Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Marcus Aurelius
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How to Use this Book

Why?

The essence of life is change. Change is the only constant. It seems

surprising that we tend to resist change, but I believe that we should
embrace it. It is going to happen to us in one form or another, so why not
take control of it and proactively shape ourselves? We are always moving
either in the direction of growth or the direction of decay. So why not
decide to grow and become better than we are? I do not suggest that we
berate ourselves for not being perfect a healthy self esteem is essential
for proper growth. In fact, the less perfect we are, the more exciting and
interesting the journey, and the more we will be glad when we see how
much we have achieved.

How?

There is only one way to change your life, and reading a book (however
good it is!) will not do it. Only you can do it. A book can help you; it can
give you ideas and support you; it can send you off down new avenues.
But it can only help if you are ready and willing to change.

This book contains thirty short chapters. You can read the whole book from
cover to cover, just as you would a novel, but this isn t the best way to
approach it. The best thing is to read one chapter per day for a month. You
can read the chapters in any order, but the first five days form a sequence
so I suggest you read these first. Don t be tempted to go onto the next
chapter. Read slowly and let the message sink in. You might like to make a
short summary of each chapter as you go. The more interactive you can
make the experience of reading, the better.

I have always subscribed to the dripping tap approach to self-

improvement. Just a little each day and, in a surprisingly short time, you
will have changed a great deal. As Charlie Brown so wisely said, Nothing
seems to change much from day to day, but pretty soon everything s
different. Many drips fill a bucket.

Finally, I came across a notice recently. It seemed to capture the essence

of what self improvement is all about. It simply said, In a year from now,
you may wish that you had started today.
So why not start today? It s the only day you have.
Day One: Who are you?

There is a story I never tire of telling. Or of reading, for that matter. I firs
t
found it quite by accident in a bookshop in Birmingham, England. It was
many years ago and I was browsing through the shelves when I came
across Awareness by Anthony de Mello. The book struck a chord in me
and I loved what I was reading so much that I bought it there and then and
read it from cover to cover sitting in the city center. The first page tells the
story; here it is (paraphrased by me).

An eagle lays an egg but somehow the egg finds its way into a
chicken coup. A chicken incubates the egg with all her others
and when it hatches, she rears the eaglet as if it were one of
her own chicks. It learns to peck the dust for food, to flap its
wings and to strut around the farmyard. One day, an eagle
flies by overhead. The little eagle looks up and sees this, and
says to himself, I wish I were an eagle how majestic, how
free, how beautiful to be like that and have such a life. The
eagle lived like a chicken and died like a chicken, because
that s hat he thought he was.

Eckhart Tolle tells a similar story in The Power of Now. It goes something
like this:

There s a beggar sitting on an old wooden box, and he s been

sitting there for years he sits on it on the street and begs for
money. One day someone walks past and tells the old beggar
that he has nothing to give except a piece of information. The
stranger tells the old man that his wooden box is full of money
and treasure. The old man laughs and soon forgets what the
stranger told him. He dies without ever opening the box.

The American write Henry David Thoreau said most men live lives of quiet
desperation, and the above stories are supposed to shock you into
realizing that you are not what people have brainwashed you into believing
you are. You are more wonderful than anything in the universe, spiritually
whole and abundant by nature. Just as a drop of water contains all the
properties of the ocean, so you contain all the spiritual properties of the
universe, of God. You don t need to live a cowering, servile life, scrimping
and scratching around for a pittance, doing a job you hate, cow-towing to a
boss you dislike.
Before you realize this, you cannot amount to anything. You can try all the
techniques, all the programs, go to seminars and buy self-help books,
meditate and visualize, say affirmations, set goals. These are not bad
things, but without a clear and basic understanding that you are the eagle,
that you have the treasure inside you, you will be building a house on the
sand, and the edifice will fall apart when the wind blows or when the tide
comes in.

You can have a wonderful house, a mansion! You can have it all. But your
foundation needs to be solid. Abraham Lincoln said If I had six hours to
chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe, so
why not spend some time getting to know who you really are?
Day Two: Why are you here?

Henry David Thorea said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation,
and Miguel Torga, the great Portuguese writer, said that life has the
meaning we give it -- our richness, our enthusiasm, our pride -- or our
cowardice.

Once we have seen that we can change our own life and construct our
own experience, we are able to orchestrate things so that we experience
greater meaning. But what gives meaning to our lives? Is it money,
property, a successful career, a big car, an attractive spouse or partner?
I m sure most people would agree that these things in themselves do not
add lasting and profound meaning to us.

Albert Einstein said that only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile, and
I believe that a life of service to others is what truly brings meaning. I prefe
r
to use the term adding value, since this describes what I mean more
accurately.

The term service suggests that we have to give up our jobs and money to
go help the poor and destitute. I know several people who have done just
this, and they have certainly found happiness and peace in their choice of
lifestyle. But a life of adding value does not mean abandoning your own
needs and desires. It is not the same as sacrifice. Far from it when we
truly add value to the lives of others, we cannot help but receive value
ourselves.

Examples of this kind of synergy abound in nature. For example, tree roots
are often surrounded by fungal growths that take nutrients from the trees.
Having no chloroplasts of their own, the fungi cannot synthesize the
precursors of respiration, and so they piggyback on the trees ability to do
this. In return, the tree gets to use the fungi s vast subterranean network,
extending its own reach and sucking in more nutrients from the soil. The
soil, of course, gets this all back and more when the tree dies.

Adding value is the only real way to live a meaningful life. But the question
remains, how can we add value? I believe the answer to this is surprisingly
simple.

In a commencement speech delivered in 2005, Steve Jobs said that your

work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do
great work is to love what you do. If you haven t found it yet, keep looking.
Through Apple, Steve Jobs has undoubtedly added immense value to the
world. He did it by following his heart and has been richly rewarded for it.
The same can be said for many famous, successful and wealthy people.

The formula is simple. Find what you love. Do it. Add vale. Be a success.
Perhaps the first step is the hardest. Do you know what you love? There is
little more important in life than finding out.

Finally, some food for thought. In Making a Life, Making a Living, Mark
Albion cites a study carried out by Srully Blotnick. The careers of 1,500
business school graduates were tracked from 1969 to 1980 and were split
into two groups: group A said they wanted to make money first so they
could do what they really wanted later, and group B said they would follow
their interests first, regardless of financial considerations. At the end of the
study, there were 101 millionaires. All but one came from group B.
Day Three: You are pulling the strings

Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust Victor Frankl tells us in

Man s Search for Meaning that between stimulus and response there is a
gap, and in that gap lies the whole of our experience. Unlike Pavlov s
dogs, we are free to choose our responses to the things that come our
way. Many perhaps most people go through life on autopilot, reacting
in the same habituated ways they have learned over the course of their
life, often rehearsing the scripts they developed as children.

In adult life, many of these scripts are maladaptive and only serve to
impoverish our experience and damage us and those we love. When we
react defensively to a criticism, when we start to get angry because we are
stuck in a traffic jam, when we keep on smoking despite knowing how bad
it is, we are ignoring the gap and abdicating our freedom.

But the truth is that we are free we are not robots, we are not like dogs
salivating when a bell rings. We are pulling our own strings and when the
stimulus comes we can take control, change our response and hence
change our life.

Of course, the power of our habits is strong and keeps pulling us back, but
the gap is always there, even after a long lifetime of unconscious behavior,
and over time we can expand the gap and become more free. In The
Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey calls this being
proactive, the first step towards a life of meaning. In truth, we have always
been in control, but we need to realize this before can move on.
Day four: Everything is created in the mind first
Steven R. Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, tells us
that all things are created twice, once in the mind, and once in the world.
Although this idea that thoughts become things (to use Earl Nightingale s
expression) has been widely disseminated by self-development books and
movies such as The Secret in recent months and years, most people do
this without any conscious awareness of the process. It is happening all
the time, but most of us simply create our experience by default through
reactive and habitual thought patterns that we have picked up from
parents, friends and society at large.
Successful people are conscious of this process and use it more
deliberately, but there is another, vital aspect to our ability to orchestrate
our own experience, and it is this life is all about flow. We need to give
and we need to receive, and Covey tells us that paying attention to the
development of self in the greater perspective of improving one s ability to
serve, to produce, to contribute in meaningful ways will enable us to
create in a sustainable way. To ignore this give and take is to cause
stagnation and decay, like a pool with no outlet stagnates and dies. I am
reminded here of the story of the goose who laid the golden eggs. The
farmer focused too much on the eggs and, in his greed, killed the goose.
We need the eggs (what we create) but we also need to keep the engine
of creation going, and we do this by honoring the fact that all life is about
giving and receiving.
Bringing these two basic truths together that we create twice, and that
we must work with the flow of life brings us to the point where we must
think deeply about what we want and where we are going in life. If we fail
to engage at this point, we will continue to drift along, either experiencing
by default (as most people do) or creating our life in a way which ultimately
leads to stagnation and decay.
Day five: You can only change form the inside

You can have anything. You can do anything. You can be anything. But
you can t do it. At least your conscious, thinking mind can t. You can t do it
through effort and control and work. In truth, The subconscious mind does
everything. It creates your whole world. Through its interaction with the
conscious, thinking mind on one side and the vast universal intelligence
which pervades the universe on the other, it orchestrates our experience of
life. Where we are now is a result of the activity of our subconscious mind.
Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, recounts an
interesting story. We know a case in which a violinist always tried to play
as consciously as possible. From putting his violin in place on his shoulder
to the most trifling technical detail, he wanted to do everything consciously,
to perform in full self-reflection. This led to a complete artistic
breakdown . Treatment had to give back to the patient his trust in the
unconscious, by having him realize how much more musical his
unconscious was than his conscious.
Know who is in control
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that
space is our power to choose our response. In our response
lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor Frankl
First, we must realize that we are in the driving seat. Unlike Pavlov s dogs
or other animals who respond only by instinct, we humans have the power
of choice. The Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust Viktor
Frankl wrote that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and
inside that gap lies all of our experience. When we realize that this gap
exists and that we can use it, we have tremendous power.
Most people have given that power away. They go straight from stimulus to
response without a thought, reacting in the old, habitual way over and over
again. It amazes me that people go through life running the same script for
year after year, decade after decade, never seeming to realize that they
have a choice. But this is the reality you have free will, you are
responsible for how you react, and you have the power to change I must
into I choose.
It all starts in the mind
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one
thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one s attitude in
any given set of circumstances, to choose one s own way.
Viktor Frankl
The most important area in which we operate our freedom is our own
mind. We are free to control our thoughts and change our own perception
of things. This is a revelation to many people, who believe that thoughts
happen to them. In reality, you generate your own thoughts all day long
and you can be the master of them. Changing our beliefs is not
instantaneous, but our beliefs do change throughout our lives and we can
be active in controlling this process.
The way we act, of course, depends on what we believe. It makes sense
that changing what we believe will alter the way we behave. Rich people
tend naturally to think about money and abundance and so they tend to
attract more money by naturally acting in accordance with their beliefs.
Poor people often tend to think about lack, and so they attract this
experience.
The inside-out
We create our own reality in two ways. One is our self-talk. We talk to
ourselves all day long. You can often catch the moment shortly after you
wake up when the script kicks in for a short while after you wake up, your
mind is blank; you re not thinking anything in particular. But suddenly you
will remember what happened to you yesterday or last week (good or bad)
and your internal talk will begin. If you re not very conscious about it, this
script will just run in the background all day and you will react to situations
in your usual conditioned manner. But if you can become aware that this is
happening, you can start to replace to old script with a self-talk based on
conscious choice.
The other is our visualization. We see ourselves in certain scenarios in our
mind s eye. Again, if you are conscious, you can replace the default
visualizations (of being a victim, being poor etc.) with new ones about
abundance, happiness, confidence and control. Start visualizing what you
want to achieve, how you want to feel and what sort of person you want to
be.
The subconscious ensures that our images are translated into reality. A
change in our mind will work its way out. Our subconscious mind believes
what it is told by the thinking, self-talking, visualizing mind and does not
recognize any difference between a real experience and an imaginary one.
So we need to be careful what we think about and talk to ourselves about,
and what we see in our mind s eye. These words and images will be
turned into reality as sure as day follows night. In the end, we see the
world as we are.
Day six: Making money

