fear, "love" and betrayal, hurt, pain, and even agony? The real you… the deep you, the you that is beyond what the surface you can even imagine.

When you are born, you have no concept of your "self". As you grow older, you build up a structure, a belief system, a framework of lenses and mental maps through which you see the world. You are told, and you believe, that this framework is you. The framework gets covered with experiences and emotions, and even the spaces between the beams of the support structure get filled up eventually. You go on about your life with the belief that this giant amalgamation is you.

Everyone else around you believes this, too. Only what they think of as you isn't even the structure you have built up… it's only the surface of that structure, a surface that changes constantly as new experiences, new emotions, and new everything else piles up, sometimes stripping off pieces of the old coverings, but more often simply piling over them, making them part of the inside, and making that structure ever harder to discard.

As you go about, identifying more and more with this framework that you've built, some of it intentional construction, most of it not, you build walls, walling off this portion from that portion. You do this to protect yourself, to keep yourself from getting hurt, but that's not what they do, it's only what you fool yourself into believing they do. Because those walls don't keep things out, they keep things in.

That's right… you're building yourself a prison. A prison inside a structure that is built of the giant ball of stuff that you call your life. And you not only build this prison, you voluntarily stick yourself inside of it, trapping yourself in with all the pain and injuries that you have suffered over the years. And to top it off, the prison that you build, and trap yourself inside, can't ever even fulfill the purpose for which you supposedly built it… it can't even keep out new pain!

That's right… you build up this structure of falsehoods, lies told to yourself, walling yourself in to keep out the pain, and it doesn't even work. The walls only function in one direction… they hold things in. They hold you in… they limit you to far, far below your true abilities. They keep the pain that you have experienced close to you, so that it can continually injure you and prevent you from healing. What do you do when the pain builds, when it gets harder and harder to deal with? You build more walls, and build the walls you have higher!

The walls that you build for yourself are a prison… but they're also an illusion. They are part of the framework that you have built up, an integral part as a matter of fact. But here's the thing: that framework isn't you.

That's right, all those lenses and perceptions and mental maps, all those experiences and emotions, those hatreds and angers and fears… they aren't you. They're a tiny little pimple that you've built up on the surface of the real you. All that stuff that you're trying to protect, the part that hurts, the part that knows pain and fear and suffering… that is only the very smallest fraction of you. It's like looking at a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, and calling that the ocean.

The real you is vast. It is deep, and strong, and powerful. It cannot be hurt by the vagaries of this life, because it is only the tiniest fraction of it that is involved with this life. Your physical presence, and the structure that you have built up, are merely the tiny portion of it paying attention to what you perceive as your whole life. And when you identify yourself as that tiny portion, you are giving up the vastness of the real you, like identifying yourself as your pinky.

Your walls you have created are illusions, but they are self-maintained illusions, given the power that you are drawing through your connection to the real you. Want evidence that what I'm saying is right? It's very easy to obtain… all you have to do is let down one, just one, of your walls. You will immediately feel closer to that vastness that is the real you. And with each wall that you release, you will find yourself closer to that reality.

When you get close, you may be scared by the openness, the sheer open expanse that you feel drawing nearer. After all, for all of your life that you can remember, you have lived inside your walls. You may never have even had a moment's clarity, an opening of the mind's eye to see the vastness around you. If you HAVE had one of those moments, you may be even more scared, because you have an inkling of what it's like.

It's not an empty vastness, though… you aren't alone. In fact, when you reach that vastness, you'll find that you are connected to everyone and everything else, with a deepness of connection that the very word connection doesn't seem strong enough to convey the reality of what you feel. You are a part of everything, and everything is a part of you.

It's sometimes hard to keep this connection to the real you… it's easy to forget and focus back on the surface structure, identifying with that structure that you've built up. Once you've let the feeling go long enough, in fact, it's hard to remember what it was like… until something triggers it again, and then it all comes rushing back.

There is an old movie called Dune. They made a newer version of it, too, but I'm talking about the original. In it, there is a phrase that is repeated a few times: "The sleeper must awaken." I have always identified with this phrase… I've always felt like it meant something to me, something more. I've felt like there was something bigger slumbering inside me.