Being rich is a state of mind. Your mind is like a garden which contains
rich, fertile soil, and it will bring forth whatever you sow in it. You can sow
a
mentality of lack and poverty or a mentality of abundance. The harvest will
be a life of poverty and struggle or one of ease and comfort. Which one
would you prefer? The answer is obvious, but it is surprising how many
people choose the former. The rich have sown an abundance mentality,
and here are ten ways you can start to tend your own garden of riches.
Think more about money. Our experience of the world starts in our mind,
and what we focus on will expand and push its way out into the physical
world. If we focus on lack and poverty, this is what we will experience, but
if we concentrate on wealth, it will start to appear in our lives. I have
noticed that the rich spend a lot of time talking about money. So do the
poor, in fact, except that they are talking about the lack of it.
Admire people who have money and associate with the wealthy. How
do you feel when you see someone who you know is rich? Whether it be a
movie star, the boss at work or a guy who lives down the road, if you are
jealous about the success and wealth of others, you are never going to
attract it into your own life. You need to admire these kind of people and
ask yourself what can I learn from them? The best way to learn from the
wealthy, of course, is to be around them, so you should try to associate
yourself with successful and wealthy people.
Be comfortable carrying money around. What do youy find when you
open your wallet? I used to withdraw money from the ATM only when I
needed it and I was habitually running short of money. The message an
empty wallet sends to your subconscious is got no money. So sure
enough, this will play out in your life. Maybe you say to yourself I can t
carry money around or else I ll spend it! Well, if you can t trust yourself
with cash on the hip, you re never going to be rich.
Get used to spending money and buying nice things. If you have a
poverty mentality, as soon as you get some money you will spend it.
People who think like this cannot trust themselves with cash. Having an
abundance mentality means spending money and enjoying it. It does not
mean living above your means and getting into debt, but it s also important
not to scrimp and save. Your money is there to be enjoyed, and so long as
you are sensible, you can go out and treat yourself. Go to a nice
restaurant, get your hair done at an expensive salon, buy a designer suit or
bag. These things will send out signals to your subconscious mind (and
other people, and the universe) that you have an abundance mentality and
that you are comfortable with money.
Get into the habit of investing. Hoarding money and spending all your
money are signs of a poverty mentality. Both cause stagnation and an end
to wealth. But growing money is at the heart of an abundance mentality.
Money is like a living thing it has to move and it to grow. If you win $100
in a competition, what would you do with it? The rich would think about
how to turn it into $1000. The poor would just spend it or bury it. There s an
important difference.
Don t be too attached to money. Hoarding money is also symptom of a
poverty mentality. Because everything in life is in flux, money as well as
all other things cannot sit still. It cannot lie dormant. It has to move.
Either you can move it or it will move of its own accord. If you try to hoard
it, it will find a way of moving on anyway an unexpected bill or other
expense, a car or house repair that needs to be paid for so keep your
money flowing. Put it to work in investments, spend some of it on nice
things, be generous and, above all, enjoy it! Otherwise, what s the point?
Feel that you deserve to be rich. Don t feel guilty about it. Many people
have been deeply scripted in a mentality that equates money with guilt.
How can the rich live with themselves when there are starving people in
the world? Why don t they give their money way to help others? These are
the things I used to say to myself, until I realized the truth: if all the money
in the world were redistributed equally, in a matter of months, there would
once again be massive inequality. And this is because poverty is a disease
of the mind. Of course we should support the needy, the homeless, the
sick and the hungry, but giving a person with a poverty mentality a large
sum of money will not make that person rich, because so long as the
poverty mentality is running, their subconscious autopilot will find a way of
bringing them back to poverty.
Associate money with a healthy, balanced life. Many people think that
money is tainted. They use phrases like filthy rich and associate making
money with dishonest practices and unsavory ways of living. But the reality
is that money is not bad: it s just money. And there s no more or less
reason to acquire it than there is a reason to be happy, healthy or
successful. Money is good and necessary, since it can allow you to
experience more of life and to help other people.
Take responsibility. Don t blame anyone or anything for your
situation. There are other people in that same situation who are making it!
It is not your parent s fault that you are poor. It is not the government s
fault. It s not your age or education. None of these things have stopped
others from getting rich. Many people just stay poor because it s easier
they don t have to face up to their part in creating their own reality. But if
you truly want to be rich, stop making excuses and take responsibility.
When you have done this, it clears the way for amazing things to happen.
Believe that anything is possible. Henry Ford said, Whether you believe
you can or believe you can t, you re probably right. People have come
from abject poverty and made billions. Others have started at the top and
lost it all. Anything is possible in this world. So start believing it!
Day seven: Why the rich get richer

For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have
an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has
shall be taken away from him
Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 13:12)
When I was a child, I used to look out at the world, watch the news, and
think to myself how unfair it is that some people are so rich and others so
poor. But now I have come to the conclusion that if all the money in the
world were divided equally between everyone, within a short time, the rich
would be rich again, and the poor would be poor again. Why? Simply put
money is a symptom or an effect. The cause of money is our attitude, our
thoughts, and our self-image.
We attract more of what we focus on. We create our own financial
condition. Being rich is the effect of our thoughts, not the cause. Most
people have got this the wrong way round. As in all spheres of life, what
we sow is what we reap. Our thoughts create our reality and if we sow
good, positive thoughts, thoughts of abundance, these thoughts will yield a
harvest of money and abundance. If we sow thoughts of poverty and lack,
we will manifest that in our lives. Some people s minds are like rich, fertile
soil where the crop can grow strong and healthy; others minds are more
like rocks and dust which will not support a good harvest.
Many people spend their lives building a money monster, made up of the
negative thoughts about money and wealth. Many of these thoughts came
from parents, teachers and other influential figures which they were
exposed to when young, and those thoughts get built on and expanded
until eventually they become a huge and terrifying monster which,
eventually, turns around and devours them. Others, however, spend their
life building a powerful and obedient genie, an unshakeable collection of
positive thoughts and convictions which free you from worry and lack; the
genie does your bidding and you are always rich. We must realize that
money doesn t control us, we control it money is our servant, not our
master.
We must take responsibility for this. Where we are now is a result of what
we have thought and how we have acted in the past. We must accept this.
Either we are responsible or we are not which is it to be? Do you want to
carry on feeling that you re at the mercy of chance? Maybe you do
maybe you get something out of that. But know this if you do not accept
that you are responsible for your financial condition, you will always be
poor.
That more gathers more is true on every plane of existence
and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.
Charles E. Haanel (1866-1949)
Many people have self-defeating beliefs about money (which I have written
about elsewhere). We cannot be wealthy if we think of money in a negative
way. Money is just a way to be free, and creating financial abundance
should be top of our list of priorities. Clear out your old ideas about wealth
and fill your mind with new and positive thoughts about money. Flaunting
wealth is a sign of insecurity and tells of a poverty mentality, but to wish
and strive for financial freedom is a good thing as someone once said,
the more you know, the less you need to show. Know that whatever your
beliefs, the world will support them so think positive and abundant
thoughts, and these will be played out in real life.
One of these self-defeating beliefs is that there is a shortage of money. But
in reality, there is not a limited supply of wealth and abundance if I go out
in a boat and fill a few buckets with water, does that mean there is less
water for everyone else? If I pump water from the sea night and day, does
that mean the ocean will run dry? Hardly! There is so much of it that it can
never run out! Even the wealth of the richest person in the world is just,
well, a drop in the ocean!
Another reason the ocean never runs dry is that water is constantly on the
move. Water evaporates, it forms clouds, the clouds release water as rain,
the rain falls into streams and rivers, and the rivers flow back into the sea.
Just like water, money needs to flow. If you try to hoard money, it will
stagnate, like a pool with no inlet or outlet. But if you keep money
circulating, it will grow, just as a pool with a constant flow of fresh water
sparkles and teems with life.
In fact, money flows whether we like it or not, since that is its nature. If you
try to hoard it, it will find a way of moving on a big tax bill, an unexpected
expense so keep things moving, keep your money flowing. That doesn t
mean give all your money away or keep buying and selling investments; it
means don t let your money stagnate and die don t kill the goose that
lays the golden egg. It s also important that you don t try to control the
process who knows through which wonderful channels money and
wealth will come to you? Your subconscious mind is wiser than you can
know, and will orchestrate events in a marvelous and unexpected way to
bring you what you desire. It is also important that you be ready to receive.
Sometimes you don t get what you want you get something better. So be
ready and be open to all possibilities.
Making money is not hard work it s easy when you do it right. Like all
things in life, see which way the wind is blowing and sail with the wind, not
against it. Sailing against the wind is madness it will take all your energy
and you ll stand still (at best). So sail with the wind, go with the flow of life,
and you can be effortlessly abundant.
Day eight: The importance of your beliefs

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try
to realize the truth Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that
bends, it is only yourself.
From The Matrix

The story of the four-minute mile is one of those things that tells us about
the way the world works. For years, people tried and tried to run a mile in
under four minutes but just kept failing. However, as soon as Roger
Banister did it in 1954, the floodgates opened and within two years, about
350 others had done the same. When people really believe that something
is possible, then it is. As Henry Ford famously said, Whether You Believe
You Can, Or You Can't, You Are Right. I read recently that beliefs are
neither tight nor wrong. I disagree if you don t think that your beliefs are
right, then I can t see how they can be called beliefs. This doesn t mean
you should arrogantly try to foist your beliefs on other people if you re
right, then all well and good; let others find out in their own way, and by all
means present and discuss your beliefs but beliefs should be held
strongly and with power. They have the ability to empower you or limit you.

Examples of the empowering effect of belief are found everywhere. For

example, in her book Imagery for Getting Well, Deirdre Davis Brigham
(W.W. Norton & Co. 1994) reports several instances of the mind appearing
to have amazing control over the body. She cites some cases of people
with multiple personality one personality has flu symptoms or even
diabetes; the other personality has no sign of illness. She also mentions
Clove Backster, who found that skin from his patients actually reacted
chemically when Backster simply thought of damaging the skin.
Dr. Madeline Daniels has written about studies of the self fulfilling
prophecy where, for example, different teachers were told that their
classes consisted of under performers or bright students and, by year end,
there was a significant difference in the quality of the classes work.
Needless to say, the students ability was the same in all classes.
This study from researchers at Stanford University suggests that pain can
be controlled by thought. There are many documented instances of
individuals appearing to defy nature because of belief people walking
over hot coals, people being buried for days and coming out alive and well,
people not eating for weeks or even years and appearing to be in normal
health. The examples are endless.
I read somewhere recently that a belief is nothing but the generalization of
a past incident. This seems to ring true. When I was a child, I was
outgoing and gregarious. Then something happened I was openly
criticized and, generalizing this experience, I started to see those around
me as hostile and unwelcoming. And so I spent many, many years carrying
this belief, feeling insecure and threatened, terrified of public speaking. I
had to recognize that I had been carrying this belief around with me all
those years and consciously decide to change it.
Day nine: The importance of self-image

The image we have of ourselves is the most important thing in determining

what we experience in the world. We spend our days acting out the kind of
person we think we are, and eventually, as Earl Nightingale observed, we
become what we think about. We experience what we are convinced is
true and so, in a very real sense, we have each created ourself from our
own mental image. And we can recreate ourselves from a new mental
image if we choose. Whoever you are now, you have chosen it. And in a
year, five years, ten years from now, you can be the same person, or you
can choose again and become someone different.

Who we are

First, try to realize that we are spiritually whole. Just as a drop of water
contains all the properties of the ocean, so we contain all the spiritual
properties of the universe, of God.
Since this is so, we should love ourselves with no strings attached.
Whatever we have done or failed to do does not change what we are
and what we are is perfect. Rejecting yourself or a part of yourself or
hating yourself for something you have done is pointless.
Self-acceptance is the first step and the most important part of choosing
your experience and being successful. You need to separate what you
have done, how much you earn, the things you own, and everything else
about you, from who you are. When you see yourself for what you truly
are, you can experience your own magnificence right now and then you
can choose your life.

How to change

Many people think that the only way to do something worthwhile is by

sheer hard work. But no amount of willpower can change us into
something we think we are not. If I see myself as unfit, then no amount of
going to the gym and trying to eat well is going to change that image and,
eventually, I will stop going to the gym and I will start eating the wrong kind
of food again, and I will remain unfit.

If you want to change, you must start the process in your mind first. When
you see yourself as being fit and healthy, then going to the gym and eating
well will be natural and easy. If you see yourself as a non-smoker, then not
smoking will be easy and natural. If you keep saying to yourself, I m going
to give up smoking, but your subconscious still sees you as a smoker,
then you re going to fail because you always live up to your subconscious
expectations.

Your growth will cause others pain.

You are in control, you are pulling the strings, and so you must take
responsibility for your life. When you accept this and you take control of
your life, this is bound to make some people unhappy. You are becoming
more powerful, and you seem to make some others shrink they don t
understand why you are difference, they don t see themselves as being in
control and they wonder what you have that they don t. When you decide
to change your life, some people will have values which conflict with yours,
and so they may feel threatened and try to attack you or control you or turn
you into something else. Isn t this what s behind some people s attempts to
convert you to their religion?

Don t be afraid

You don t need permission from others to change your life. You can never
get the approval you seek from others, so just relax, love yourself and
decide who you want to become. The only authority you need is within
yourself.

Don t worry about whether you re perfect you re like a house under
construction, and so is everyone else. There s nothing wrong with this it s
the way things are and people who criticize you are only throwing stones at
themselves.

Don t be afraid to expose a weakness and make yourself vulnerable. This

is how you learn about yourself, it s how to change and grow. If you know
that you are spiritually perfect, you will not be threatened by the beliefs of
others.

Don t fear or resent others for being wealthy or successful. Learn from
them and admire them, support them in what they have and more
abundance will come to you.

The right kind of selfishness

Why is it wrong to have things just because others don t? Will it help the
poor if you are poor yourself? You are naturally and effortlessly abundant.
You are powerfully orchestrating of your own experience. I believe that
nothing happens to us that we don t permit at a deep, subconscious level.
What is happening within us is in deep alignment with our outside
experiences. So delve inside, choose what you want to become, choose
the abundant, prosperous and successful life, hold on to that image of
yourself, and then you cannot help but become that person. And the best
part of all it will happen effortlessly.
Day Ten: The Importance of a Mission statement

The image we have of ourselves is the most important thing in determining

what we experience in the world. We spend our days acting out the kind of
person we think we are, and eventually, as Earl Nightingale observed, we
become what we think about.

Successful people have a clear direction, a sense of where they are going
and, as importantly, why they are going there. This sense of direction is a
compass which keeps them on track, and it is often expressed in a mission
statement.

The most important step is to identify your values, those basic principles
which are most important to you. In Man s Search for Meaning, Viktor
Frankl suggests that we detect our meaning in life, so it is worth spending
some time seriously reflecting on what values we live by, what really
moves us. Steven R. Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People, suggests that we imagine ourselves attending our own funeral and
listen as we hear the eulogies being reads out about us. Do we like what
we are hearing? What do we want to hear? How have we been
remembered? We need to identify what is deeply important to us.
If these values can be distilled and concretized into a personal mission
statement (what you want to be and do, based on your personal values),
then we can live out each day deliberately creating an experience which
leads to sustainable growth and happiness.
We need to decide where the focus of our life is located. People have
many focuses work, money, family, friends and so on but the truly
creative person has his or her core values at the center of life. Steven R.
Covey identifies four features which flow from this center and which need
to be in harmony in a truly creative and successful life.
First is security, our sense of worth and emotional anchorage. In an value-
centered life, change should seen as an exciting adventure and an
opportunity to learn and grow Secondly, guidance, our sense of direction.
Here, we should be detached from life s changing landscape and guided
internally by our core values. Thirdly, wisdom, or how we respond to
events. In a value-centered life, we do not respond reactively to the
vicissitudes of life but proactively make decisions, not being acted on by
others but acting independently and skillfully in the world. Fourthly, power,
our ability to achieve. Here, we should recognize that what we achieve is
our own responsibility and is not determined by the beliefs and behavior of
others.
Most individuals don t have a mission statement. They don t have a clear
idea of where they are going in life. They don t know what they want to
achieve. They just drift along, year after year, decade after decade. Most
people live like that and they die like that. Napoleon Hill, in his famous
book Think and Grow Rich wrote that most people did not have a goal, did
not now where they were going. He also presented a six step plan by
which anyone could achieve financial success. This plan does not involve
a lot of effort, incidentally it s essentially a method for clear about what
you seek to achieve. If you want to find out about the plan, it s presented in
chapter 2 of the book, but the key element in the plan is clear statement of
purpose, and a mission statement can be a powerful way of achieving this.
A mission statement cannot just be thrown together. It needs to be
carefully crafted. Here are the elements of a good mission statement.
Your goals should be specific and clear What are your values? What
do you stand for? What are you going to achieve? What are you going to
contribute to the world? This isn t about what you want to achieve it s not
a wish list; it s a definite statement of intent, it s your order from the menu
of the universe, it s what is going to happen. When you start to get bogged
down in the details of daily life, think back to your mission statement it
will act as a compass to keep you on track; your decisions and actions will
be guided by it. In this sense, it provides you with a wide angle lens
through which you can keep the bigger picture in view.
Your goals do not need to be (SHOULD not be) realistic or
attainable we ve all heard about SMART targets which have to be
measurable, realistic etc., etc. The point here is that the universe can do
anything, however unbelievable or unrealistic it is.
It should indicate how you are going to achieve your goals this does not
contradict the previous statement. You must not include a specific, detailed
plan, but a statement about what you are going to offer in exchange for
meeting your goal. For example, your goal is to be the best sales person in
your company you will achieve this goal by giving outstanding service to
every customer. There s nothing here about sales targets, how many
clients you need to see, how many sales you need to make etc. Once you
have written down the how in general terms, the universe will do the rest.
It should be short some organizations produce long rambling mission
statements which nobody ever reads! Napoleon Hill suggests you read
through your mission statement every morning and evening; you re not
going to do this if it s going to take twenty minutes. And the ideas aren t
going to be as powerful if they re not focused. So keep it short, focused
and powerful, like a laser beam.
It should make you feel good If you know where you re going, you ll
live a life of eager anticipation and joy. Just as if you are sailing
somewhere on a ship you know you ll get to your destination and in the
meantime you re enjoying the view. This attitude of anticipating a future
you have already chosen (you bought the ticket, you got on the ship, the
ship s moving) whilst living in the present moment (you re looking out at a
wonderful sunrise, enjoying the view) is, to me, the only sensible way to
live.
Taking time to write and regularly review your mission statement is one of
the most important things you can do in life. Next time you get bogged
down in the day-to-day detail of life, stop and think about your mission
statement. It will keep things in perspective; it will clarify your vision and i
t
will keep you moving on the right course. Your life is like a ship of
course, you need a crew, busily working away to keep afloat and keep
moving, but even more importantly, you need a map, you need a compass
and you need a captain. Without them, your ship just won t get anywhere.
Day eleven: Goals