Lately, as I have read, and learned, and written, and looked inside of me, my awareness has gradually expanded, and the phrase has changed, in my mind, to "The sleeper is awakening." I felt that bigger thing inside of me stirring from its slumber, starting to uncoil.

Tonight, as I was talking to my wife to help her relax, something clicked. Sometimes the greatest words of wisdom come when the conscious mind gets the hell out of the way and lets things flow from far deeper inside. Suddenly, that thing that had slowly been awakening came aware. The sleeper has awoken.

This connection, this deeper you, is your connection to God, to the awareness that created, and contains, and in a way is, the universe. But it is being "consciously" (too small a term, I think) aware of that connection, not in some sort of vague "God created the Heavens and the Earth" kind of way. It is an intimate and strong connection, a direct connection. It is deep, wordless communication flowing back and forth, much of which, to this point at least, seems to be more of an "I am here" message and an "I know" response flowing from each direction.

This vastness is inside each of us… in fact, it IS each of us. We are not the limited lives reflected in the world we live in, we are not even the conscious part of our minds… we are far more than that. But in order to find our true selves, we must first give up the structure that have built up, that we have defined as "us"… and that's probably the hardest thing in the world to do. That last wall, the one that separates us from our true selves, the one that is the foundation of support for our whole framework of our lives, is really, really hard to let go. It is giving up the "you" that you have always known, for a great unknown.

Do not be afraid. The whole world will change before your eyes, leaving nothing unaltered. Once you let go of that last wall, and the fear, there will be no doubt, however.

It's worth it.

Author

September 28th

Awareness, Beliefs, Body/Mind Relationship, Communication, Conscience, Energy, Expectations, Fear, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Growth, Healing, Internal Quiet, Learning, Motivation, Patterns, Relationships

The Truth Behind Falling – And Being – In Love

Holding Hands

There is nothing like falling in love. Your whole self, body, heart, and mind, yearns for the person you are in love with. You want to be with them all the time, you wonder what they're doing or what they're thinking when you are not around them, and the whole world just seems like a better place. There's only one problem.

You can't, and won't, be falling in love forever. At some point, if you want to keep the relationship, you have to go from falling in love to being in love. If you're already at that point, you might want to read The Secret Killer Of Relationships or The Very SImple Secret To A Happy Marriage.

Falling In Love

Falling in love is the beginning (and can sometimes re-occur later, but I'll get to that)… it's that place where the other person, your significant other, can do no wrong. Everything about them is beautiful, fascinating, and you can't get enough of them. Any time your focus is not fully on something specific, your thoughts drift to the newly significant other in your life.

At this point, everything is new… every day together brings new revelations, new learning, which make you feel like you're getting more and more "inside" the other person. You let each other in deeper than the surface, and there is always a constant feeling of growing closer, an observable closing of the mental and emotional distance between the two of you.

That is a huge part of the greatness of falling in love… getting closer at a visible rate. It's also part of why it can't last forever. Eventually you are close enough that even as you grow closer, it's not as visible, and so it feels like you have stalled, or even like you are growing apart. When you are (bad, but understandable, analogy coming up) a mile apart, and you get 10% closer, that's a huge distance. When you are a foot apart, and you get 10% closer… that's a lot harder to see.

So does this mean that you have reached that point where you love each other, but you are no longer "in" love?

No… when you are growing closer at a very visible rate, that's the "falling" part of falling in love. When you are already close, and moving closer by inches (or even fractions of an inch, eventually), that's when it changes to being in love. It doesn't mean you're no longer in love, it just means that seeing results of your efforts, where you see the relationship grow, is not as easy, and so you need to find other sources of motivation as well.

Being In Love

Being in love is where it starts taking conscious involvement to keep the "in love" part without the falling. Now, instead of falling in love, you need to start being in love. You will have to go out of your way to keep yourself in your partner's thoughts (and make sure that they stay in yours!). If you don't go out of your way, it won't mean anything.

What does it mean to "go out of your way"? Going out of your way can mean different things to different people, but the important thing is that you are devoting the two things that you can't possibly acquire more of to them. What two things? Time and attention… you can't get more time and you have only a limited amount of attention to invest during the time you do have. Giving time and attention, therefore, is the universally recognized way to convey someone's (or something's) importance to you.