Did you make any new years resolutions in January? How many of them
are you still on track with?
We all have goals. And we all set them for ourselves all the time. But
usually we don t know it - we re not being very conscious. In this article I
want to discuss a few ideas which may help you to set goals more
consciously and also introduce a practical way to actually get them
achieved.
Create specific goals
I don t think I ve ever read a self-improvement book or anything on the law
of attraction that didn t emphasize in some way the importance of goal
setting. Actually, we all set goals all the time, it s just that usually we do it
unconsciously, and most of the goals people set are pretty odd. I m going
to be exhausted by the end of the week. This meeting is going to be
boring, I m never going to get through all this work and so on.
Why would anyone set these goals? Your goals don t have to be like this
so stop doing it!
You need to try to be more conscious about your goals, and to this end it
helps to write them down. Goals written down are like a compass that
guides you through the chaos of daily life. Written goals send out a
powerful message to the universe. It s the first step in a process that will
lead you wherever you want to go.
Start to achieve your goals right NOW!
The law of attraction works in the following way: thoughts lead to feelings,
feelings lead to things. Most people think that events and circumstances
are reflected in your thoughts and feelings. In fact, it s your thoughts and
feelings that draw events and circumstances into your life. So you need to
start acting as if you already have what you aim to achieve in order to draw
it into your life.
We ve been taught that we all good things come to those who wait and
that delayed gratification is better than having it all now. In some ways, this
is certainly right. The young couple that buys a house that s too expensive
for them and fills it with push furnishings and all mod cons is going to get
into desperate trouble with their credit line because they couldn t wait. The
child (or the adult!) who stuffs his face with chocolate instead of waiting for
dinner is going to suffer as a result. This kind of delayed gratification is a
necessary and healthy thing. But what we re taking about here is not
putting off your goals any more we re talking about getting them
achieved.
You can have what you want immediately, but not in full perhaps one
might say that you can have the quality but not the quantity. What you
have has got to be real, but it just won t be the whole thing.
An example given by Raymond Aaron in his book Double Your Income
Doing What You Love, is making a $1000 deposit into your savings
account each month. This is a goal. In order to achieve this goal you need
to give the law of attraction something to work with. You need to start
acting as if it s already happening. So, decide on the date each month
when you will make the deposit and go right ahead but you don t have to
deposit $1000: you can make it $25 or even $1 just get into the habit of
doing it, and calling it a $1000 deposit. Telling people about it will also
help. But the main thing is to do it every month without fail, to build up a
habit and to keep thinking of it as a $1000 deposit.
As another example, maybe you want a chauffeur that s your goal but
you can t achieve that right now. So start by taking a taxi once a week, or
as many times as you can. This is something I have done when I travel, I
usually get a driver to take me from the airport to wherever I am staying
and I take taxis to and from work. I rarely use public transport these days
and I do not drive.
Maybe you want an extravagantly expensive new home. So go looking
around new places every month spend an afternoon looking at luxury
homes and show flats, imagine that it s yours. Keep on doing it, keep
holding the thought and the universe will move to attract a wonderful new
home into your life.
Examples are endless, but the point is to start behaving as if your goal has
already been achieved, as far as you can. What will happen is that the real
thing the full, unabridged version will start to appear in your life.
Occasionally you will be able to make that $1000 deposit. Because you
have built up certain habits, before you know it, you ll be living in a different
way. This is how the LOA works you need to give the universe
something to work with, so start behaving as if you already have what you
want and pretty soon it will be yours.
Small things can make all the difference
When you change your life in a small way and keep on doing things in this
different way, after a surprisingly short time, your life will be different. A
boat that changes its rudder by one degree will soon enough be headed in
the opposite direction. Intentionally changing little things will be the start o
f
a process that will radically change your life. Whether its learning a
language, writing a book, building a website, having a great marriage,
building a career or getting rich, persistently acting in a small way is key - a
dripping tap soon fills the bucket!
This isn t just a mind trick. It is a game, as is all of life (in a sense). So go
out there and start playing!
Day twelve: Wu Wei
You ve always been told that making no effort is bad, right? Perhaps at
school you got a grade for effort and were berated by teachers and
parents for being lazy.
You ll never make anything of yourself if you don t put in more effort.
There s no such thing as a free lunch.
We ve all heard things like this a million times.
But we should distinguish between effortlessness and doing nothing or
being lazy. If you don t exercise because you can t be bothered, or if you
eat junk food because it s to much effort to cook something healthy, or if
you don t revise for your exam because it s too much trouble, then of
course you re heading for an impoverished life.
But there is a certain way of doing things - or rather a certain way of
getting things done - by which an excellent result is achieved with the
expenditure of very little energy. It sounds wrong, counterintuitive - but it
just means going with the flow. I remember my dad telling me how to saw
a piece of wood: he said you had to follow the wood s natural grain, if
possible, and then let the saw do the work - don t push and pull too hard,
just hold loosely and let the saw be your guide, almost as if the saw is an
extension of your arm. It s like water or electricity moving - it travels easily
and effortlessly, always finding the easiest route, the path of least
resistance - there is motion, there is action, but it is effortless motion, and
it
is powerful motion because energy is not being used to overcome.
The ancient Chinese philosophy of Wu Wei is the best description of this
kind of achievement without effort. An interesting and very accessible
introduction to this idea, along with many others which will crop up time
and again in this blog, are contained in Benjaminn Hoff s excellent book,
The Tao of Pooh.
Just How do you do it, Pooh?
Do What? asked Pooh.
Become so Effortless.
I don t do much of anything, he said.
But all those things of yours get done.
They just sort of happen, he said
Day thirteen: Adding value to the world
Many of us have been brought up to think that there is only so much to go
around and we must grab what we can before other people get our share.
Competition and selfishness pervade our world - we have been schooled
in the ethic of me first. But there is another paradigm which insists on
helping others, giving something of ourselves and helping out wherever we
can. This is called adding value. But why would anyone want to do this?
Here are my top seven reasons.
1. When you add value, the whole that you produce is greater than the
sum of the parts which produced it. Unlike the not enough pie to go
round paradigm, the adding-value paradigm insists that when you
enrich the life of someone else, the pie gets bigger and there is more
for us all.
2. If you re not adding value, you re taking it away. You cannot stand
still you can grow or die; you can add value or you can take it
away. The doctor who learns no new skills is falling behind and
being carried by her colleagues; the teacher who is unenthusiastic
about his classes is damaging the students education. Do you want
to grow, or do you want to die? you have to choose.
3. It makes the world a better place for all of us. When you help
someone, you add value to their life and you make the world a better
place. Whether you re teacher who helps a student to pass an exam
or encourages him to apply for university, or an author who writes a
book that helps thousands of people, you make the world better for
all of us, including yourself.
4. You re going to get a whole lot in return. This is not the reason for
doing it, of course, but it s a fact when you give you receive.
Maybe not in the way you think, but when you really try to add value
with no expectation of reward, the rewards start rolling in. Life is
strange like that!
5. It makes you feel good. Steven Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People, speaks about an inner darkness which is created
when you live a life without integrity. Living a life of integrity and
value is the only way to truly feel good about yourself.
6. It brings opportunity. If you become known as someone who always
helps, always tries to find a solution, you ll win friends and influence
people. There are two kinds of person, my friend (can you guess the
movie?), problem people and solution people. Which are you seen
as? You future success could depend on being in the right category.
7. It s the meaning of life. The bottom line is that adding value is the
whole point of being alive that s what we re all here for; that s what
it s all about. Adding value is what you were put on this earth to do.
Ever wonder about the meaning of life? Adding value that s it!

The rewards that come from adding value are immense and unpredictable,
tangible and intangible. Mostly, adding value is all about being creative in
situations and seeing how you can use your skills to make a difference.
Now, here are seven ways of making sure you are adding value in every
situation as much as you can.
1. Make sure you know what you can do. What are your skills? What
are you good at? These are the tools which will allow you to add
value. Of course, the best way to do what you re good at is to
2. Do what you love. When you do the things you love, adding value
comes naturally. Look at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Madonna, or any
number of rich and successful people: what do they have ion
common? They do what they love! And they are successful because
they add value naturally.
3. If you re not adding value, get out! If you re in a job where you don t
feel you re systematically adding something, wither you need to
change the way you re doing things, or it s time to quit. You can do
better.
4. Adding value will guide you to the right job or enterprise. If you have
a choice of two or more paths, be they career paths or anything else,
always choose the one that allows you to add the most value. This
will keep you in alignment with your true purpose in life and will,
ultimately, bring you greater happiness and greater reward.
5. Keep on learning new things and expanding your comfort zone. This
is how you learn more skills which will enable you to add more value.
Go on a course, do a part time degree, put together a website, write
a novel but do something new.
6. Don t be sacred to fail. When you do something new, you ll do it
badly and you might even be afraid to do it at all. If and when you do
fail, you might not want to go through the experience again. But if
you push through that initial failure, pick yourself up and keep going,
you ll start to improve and eventually you ll be good at what you re
doing.
7. Encourage other people. Try to get the best out of people
encourage them to be the best they can be. This will inspire them to
take their own risks and add their own value to the world.
Day fourteen: Don t worry

Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do,

but it gets you nowhere.
Glenn Turner
We live in a culture where everyone seems to worry. Turn on the news
someone got shot, there s mercury in the fish we eat, the cows have got
BSE, a new super-flu is coming, terrorists are regrouping, On and on it
goes. If you take all of this stuff seriously, it s likely that you ll never go out,
never eat, never travel, or never take any kind of risk at all.
But in fact, worry makes no sense at all. Here are some reasons why worry
really is a pointless and damaging activity, though I suspect we all know
this deep down.
Things never happen the way you imagine. When you worry, you are
predicting the future. You are saying I know that things will turn out badly.
But this just isn t the case. You have no idea how the future is going to turn
out, except to say that it will not be what you think it will be. So why worry?
Worry means you give away your power. Some people are so
entrenched in worry that they cannot see any other way to live. But worry
robs you of your power to be proactive. The truth is that you are in control
and you can choose how to react to situations, so why choose to give that
power away so easily and so unconsciously?
Worrying is completely unproductive. Why waste your energy doing
something that gets you nowhere. On a treadmill at least you get some
exercise, but worry is a truly pointless activity. Spend your time and energy
on something more useful.
Worry distorts reality. We live in an age where people live longer, have
better access to health care, have more opportunity for personal and
professional growth, more chance to travel, greater access to information
and lifelong education, and many other wonderful things. Yes, there are
risks and potential dangers, but worry magnifies these disproportionately
and blinds us to the wonders of our age.
Worrying is bad for your health. Worry is not a normal state of mind, and
it adversely affects your health, even your physical health. When you
worry, physical changes are happening in your body which are very
damaging. It increases stress which can increase blood pressure, cause
higher levels of stomach acid, cause muscle tension and headaches,
among many other things.
Worry is not natural. Do little children worry? Do animals worry? Do all
adults worry? There is nothing inherent in being human that means you
have to worry. Worry is a pathology, a distortion of our natural, healthy
state.
Do you know the most frequent instruction given in the Bible? Surprisingly,
it is not love one another or love God or anything like that. It is simple do
not be afraid. I don t know how many times it appears, but I ve seen
estimates between 100 and 366 times. You don t have to be religious to
realize that this is good advice.
So how can we break out of this worry habit? Like all habits, it might not be
easy to do, but there are some clear, simple and effective steps you can
take to eliminate worry from your life.

Realize that you are in control. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People, Steven Covey tells us that the first step to a better life is the
realization that we are free to choose how to react to circumstances. Worry
is a choice it s inside our own head and, as such, it is within the sphere
of our own influence.
Recognize that worry is a habit. Like all habits, there is a momentum to
worry, and it might not be easy to break away from this, especially if you ve
been a worrier all your life. But it s possible to change any habit.
Keep things in perspective. E. Joseph Crossman said, If you want to
test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago
today. Are you still worrying about those things? Will all this stuff matter in
100 years from now?
Face your fears. When you face Nelson DeMille said that Somehow our
devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.
After you do something that scares you, you ll probably find it wasn t as
bad as you thought. With time, all your worry will dissipate.
Stop trying to be in control of everything. You cannot control the whole
world. Things happen that are truly outside our circle of influence, and so
we need to relax and accept that sometimes things just happen as they
will. This is part of life, and worry will not change it one little bit.
Stop taking yourself so seriously. If you fail, so what? If you screw up, is
it the end of the world? Are you really so important that the world will stop
turning if you get things wrong? Life is not that serious.
Worry is a dangerous and poisonous thing. You must not let it eat away at
you.
Finally, one of my favorite quotes from the master of quotes, Mark Twain. I
am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them
never happened.
Day fifteen: Never give up

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great
or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and
good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently
overwhelming might of the enemy.

Winston Churchill

Have you ever failed? Did you feel bad about it? We are usually
conditioned to think of failure as a bad thing, something to be avoided,
something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. But if you look back
over you life, when were the times you really learned? Which were the
situations through which you grew the most?

Like much of our conditioning, we have got this one all wrong. Not only
should we not fear failure, we should embrace it, because failure is the
necessary precursor of success. Failure teaches us how to succeed. Just
look at this list of famous failures.

The first Xerox copier was a flop. Now virtually every office in the
world has a machine.
An unknown Harvard dropout bought a piece of computer
technology from an unknown person for $50 and started a
bunsiness. His name is Bill Gates.
Isaac Newton was regarded as stupid by his teachers. His work on
gravitation secured him a place as one of the greatest Scientists in
history.
Thomas Edison was told by his teachers that he was too stupid to
learn anything. He failed 9000 times before successfully inventing
the light bulb.
Michael Jordan was cut from his school basketball team because of
lack of skill.
Colonel Sanders talked to 1005 people before he could find one
person willing to try his recipe.
A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for having no good ideas
Winston Churchill was a failure at school. He is widely regarded to
be one of the most important figures in modern world history.
When Albert Einstein was young, his parents thought he was
mentally retarded. His grades in school were so bad that a teacher
asked him to leave, writing, Einstein, you will never amount to
anything! Of course, Einstein was one of the greatest scientists who
ever lived.
Henry Ford s first two automobile companies failed. He became one
of the richest men in the world.
J K Rowling s first Harry Potter book was rejected by a publisher
who said there s no money in children s books.
Stephen King was so disillusioned with his first novel Carrie that he
threw it in the bin. His wife rescued it and sent it to a publisher.

We could go on (and on, and on, ) The absurdity of seeing failure as a

bad thing and taking other people s opinions about us too seriously is
clear. Take the advice of Samuel Becket:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Day sixteen: Don t let other people run your life for you

Why you shouldn t care what other people think about you (and why you
shouldn t expect anyone else to care about you)

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde

Who is in control of your life? Who s pulling your strings?

For the majority of us, it s other people society, colleagues and friends,
family, church or other religious community. We learned this way of
operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We
discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice
experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other
people like us. We didn t want to be singled out by the crowd for being
different because this wasn t such a nice feeling. We learned this way of
being so well that, as adults, we continue mostly through mutual peer
pressure to keep each other in check. Like sheep without any need for a
sheepdog, we keep each other in line.

It works both ways. First, we are afraid of disapproval. Am I dressed right?

Will people laugh at my accent? Will I look stupid? Will I make a mistake?
When we feel that others think badly of us, it makes us feel bad and so we
try to avoid this.

Second, we all want to feel important and so we crave the positive

attention of others. This is one of our basic needs, according to Dale
Carnegie, author of the multi-million best seller, How to Win Friends and
Influence People. And so when people stroke our ego and tell us how
wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We crave this good feeling like a
drug we are addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can.

We are so desperate for the approval of others that we live unhappy and
limited lives, denying huge swathes of ourselves and failing to do the
things we really want to do because we re worried about what other people
will think. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live impoverished lives to
keep getting their fix, so we impoverish our own existence to get our own
constant fix of approval.

The drug is so addictive that most people will not give it up they will keep
looking for approval because the hit is so intense. But, just as with any
drug, there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom
the freedom to be ourselves. Do you want your drug or do you want to be
free? You cannot have both. If you want to pull your own strings, you need
to stop giving away your power you need to genuinely stop caring what
other people think about you.

The truth is that it s all an illusion anyway you cannot control what other
people think. People have their own agenda, they come with their own
baggage and, in the end, they re more interested in themselves than in
you; in fact, they re thinking about themselves morning, noon and after
dinner, as Carnegie wrote.

If we try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking
sand. Everyone has a different way of thinking, and people change their
opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end
up getting exhausted and probably pleasing no one in the process.

So how can we take back control? If we are truly ready to give up the drug
of approval and importance (which most people are not), I think there s
only one way make a conscious decision to stop caring what other
people think.

This doesn t mean that you should start to treat people badly, step on them
or use them. Why would it? I read somewhere recently that the world
would be terrible if nobody cared what other people thought of them. But
why so? We all know what s right and wrong. I have written before about
guiding your life by means of a set of values not values imposed from the
outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are
driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value
systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective, purposeful and
happy life. We will be actualized and successful.

Only one question remains do you really want to be free?

Day seventeen: Affirmations

I first came across the idea that our subconscious mind is the key to
fulfilling our dreams when I was a teenager, and in the (many!) years since
then I have been an avid reader on the subject. I have read dozens of
books and read many accounts of how thing the subconscious mind has
led to untold benefits, as I believe it has done in my own life. I am
absolutely convinced that the subconscious is the key to everything - the
strangest, most powerful and most misunderstood thing in the universe.
One of the best reads is Joseph Murphy s classic book, The Power of
Your Subconscious Mind. In the book, Murphy sets out how, through the
power of your subconscious, you can (to use Murphy s slightly old
fashioned language!)
Win riches and prosperity
Regain former youthfulness and vigor
Work real miracles in the lives of others
Find new peace of mind

There are many ways to tap into the power of your subconscious mind, but
I believe that there are three techniques which have more power and are
more effective than the rest. In a series of articles, I will be exploring these
three techniques. The first technique is the proper use of affirmations.
What is an affirmation? When you affirm something, you are saying that
it is true or a fact. So an affirmation is simply a verbal statement which
you regard to be true. Our view of the world (and of ourselves) springs
from our subconscious. It is here that we keep a picture of the world; here
lies our happiness, our confidence, our success; here lies all our truth
whether we think the world is a caring and nurturing place or lonely and
cruel it all comes from our subconscious mind.
Unless you have worked deliberately to change it, the picture of the world
you have created came mainly from your childhood. It has been there for a
long time and you will believe that it is the truth. But the real truth is that
you are projecting your image of the world onto the world which is, largely,
a neutral environment to be interpreted. For example, some people see
money as a wonderful, beautiful thing, while others see it as filthy lucre.
But money is just money inanimate, passive, neutral. Our views about it
are entirely our own creation.
If you make affirmations which are incongruent with the picture of the word
you have created in your subconscious, you will experience some
resistance and may feel foolish saying things to yourself which you do not
believe to be true. But as you keep repeating positive affirmations, you will
chip away at this resistance, and eventually your inner picture of yourself
and the world will change accordingly. It s a kind of conscious
brainwashing.
As with many things, growth happens in fits and starts. There can be a
period of time when nothing seems to be happening. You might keep
repeating your affirmations with no apparent results, and many people will
get discouraged and give up. But this period is like a plant growing under
the surface if the earth it takes time to grow, but eventually it erupts from
the soil and, soon, there is a riot of color and growth. After a fallow time,
the results of affirmations can be sudden and startling.
So what makes a good affirmation? There are two simple things to
remember. First, affirmations must be positive. Don t say I am not sick.
Say I am well. Instead of saying, I am not poor, say I am wealthy. You
get the idea. Second, affirmations must be in the present tense. For
example, don t say I want to be happy or I am going to be happy. Say, I
am happy. With these two things in mind, go through the following simple
process to construct your own affirmations.
First, think about your life and write down the areas you would like to
improve. Think carefully about this and be honest with yourself. You don t
have to share this or discuss it with anyone, but being candid with yourself
is important.
Second, for each area, write down several positive, affirming statements.
Think about what you want your life in these areas to be like, and write
down positive, affirming, present tense descriptions of the picture which
emerges.
There are many ways to work with affirmations. You could, for example,
work with subliminal affirmations. When you consciously re-script yourself
by using techniques such as this, you will experience abundance flowing
into your life in an effortless way.
You might like to try the Sculptor 3 Affirmation Program, which will teach
you more about affirmations and manifesting techniques.
Day eighteen: The power of visualization

Imagine a lemon. Look at it the color, the dimples in the skin. Feel the
waxy texture, the smooth shape that tapers off at either end. Smell it take
in that faint lemon smell coming through the skin. Now imagine you re
cutting it open. Use a knife and cut into the flesh. Bring it up to your nose
and smell it again. It s a much stronger smell. Now bite into it. Bite deep
into the flesh of the lemon. Can you taste that?

By now, your mouth should be watering. And who said thoughts can t
influence reality?

In order to change the world, we need to change ourselves first. Our mind
has been programmed over the years, usually without our being aware of
it, and our subconscious programming dictates our experience of life. What
we believe to be true at a deep, subconscious level shapes our reality.

For this reason, it is vital that we have the right belief systems operating at
this deep level, and affirmations are an excellent way to take control of this
process. Some of us (myself included) are verbal learners and we
respond well to linguistic cues. But many people respond better to visual
cues, and for this reason visualization is another important tool which can
be used to change our experience.

A visualization is simply a mental image of what we want to achieve. We

are constantly creating pictures in our head playing back things that
happened to use earlier in the day and imagining what things are going to
be like in the future. Even if, like me, you are not a very visual person, you
are still visualizing all the time, so the process is not difficult or esoteric.
There are, however, some important things to remember.

It s best to set aside a time for this. Even ten minutes is fine. Go to a
quiet place, not too bright. Sit or lie comfortably, close your eyes and
relax.
Visualize the object or situation that you desire. This one might seem
obvious, but only visualize what you really want. If you find your
mind wondering off into more mundane or negative images, bring
yourself gently back to the object of your visualization. Don t berate
yourself if you lose concentration just come back to your image.
 Be as detailed as possible. Use every sense, not just sight. Smell
that new car interior. Hear the door close behind you. I even read
somewhere about imagining licking the leather upholstery. Strange,
but it does get you to really be in the moment.
Put as much feeling as possible into your image. This is a key
ingredient. Try to get really worked up about the experience.
Put yourself in the picture. Otherwise, what you re imagining might
come true, but you won t be there!
Use soundtracks. You can download visualization MP3s and buy
CDs with nice sound tracks. I personally use these because I always
think my imagination is weak and I need a bit of help. Use them if
you need to.