When you are falling in love, and everything is new, it's easy to devote an enormous amount of attention (and with it time) to your significant other. New things always have a draw on our attention… it's part of being human, and part of our survival instinct (you have to determine whether or not something new is a threat, after all). That's why it's also easier to stick with a new diet, or a new workout, or why you may find you love a new dish or a new restaurant. Once something (or in our case, someone) become familiar, however, it requires a conscious decision to dedicate mental energy (attention) to that thing (or, as I said, person).

When you combine that advantage of newness drawing our attention with the visibly growing closeness of the relationship, it makes giving more attention to the relationship a no-brainer. It doesn't require much in the way of conscious effort, because not only is your subconscious driving you to make sure this "new" thing is not a threat, but the rewards are blindingly obvious.

Once you get to the point of obviously diminishing returns, however, you start to notice that the same amount of effort doesn't move you the same amount closer. At the same time, the subconscious drive to categorize anything new as "threat" or "non-threat" fades away, leaving you with much less "drive" to devote attention to the relationship. Other things start to claim your attention, drawing it away from your significant other.

I mentioned earlier that your partner needs you to give two things in order to keep being in love, as opposed to just loving each other (the difference between soul mates and good friends). One was time, the other attention. Out of the two of these, time is the easiest to give, attention the most important.

Attention Is Money

Despite the phrase above, attention is far more important than money. Attention is the currency by which you show how much you value something. You've heard the saying "time is money" but time without attention means nothing. Whatever it is that you do, it's highly unlikely that they truly pay you for your time… they really pay for your attention across time. They pay you to write, to watch a security monitor, to serve burgers… whatever it is, they may pay you for the hours you do it, but if you don't "do it", whatever it is, you don't get paid.

This applies to relationships, too. Giving time without attention is sort of like leaving a seventeen cent tip at a restaurant… it lets the other person know that you didn't forget, you just didn't think they were worthy of more. It's insulting, whether done consciously, as with the tip, or subconsciously, as with spending time with your significant other without giving them your full attention.

When you give someone time, without attention, you are telling them that they are low on your priority list. It doesn't matter whether you intend for them to be or not… you are showing them, with your actions, that they are. You can show someone that they have your attention in many ways… communication is an extremely important one, but there is also buying them something (probably the least effective way), making them something (the more it reflects the fact that it is something YOU created, the better), or doing something with them (ie going out to dinner and/or a movie).

All of the ways listed above can show your attention, but if you don't show your mental involvement, show that you were thinking of them specifically, the value drops. For instance, when you buy something for your significant other, if you don't take the time to buy something that they specifically like (for instance buying roses when your wife prefers tulips), it loses some of its value… that doesn't mean it has no value, just less. The same goes for making them something… if you don't show that you were thinking about them when you made it, it loses some value. If you do something with them, and keep taking phone calls, it takes away some of the value.

Communication is a special case. By the very act of communicating, you are giving them some fraction of your attention. Different forms of communication show different amounts of attention, and also show how much of your attention the other person has to different degrees. Email, for instance, doesn't require much attention, or show how much attention the other person has, unless it's a long and involved email, which could STILL have been written across time, and thus be less of your attention. Instant messaging, on the other hand, still doesn't require a lot of attention, but shows how much of your attention the other person has a little better, because they can see how long you take to respond. Voice communication (ie a phone call) is better yet, as it requires more attention, and they can hear in your voice how much of your attention they have. An in-person meeting provides them with the most attention, and lets them read your body language as well to determine how much of your current attention they have.

The Difference

What it boils down to, then, is that the difference between falling in love and being in love is that you can't fall forever. Eventually you have to move from falling in love to being in love, from the easy part to the part which requires your conscious effort. It IS worth that effort, though… being in love still moves you closer, and still builds your relationship and love higher. It just exchanges speed for depth… it goes back and fills in all the little chinks that falling in love passed over.

You can also fall in love all over again. This usually happens when you let your partner slide from your attention for too long, and then something wakes you up to that fact. All of a sudden what was old and familiar is new and different. You close the gap that opened up between you, and now have that momentum to keep you going once you move back to being in love once again.

Again, falling in love is absolutely wonderful. It is an amazing experience, and one you will likely always remember. Being in love, though, has depth and duration that falling in love is not capable of producing.

Falling in love gets you to the starting line. Being in love is the rest of the race. And when you win at being in love, you win big.