Finally, keep an open mind. Sometimes things don t happen exactly as we

expect and imagine, but you ll be amazed at the results of this if you
practice regularly.
Day nineteen: What death can teach us
Look at everything
as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.
then your time on earth
will be filled with glory.
Betty Smith, novelist (1896-1972)
Today as I was eating lunch, a shiver ran through my body. My mother
used to say that when this happens, someone has walked over your grave.
Not a pleasant thing to say, you might imagine, but it got me thinking
(again) about death, something I haven t done for a very long time.
You re going to die. Of course you are. Everyone over the age of about ten
knows that. And today we are nearer to our own death than ever before.
Last week we were further away. Yesterday we were further away. But
today is the closest we have ever been to that moment when life finally
gets snuffed out.
We don t know when death will come to greet us. It s quite possible that
today will be our last day on this Earth. Worldometers.com maintains a
meter which clicks up how many people are dying all over the world I
can t keep up with it: it s more than one per second anyway. Only two
things re certain: one day we ll be one of those numbers, and we have no
idea when that will be.
What s your reaction to this? Is this morbid? Why dwell on death?
Shouldn t we think about more happy and positive things? Part of our
reaction comes form the fact that our Western society tends to look at
death as a negative thing, and we are largely insulated and protected from
it dead bodies are quickly swept away into mortuaries and funeral parlors
and encased in coffins. But keeping our mortality in mind can greatly
enrich our life.
Imagine today is your last day on Earth. In his wonderful book Awareness,
Anthony de Mello suggests a meditation where you imagine you are lying
in your coffin or your grave. He even suggests imagining your body
decaying and rotting away. He calls this a lovely. Lovely meditation, and
says that to think of it as anything less than lovely is a sign that you are
hiding from reality. When you re ready to loose your life, he writes, you
live it.
So what would your life look like if this were your last day on earth? What
would you do? How would you treat people? Would you take more risks?
How would you see things? Wouldn t they be more vivid, clearer, more
meaningful? Wouldn t you be more grateful?
Strangely, thinking about death can make us more alive: it is, as John
Hegley writes in Dog, our reason for living!
Day twenty: Why you shouldn t care what other people think about
you
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else s
opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde
Who is in control of your life? Who s pulling your strings?
For the majority of us, it s other people society, colleagues and friends,
family, church or other religious community. We learned this way of
operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We
discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice
experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other
people like us. We didn t want to be singled out by the crowd for being
different because this wasn t such a nice feeling. We learned this way of
being so well that, as adults, we continue mostly through mutual peer
pressure to keep each other in check. Like sheep without any need for a
sheepdog, we keep each other in line.
It works both ways. First, we are afraid of disapproval. Am I dressed right?
Will people laugh at my accent? Will I look stupid? Will I make a mistake?
When we feel that others think badly of us, it makes us feel bad and so we
try to avoid this.
Second, we all want to feel important and so we crave the positive
attention of others. This is one of our basic needs, according to Dale
Carnegie, author of the multi-million best seller, How to Win Friends and
Influence People. And so when people stroke our ego and tell us how
wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We crave this good feeling like a
drug we are addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can.
We are so desperate for the approval of others that we live unhappy and
limited lives, denying huge swathes of ourselves and failing to do the
things we really want to do because we re worried about what other people
will think. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live impoverished lives to
keep getting their fix, so we impoverish our own existence to get our own
constant fix of approval.
The drug is so addictive that most people will not give it up they will keep
looking for approval because the hit is so intense. But, just as with any
drug, there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom
the freedom to be ourselves. Do you want your drug or do you want to be
free? You cannot have both. If you want to pull your own strings, you need
to stop giving away your power you need to genuinely stop caring what
other people think about you.
The truth is that it s all an illusion anyway you cannot control what other
people think. People have their own agenda, they come with their own
baggage and, in the end, they re more interested in themselves than in
you; in fact, they re thinking about themselves morning, noon and after
dinner, as Carnegie wrote.
If we try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking
sand. Everyone has a different way of thinking, and people change their
opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end
up getting exhausted and probably pleasing no one in the process.
So how can we take back control? If we are truly ready to give up the drug
of approval and importance (which most people are not), I think there s
only one way make a conscious decision to stop caring what other
people think.
This doesn t mean that you should start to treat people badly, step on them
or use them. Why would it? I read somewhere recently that the world
would be terrible if nobody cared what other people thought of them. But
why so? We all know what s right and wrong. I have written before about
guiding your life by means of a set of values not values imposed from the
outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are
driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value
systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective, purposeful and
happy life. We will be actualized and successful.
Only one question remains do you really want to be free?
We are so socially conditioned that we often need some help in becoming
more authentically ourselves. There are many excellent self-help pro
grammes available. Check out the Silva Method. It s a world famous, tried
and tested method to take back control. Countless people from all walks of
life have been benefiting for decades. Check it out for free here.
Day twenty-one: Cooperation

The world seems to be full of competition. Kids at school sit exams,

compete for grades and try to get into the best universities. Universities
compete for the brightest students. Sports teams compete for the trophy or
cup. Political parties compete for power. Democrats compete to become
the presidential candidate. Businesses compete for customers and market
share. You get the picture.
Darwin s Origin of the Species has been very influential, perhaps not least
of all because it promulgated the idea that competition was a natural and
normal part of life, that nature was red in tooth and claw, and this way of
thinking has impregnated our culture at every level, to the extent that we
now live in a culture of competition. We think in these terms all the time,
though a change seems to be taking place we are starting to see a new
way of thinking, reflecting a different paradigm. This paradigm is focused
on cooperation, not competition.
In a provocative talk, Tom Asaker argues that, although we are asking the
same questions, the answers have changed, and that successful
businesses no longer think in terms of competing but of simply being
unique.
Examples of cooperation in nature abound. Indeed, symbiosis is essential
to life on Earth without this form of cooperation, there would simply be no
life at all. A striking example cited by Anne Fausto-Sterling is the case of
the flashlight fish, which lures luminescent bacteria into chambers inside
its body and then uses the cultures to light its way through the dark ocean
and signal other flashlighters about sex and danger. She goes on to
describe many other, less showy, but widespread examples of such
symbiotic systems, in particular the subterranean network of roots and
fungi which support each other. The fungi have no chloroplasts of their
own and so feed off material manufactured by the the plants to which the
roots belong, while the plants use the vast underground networks of fungi
to increase the amount of territory they occupy and hence the amount of
nutrients they can absorb. It s case of the whole being greater than the sun
of the parts, the true win-win situation, where 1 + 1 = 3.
Perhaps most obviously, your own body is a vast system of complex,
interconnecting and mutually cooperating systems, all working together to
produce a truly amazing entity.
This principle applies in social and business activity, too. In The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey tells us that the best
results come not from competition, and not even from compromise, but
from the win-win solution, where both parties get a result which is better
than either could have achieved alone, even when starting from apparently
opposing positions.
With the event of online social communities and blogging, the potential for
cooperation and the benefits to be derived form it have become enormous
and transparent. If I submit an article to another blog, that blog gets more
content, I will (obviously) link to the blog which will, therefore, get more
traffic; traffic coming to the blog where my article is posted will probably
visit my own blog, so I ll get more traffic, too. Readers might add both Sites
to their social bookmarks. In the end, we both benefit.
The online community is, in fact, a huge symbiotic network, and we should
approach it with this mentality of cooperation. What benefits others,
benefits me!
I leave you with a wonderful story I heard as a child.
There exists a tale, handed down from times long ago, of two travelers on
a pilgrimage. Hungry and tired from a long day s journey, they come to a
small, impoverished, village, where they decide to rest by the side of the
road. One of the travelers built a small fire upon which he placed a large
pot, while the other, having drawn water from the town well filled the pot
and placed into it a simple stone. As the two men sat by the fire, bringing
their stone soup to a boil, the local villagers became inquisitive of the
curious antics of these strangers. Eventually, several townsfolk decide to
investigate the matter and approach the two travelers to engage them in
conversation.
Shortly thereafter, there was heard the sound of merriment, as the visitors,
who turned out to be quite friendly, shared their tales of the ands and
people they had met throughout their journey and pilgrimage with the local
villagers. Finally, a young boy asked the travelers But why are you boiling
a stone? One of the travelers replied, So we may eat stone soup. It
must be terribly bland! said an old woman. But I have a cabbage, which
will add some flavor! And I, some carrots, which will add color! said
another villager. Some potatoes! offered another, until, shortly, by the
contribution of a little by many, a hearty stew was made, upon which the
entire village and the weary travelers dined and while doing so, shared
their tales, talents, and camaraderie throughout the night. The very next
day, the travelers (who by now could be called strangers no more),
continued their journey, leaving the little town, and its people, behind. But
the villagers never forgot them, and the lesson they had learned. In fact,
during the hardest of times, in such a time as this tale, that little village
thrived, because he townsfolk never forgot how to make stone soup.
Day twenty-two: Be grateful

Many others have written on the subject of being grateful. Showing

gratitude, they say, is a way to true happiness and peace of mind. But why
is gratitude such a powerful thing?

Life tends to give us what we subconsciously expect. Our experience of life

is a reflection of our inner world. So in order to attract good things, we
need to feel that we already have them. And this is just another way of
saying we need to adopt an attitude of gratitude.

If it is your belief that you lack things, then that will be your experience of
the world. If you think you are missing out on something, then you will not
attract opportunities into your life. You will fail to be in the right place at
the
right time. You will not see the significance in certain things coming your
way.

If you value something very highly, if you treasure it and are grateful for it,
then it is likely that it will grow and become more powerful. This is true of
everything in life friendships, health, happiness and wealth.

All the great spiritual teachers have shown us that we need to be grateful
for what we have. The grace before meals, for example, which I used to
recite parrot fashion as a child, goes, for what we are about to receive
may the lord make us truly grateful. As a kid, I never understood why it
was so important. And I guess many adults still don t.

You might say, there are genuine problems in my life. I really don t have
XYZ. Well, this may be true, and I am not seeking to demean your
problems or trivialize the difficulties you are having. But life is what it is a
t
the moment. You cannot have it any other way and to kick against it just
causes more pain. The only sensible thing to do is to see the positive
things see what is good. Is the glass half empty or is it half full?

Viktor Frankl said that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and
within that gap is our whole experience of life. He discovered that
happiness does not lie outside in the world; it lies within. And this is a man
who lived as a prisoner in a Nazi death camp, so he does have some
credibility!

So what s it to be? What will you focus on today?

Day twenty-three: Combing the mirror

I owe this wonderful expression to David Icke. He is quite famous now (or
should that be infamous?) but in case you don t know him, here s a potted
history.

David grew up as a working class boy in the midlands, UK, and was briefly
a goalkeeper at Coventry City soccer club. He left the sport due to ill health
and became a well-respected sports commentator on the BBC. As a
teenager in the 1980s, I remember him presenting the snooker. He then
joined the Green Party and campaigned to become an MP in the British
parliament. As this time he came to the little town where I lived and, just by
chance, I met him on the street. I remember he shook my hand and told
me that, although I wasn t old enough to vote, I could influence those
around me.

All very fine and sensible. But then something odd happened. David had a
mystical experience and started saying that he was the son of God and
took to wearing a turquoise tracksuit because he believed this color
brought him closer to heaven. Everyone started to laugh at him, and his
name became synonymous with all that was loony and new-age.

He has since developed a big following and speaks to large crowds. He

believes we are being controlled by the illuminati, shadowy figures who
are enslaving humanity for their own ends.

Why am I telling you this? I don t believe most of it, but David does
subscribe to a set of beliefs about the nature of reality which are becoming
more and more accepted. Reality, he says, is essentially an illusion.
We perceive the world as we do because of the way we are made up
physiologically. We can perceive certain energy frequencies as light,
colour and brightness, sound, pitch and volume, and so on. The universe
is what it is, but it is essentially inaccessible to us as except through our
limited senses.

We can change the way we see the world we can change our own
experience of life. But not by trying to change that which is outside of
ourselves. The whole world lies within us. And the only thing we can
change is ourselves.

The phrase combing the mirror reminds us that if we want to make a

difference in our lives, we have to change ourselves. If we try to change
reality, we are only going to be frustrated. If you want to comb your hair,
you don t try to comb the image of yourself in the mirror the image is just
a reflection of yourself. The image will change naturally when you work on
yourself.

This is a view which many people fail to understand. But until we learn to
change ourselves, we will always have the same experience.

To quote the spoon bender in The Matrix, Don t try to bend the spoon
that s impossible. Only try to realize the truth. Then the whole universe will
bend.
Day Twenty Four: Be Yourself

How to be yourself

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
~Raymond Hull

Be yourself! This is a common piece of advice, often given before an

interview or a date or some other occasion when we need to impress.
Sounds like a strange piece of advice, though. How could you not be
yourself?

Strange at is seems, we have been conditioned all our lives to behave

according to other people s expectations, to dance to their tune, to let them
pull our stings. The truth is that most of us unless we have really thought
about it and made an effort to change are puppets, controlled by the
world around us. We crave approval. We need to fit in. In many ways, this
is just a characteristic of being human we are social animals and need to
fit into the group to survive. But this natural and healthy tendency has
taken over our lives to such an extent that we are often paralyzed by a fear
of the outside world and obsessed by how others see us.

But what would things look life if you could really be yourself ?

Don t give away your power

The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip ~Shakespeare, Richard III

It is impossible to really be yourself when you are worried about how other
people perceive you. We all care (at least a little bit) what other people
think we have been raised to believe that the approval of others is
important. And in some ways it is other people do have power over us.
But the truth is that it doesn t matter as much as you think; usually it
doesn t matter at all. Sometimes you ll be flavor of the month; other times
you might be public enemy number one. But you cannot control what other
people think of you, so why even try? Let them think what they will. To give
the opinions and thoughts of others so much importance is to make your
own life a misery. When you stop giving your power away to other people
like this, your life will be so much lighter and easier. To genuinely not care
what others think is an amazing and enlightening experience. Try it.
Live with integrity

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.

Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite
of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what
brings you nothing but misfortune. ~Boris Pasternak

Living with integrity means being an open, honest person. It means saying
what you think not in an arrogant, conceited way, which is usually a sign
of an inferiority complex but because you shouldn t hide what you
believe. If you are not true to yourself if you are dishonest, if you hide
part of yourself, either as a defense mechanism or to get a promotion or
make money, you will create what I have heard called an inner darkness,
and this will haunt you. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,
one of the most widely read and influential self-improvement books or f all
time, Steven Covey writes that truly successful people operate from a
principle-centered paradigm, steering their lives by means of a clear
compass of integrity. You might be able to succeed in some senses by
being dishonest and duplicitous, but in the end you will be unable to face
yourself, and if you cannot look in the mirror with a clear conscience, how
can you be yourself?

Don t take yourself so seriously

When you can laugh at yourself, you are free. ~ Ted Loder

Will the world stop turning if you screw up? Believe it or not, the world got
along fine without you for millions of years, and will do so long after you re
gone. So keep things in perspective. Will any of this matter in a year, ten
year, 100 years? In many ways, the world is a ridiculous place, full of crazy
things that make no sense at all. You can t make sense of it all however
hard you try. It is what it is, and so are you, with all your contradictions and
faults and failings. Remember the old saying: laugh and the world laughs
with you. So relax, lighten up; don t get things out of proportion.

Don t worry: accept things as they are

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past,
worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present
moment wisely and earnestly. ~ Gautama Siddharta (Buddha)
We have a tendency to think we are in control. But the truth is that there
are surprisingly few things we can influence directly. I read somewhere
recently that life is no about avoiding the storm but about learning to dance
in the rain, and I think this is a wonderful truth. We spend so much time
trying to change our world, but in reality we can only change ourselves. If
the rain is coming, it will come; if the sun is setting, it will set. Accept the
se
many, many things which are outside our control and, whatever comes
along, learn not only to live with it, but to embrace it, to love it to live any
other way is madness.

Do what you love

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don t let other people tell you what
to do and how to live. In the end, you are responsible for your experience
of life, and if you don t follow your dreams, you only have yourself to
blame. You re a long time dead as the saying goes, so don t waste time
with worry or regret . Don t be a puppet don t let the world around you
pull your strings. You cannot control it, so don t let it control you either. If
you are true to yourself and live with integrity, honesty and without fear,
then you will, perhaps, begin to see the answer to that most perplexing of
questions: Who am I?
Day twenty-five: dealing with procrastination
Procrastination is putting off living your life now, often by planning for the
future. I work in an environment where people are constantly talking about
the future will look like and how they are going to make it happen. There s
nothing wrong with having a vision of course. But we must not allow
planning to become the primary focus of our life. Wasn t it John Lennon
who said that life is what happens to you while you re making other plans?
These days I find it alot easier to get things done, and you can do the
same. There are a few simple pointers to remember.
1. Plan. Having said that we can get obsessed with planning, it is still a
necessary activity. Plan your monthly, weekly and daily must-do activities.
Draw up a to-do list; preferably, write it down or set up a spreadsheet. And,
include all the MUST do s in your list. These are things that must be done
today. Period.
2. Prioritize. Set up the activities in order of importance, the more
important ones taking precedence over the less important. If there are
urgent things to do, but not important enough to be worried about if not
done, put them below the important ones. The idea is based on the
established principle that 80% of rewards come from 20% of effort directed
towards accomplishing important work. This also relates to the idea of
proactively spending more time on important activities than on urgent
ones. Steven Covey writes about this in his Seven Habits.
3. Begin. Even if the deadline is a month from now, even if there is no
deadline. Say you want to starg a business. No one is going to force you to
do it - you need to be a self-starter. When it does come to deadlines, some
people seem to like stress, but I m not one of them. Starting out on an
important project will help you avoid stress and do it well. When you start a
major project just the day of the deadline, you will most likely feel stressed
and do a worse job. Get into the habit of starting things before the
deadline. When I was a trainee teacher, one of my mentors told me about
her one touch approach - whenever something came across her desk,
she dealt with it immediately, either herself or by delegation. I don t use
quite this approach myself, but it can be a good idea if you habitualy
procrastinate
4. Start small. what seems like huge mountain at first can be climbed one
step at a time. Just start working on the project or task on hand and don t
worry about getting it perfect. You still have a lot of time to iron out the
details. Remember to start well before the deadline so you can focus on
finishing the task and then ironing out the details. Trying to get everything
right on first attempt is the best excuse used by procrastinators!
Procrastination is a deadly disease and it not only kills motivation but also
your chances of success. Stop procrastinating right now and start
achieving your goals. Of course, we can go into much more detail. You
can learn more about getting rid of procrastination and how to
manage your time to achieve all your goals by checking out the Time
Manual.
Day twenty six: Live with integrity
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey gives some
timeless insights into living a truly effective life. The key is, before anythin
g
else, you must have a good foundation. This foundation is a private
victory, a self-mastery which comes before the success we aspire to
achieve in our interdependent social environments our work, our
business, our family. This foundation is twofold, consisting of habits which
constitute the cornerstone of our lives. Without practicing these habits we
build our life on quicksand, on the shifting, uncertain tides of a complex
and ever changing world. But when we have mastered ourselves, when we
have this foundation, we need not fear change. Indeed, we can embrace it
and use it creatively, integrating new learning and insight into our lives,
building greater synergy and reaching higher peaks of personal and social
achievement.
What Are These Twin Foundations?
First, we need to realize that we are in control. We are in the driving seat.
Life does not happen to us, we happen to life. Between what goes on
around us and how we respond, there is a choice we are not Pavlov s
dogs, conditioned by our upbringing to respond automatically to our
environment. True, we have been shaped by our childhood and those who
were dominant in our lives at the time we have learned to respond in
certain ways to certain stimuli, but it is a tragedy that so many of us go
through life acting out the old scripts we learnt when we were young. One
of the greatest human attributes is our freedom to choose our response
we are not robots! and, as such, our ability to consciously orchestrate our
own experience of life.
In truth, we are pulling our own strings, we are the creators of our own
reality, we are the captains of our lives. With this power, of course, comes
responsibility. The sign of living an ineffective life is the abdication of
responsibility to someone or something else, blaming our past, our
parents, our spouse, our kids, our background, or any of a million other
things. To play the victim is to give away our very humanity, our freedom.
So before all else, we must accept that we are, in the words of A Course in
Miracles, powerful beyond measure, and must take responsibility for
where we are in life. If we cannot get to this point, we cannot make
progress, and all our attempts at success in business, family or any other
area will either fail or be temporary and reversible.
Second, we need a sense of direction. When we recognize that we are the
captain of our soul, we naturally need a compass to navigate through the
world. This compass is a clear set of values, guiding principles by which
we live. We need a clear and constant paradigm out of which to operate,
and this is one thing we must do for ourselves there are no off the peg
solutions here, and no number of self-help books and courses will do us
any good unless we take this message to heart.
Mission Statements
A mission statement is a good way to crystallize these values, and the very
act of writing such a document can force us to look deeply inside
ourselves, let the mud and chaos of daily life settle and identify what really
matters most to us. This statement gives us a centre around which to
construct our life. All of us has a centre from which we operate, though this
centre often changes as we are buffeted around by the changing course of
our lives and as we react to the emotional demands made on us by our
significant others. Many of us inadvertently take work, money or family as
our centre, but unless we are anchored in a value based paradigm, we can
never truly achieve anything.
The Ego
The most pernicious of all centers is the self or the ego. Much modern
self-help material emphasizes the cult of self, suggesting implicitly that, so
long as it s alright for you and it feels good, then go for it! You can have
money, cars, houses, a great relationship, anything you want the
universe is a smorgasbord of delights and we need only choose our
experience. This is true, to some extent we do control our experiences
and there is nothing wrong with money, a car, a nice house or a great
relationship. Far from it, these things are intrinsically good. But when they
are achieved from an ego-centered paradigm, they do not give us
satisfaction and lasting happiness. What is missing here is the maxim,
what comes around, goes around. We reap what we sow, and if we sow
the cult of self, we reap isolation and defensiveness. By giving, by being
generous, and by valuing others, we tap into the natural flow of the
universe. Things come our way money, possessions, and all that but
we de not need to cling to them. We possess them, they do not possess
us. We can let go and, in so doing, the natural flow continues and more
comes our way. To focus on self is to hang on, to become acquisitive and
miserly and, ultimately, to cause stagnation, decay and death.
A knowledge of our own creative nature and a clear, values based
compass will not, in themselves, make us successful, but without them we
cannot even begin. Without them, we will be like a ship caught between a
thousand lighthouses, not knowing which way to turn, impotent and
stationary. Real change, real growth is possible only with this foundation in
place.
Day twenty-seven: Be healthy
Without your health, you cannot enjoy your career, your success or your
relationships, so you must pay attention to this area. Here are ten simple
things anyone can do to make a real difference to your level of health and
fitness. Doing all thee simple things will probably add years to your life,
too! As with all things, good health starts in the mind and then takes form
in the real world - opportunities arise naturally and we must take them,
acting in a natural and easy way to achieve our goals.
Know that you are in control
In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey tells us
that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and within this gap lies
all our happiness. Between what happens around us and our response to
it, there is a choice. Yes, we have been scripted through our childhood to
respond automatically in certain ways to certain events, but we can unhook
from our scripting and switch off the autopilot. We can assume manual
control and take charge of our own experience of life. Realizing this can be
frightening, but it is also immensely liberating and, ultimately, it is the fist
step to a successful, abundant and healthy life. You must decide to get up
and do something!
Live in Easy World
Easy World is a phrase I have borrowed from Julia Rogers Hamrick. In
her blog, she writes, when you are in the Easy World reality, harmony and
ease prevail and things work out as if by magic and as long as you relax
and allow yourself to align with Easy World, you are there. This is a nice
way of saying that life should not be a struggle. Effortlessness is our
natural state and, whatever our circumstances, we should relax and go
with the flow of things, not out of laziness and apathy, but out of a
realization that to swim against the tide is tiring and futile there is a grain
to the universe and we should go with it. The benefits of a low stress life
are enormous and scientifically validated those of us with less stress in
our lives live longer, healthier lives.
Exercise three times per week
It s vital that you take some time to exercise several times per week. Do
some weights and then either some cardio or interval work. This will build
muscle and increase your metabolic rate. The benefits of exercise are
astonishing. You will be less prone to diabetes and, since your
gastrointestinal transit time will be reduced, it lowers your risk of colon
cancer. Exercise strengthens bone making you les prone to osteoporosis
and you will also be less likely to suffer lower back pain. It also increases
your HDL (good) cholesterol and lowers your blood pressure. People who
exercise regularly live several years longer than those who do no exercise.
Sort out your sleeping habits
Not getting enough sleep gives you a poorer quality of life. Of course, it
makes you feel groggy and tired, but it also affects your memory and
cognitive functioning your ability to process information. People who
don t get enough sleep have twice the risk of being injured at work and The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 100,000
deaths are caused each year because of tired drivers. How much sleep
you need is a very individual thing, but not getting enough can damage
your health and even reduce your life expectancy. One study recently
suggested that the reason women live longer than men is because they
sleep better.
One helpful suggestion for getting enough sleep is to always get up at the
same time but to go to bed when you are tired. Some days you will get
more sleep, and some less, but by doing this you will always get the
amount of sleep you need.
Meditate
Like sleep, taking time regularly to relax and unwind is very beneficial to
health. Regular meditation can reduce back pain, headaches and
depression. It can lower blood pressure and boost the immune system. It
can help improve sleep quality and, above all, it promotes a relaxed and
restful state of mind and helps with concentration and focus.
Eat a handful of mixed nuts every day
Eating 30-60 grams of nuts per day can do wonders for your health.
Regularly eating nuts reduces the risk of stroke, diabetes, dementia,
macular degeneration and heart disease. Nit eaters live two years longer
than the rest of us, according to a recent study. Nuts contain vitamin E,
copper, magnesium, boron, folic acid as well as manganese and plant
sterols. They contain a lot of unsaturated fat and very little saturated fat,
and nut eaters do not put on weight from consumption of nuts. Nobody
knows why nuts are so good for you, but eating them regularly will do
wonders for you.
Eat a salad every day
A recent study by the UCLA School of Public Health/LSU Health Sciences
Center found that eating a salad every day has significant health benefits
(as if we didn t know already!) Try to go for a mixture of dark, green leafy
vegetables (not iceberg lettuce which doesn t contain much by way of
nutrients). Salad provides many important vitamins and minerals, and even
better news is that salad dressing contains chemicals which help the body
absorb cancer-fighting nutrients called free radical scavengers more
effectively.
Stop drinking alcohol
The health benefits of drinking small amounts of alcohol on a regular basis
have been well documented. However, most people who drink alcohol tend
to drink too much and there are many negative health effects of this kind of
drinking. I have found personally that it is just a lot easier to be very clear-
cut and decide that you will never drink under any circumstances. Of
course, you need not be too evangelical about this eating a tiramisu or
some brandy sauce won t hurt you, but a black and white rule makes life a
lot easier.
Cut down sugar and caffeine
Again, you probably don t want to be too evangelical about this, but it s
worth cutting down on refined sugar and caffeine. I have found that having
sugar-free days to be a very useful way of cutting back. Once or twice a
week I will have a sugar day, when I allow myself to eat sugar. I don t
binge, but I allow myself a small amount of chocolate or desert. I also
recommend having caffeine-free days, too. Even on days when you do
drink coffee, tea and coke, only have one or two cups. This will improve
your quality of sleep and make you less tense. Coming down from a sugar
high can make you really tired, so staying away from sugar can keep you
alert. Try to go for less refined sugars, such as those found in fruit, honey
and, especially, maple syrup.
Go to church!
Recent research has shown that people who attend church or some other
form of corporate religious activity on a regular basis live between 1.8 and
3.1 years longer. So you ll need to wait a couple more years before getting
your reward in paradise!
Day twenty-eight: Hypnosis

It is my belief that hypnosis is the most powerful technique for changing

our subconscious programming. We have been conditioned since
childhood to see the world in a certain way, and the beliefs under which we
operate at a deep, subconscious level have been scripted into us by a
process of which we are largely unaware.

If we are to seriously change our experience of life, then hypnosis is a

must. To some people, hypnosis might conjure up images of stage shows
or thoughts of people being forced to do crazy things against their will.

Like anything, hypnosis can be abused, but in fact it is the most natural
and normal thing in the world. Normally, our mind is in a state called beta
quite active, with the conscious part of the mind in the driving seat. But
when we relax, as we drift off to sleep, when we daydream, we enter
another kind of consciousness called alpha. This is a different state,
sometimes called a trance. Hypnosis is simply the deliberate induction of
this trance state.

In the alpha state, our conscious mind is less to the fore, and our
subconscious is able to take over to a much greater extent. The
subconscious, where all our beliefs and scripting lie, is then susceptible to
suggestion, and we can take advantage of this openness to introduce new
beliefs directly into our mind.

Affirmations and visualizations are good, but in hypnosis we can go more

deeply and directly to the place we need to work on.

So do you need to go and make an appointment with a professional

hypnotherapist? Well you can do, and if you have serious problems I would
suggest you seek out a properly qualified therapist. But there is a lot you
can do to without the help of such a person. It is fairly easy to put yourself
into a trance state and make hypnotic suggestions to yourself. Even a very
light alpha state will have benefits.

Personally I like to use hypnosis scripts on CDs and MP3s. You can
download these from the Internet for a few dollars or buy them from a
shop. You can also record your own scripts. The best products have
music, which contains subliminal messages to reinforce the hypnotic
suggestions. I have personally used these and can attest to their
effectiveness.
Day twenty-nine: Take action
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone
must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.
Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus,
everyone s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
Viktor Frankl
When you do what you love, the whole world comes alive. It starts dancing
to your tune it becomes your puppet. When you are doing the thing you
love, you will naturally draw the right people and resources towards
yourself to ensure that you accomplish your goals.
Taking action is important without it you will probably never achieve
anything. But the action must be easy, effortless even. And action can only
be effortless when you are in the flow of the universal stream. To do a job
you hate is to swim against the tide; to get up every day and go to a job
you feel no enthusiasm for is a waste of life.
The way we are now is a result of our past thoughts, our self-talk and
visualizations. But every moment is a new beginning. Our future depends
on what we are thinking about right now. So to create the life we desire, we
should dwell on thoughts about the things we love and trust the universe to
take care of it.
Day thirty: The meaning of life

Miguel Torga, the great Portuguese writer, said that 'life has the meaning
we give it -- our richness, our enthusiasm, our pride -- or our cowardice.
The search for meaning is a constant theme in our lives and we try to find
it in many different ways. But in the end, I believe that meaning can only be
found in the way we add something to the world.
What is adding value?

Ask 100 people what they think gives meaning to their lives and you will
get 100 different responses. Money, property, a successful career, a big
car, an attractive spouse, partner, But I m sure most people would agree
that these things in themselves do not add lasting and profound meaning
to us.
Albert Einstein said that only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile, and
I believe that a life of service to others is what truly brings meaning.
The term service may suggest that we have to give up our jobs and
money to go help the poor and destitute. I know several people who have
done just this, and they have certainly found happiness and peace in their
choice of lifestyle. But a life of adding value does not mean abandoning
your own needs and desires. It is not the same as sacrifice; far from it.
When we truly add value to the lives of others, we cannot help but receive
value ourselves. Adding value is the only real way to live a meaningful life.
Love what you do

So the question remains: How can we add value? I believe the answer to
this is surprisingly simple.
To quote Steve Jobs in a speech he gave in 2005:
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to
do great work is to love what you do. If you haven t found it yet, keep
looking.
Through Apple, Steve Jobs has undoubtedly added immense value to the
world. He did it by following his heart and has been richly rewarded for it.
The same can be said for many famous, successful and wealthy people.
Loving what you do means starting right here, right now. Whatever you are
doing, you can start to love it.
 Of course, you re not suddenly going to love a job you ve hated for years.
In fact, if you hate your job so much then you probably ought to leave. But
it s unlikely that there is no aspect of your job that you like. The trick is to
identify these good bits and focus on them, making them more central to
your experience. And the things you don t like? Can you find any
redeeming qualitative in these things? Can you change your attitude so
that you see these tasks as useful or meaningful?
If you can start to love what you re doing, then you ll be adding value in
some way.
Do What You Love

Interestingly, Steve Jobs didn t say do what you love. He said love what
you do. You don t have to quit your dull nine-to-five job and start all over
again. But doing what you truly love certainly has its rewards. In Making a
Life, Making a Living, Mark Albion cites a study carried out by Srully
Blotnick. The careers of 1,500 business school graduates were tracked
from 1969 to 1980 and were split into two groups: group A said they
wanted to make money first so they could do what they really wanted later,
and group B said they would follow their interests first, regardless of
financial considerations. At the end of the study, there were 101
millionaires. All but one came from group B.
A final word: Real happiness

I hope you have learned something from this little book. It was a labor of
love, and I hope it amused, entertained or enriched you in some small way.
It won t change your life, of course. Only one thing can do that your own
decision to keep improving.

I encourage you to learn a little more every day improve slightly every
day and soon the dripping tap will have filled the bucket.

We can learn a lot from other people. That s why I m going to end with a
selection of my favorite quotes about happiness from my favorite famous
people.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and
end of human existence ~Aristotle

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness
consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of
life ~Albert Camus

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the
only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have
sought and found how to serve ~Albert Schweitzer

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go
outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the
heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all
is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst
the simple beauty of nature ~Anne Frank

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands,

because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have
we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have
something else or something more ~Brother David Steindl-Rast

In the end, life cannot be reduced to a formula or a quotation. So the most

important question remains and only you can answer it what is
happiness?