Contents

3 questions to change anything in your life Changing jobs Claim back your energy Vizualising the life you want Staying in love Letting go to get what you want 7 tips for perfect kissing Change your mood Oozing sex appeal and being more attractive 21 days to a new habit Say NO to boost your self esteem The cancer view of life 50 best personal development blogs Anchoring a habit Attracting more money into your life Being a dad, not just a father Being unhappy to find happiness Changing beliefs Breaking your oputcome barriers Clear your house to clear your mind Clouds of consciousness Getting connected to you Giving up smoking How to make the gym more interesting Kaizen for personal development Rewrite your past to create your future Self discipline, willpower and motivation _ Self discipline Self discipline, willpower and motivation Willpower Self discipline, willpower and motivation Motivation Silent power Slowing the world down Stages of your own evolution Template reality The process of a dream Timeline perspective Using a computer and a headset to change your life What to do when you lose your mojo Your roles in life 10 tips to stay sane at Christmas 1 2-4 57 89 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 -32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 62 63 64 65 66

3 questions to change your anything in your life

How do you change the current situation you are in just now? That is what I am asked most often by clients. For any situation whether it be career, love, finances, home, family, anything at all, you have to ask yourself three simple questions. What is my current situation? You have to fully understand and be aware of your current situation A lot of clients I deal with say they dont have a problem until they admit they have a problem, for example with alcohol an alcoholic is not an alcoholic until they admit theyre an alcoholic. You have to be fully aware of your situation and admit that it is wrong. Obviously most people know this or they wouldnt be asking the question how can I change?. The next question you have to ask is: Where do I want to be? For you to change anything in your life you have to know where you want to go in life. You wouldnt jump into the back of a taxi and say to the driver: You: I want to go somewhere Driver: Where to guv? You: Dont know, just take me there Driver (on the phone): I think Ive got a psychiatric patient who needs help here Its the same with life, you have to know where you want to go before you can actually get there. I was speaking with a client a few weeks ago who said she wanted a new job, as she was really fed up and bored with her current job. I asked her what kind of job she wanted, she looked at me and said the same type of job Ive got just now!. Where is the logic in that? Most people are happy to trundle along doing the same boring job for the rest of their lives and maybe the adventurous ones will go to a different company but do the same job. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as you are happy. If you are not happy, decide what you want to do first before making plans to change. The last question to ask yourself is: How am I going to get there? Simple question, tough to put into practice. However this can be made easier for you. When you are planning, try not to bog yourself down with all the hows, wheres, whys and whats, just do it. If you know you want to change, if you know what you want to change to just start!. Do anything to start you along the path of change. For example: You want a new career, you know the type of job you want, great. But, you dont have any experience, what then? Go do a course at college thats a first step, go do some voluntary work in the line of work you want to do, send out your CV to companies youd like to work for, do anything but make the first step.

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Changing jobs
Housework! Are you living the life you really want to live or thought you would be living 1, 3, 5, 10 years ago? Maybe it's time to look at your life and take stock and get rid of the debris. Have you ever let the house cleaning pile up so much it gets you down for a few weeks? the washing has not been done, the ironing needs done, the skirting boards need dusting, the garage needs cleaned out, your wardrobes are full of crap, your kitchen drawers are housing letters, book, pills, toys and other rubbish. I've done this in the past and felt like shit every time I went home. Then it reaches saturation point, you get up on a Saturday morning early and decide that's it the house is getting cleaned from top to bottom. I would spend all day cleaning out the drawers, the wardrobes every single thing that I had been neglecting the previous weeks. Come 8pm you've done it. How did you feel? my guess is you felt great, you spirit was lifted, your mind felt lighter and you had a little more energy even though you had just spend 5-8 hours cleaning. This is your spirit lifting and your perspective changing. Your house was tidy so new possibilities could happen in your life. You could invite people up for dinner because you're not ashamed of the mess, you could feel good giving some clothes to charity, you felt a weight lifted as you'd dealt with all the letters that you had been meaning to deal with but put them in the drawer for later, in the clear up you managed to find your phone so you returned your phone calls so you felt you weren't neglecting your friends and family. There are scores of reasons you felt better about cleaning the house. Well it might be time to clean out your life! Do you feel a bit low, feel lethargic, feelings of despair, hopelessness and your life is lacking direction? You need to look at your life and what you are doing that makes you feel like this. 1. Your job Are you doing the job you are meant to be doing? If you work full time you spend most of your waking day working. If you hate your job you hate 8-12 hours of your day. If you are doing this every day it adds up to a lot of unhappiness. Change it! I can already hear you thinking 'yeah right, it's not that easy' why is it not that easy? The money is too good, I don't have any other skills, I've been doing it for 30 years there's nothing else, and Im too old. Okay I hear all the reasons for not doing it. Answer me this question: If your son, daughter, niece or nephew came to you one day and said they were feeling really shit and it was because of their job at the restaurant, they didn't like it and it was getting them down. After listening to them you would more than likely advise them to change jobs. Now, you may say that's different as they are young, it's easy to find a different job, however in their mind it is no different from your situation. With their limited knowledge and experience of the world their perspective on life is the same as yours. I other words giving up their crappy job is no less different than you giving up your job and starting something else. I can hear lots of 'yeah but I........................' what it comes down to having the balls to step up to the plate and change your future happiness and your family's.

Grab your balls! I worked at BT for 10 years answering the phones to unhappy customers and some happy customers. I got paid well, would get a great pension, health benefits the works. However, I was unhappy. I resented the fact that I had to get up every morning and go to work at a place I didn't like. I was out of sync and it showed. My wife knew I was unhappy. I wanted to help people in some way, work in the social care sector, so I applied for a few jobs and couldn't get in. I started looking around for voluntary work. Then when the chance of voluntary redundancy came up I thought about it and dismissed it many times, I would only get 11,000. I had a wedding to pay for, 2 children, a big house. When I discussed my plans for a new business selling Signed 1st edition books and worked out the finances and after discussing it with my wife I went for it. I grabbed my balls and left the company. The first year was great and I had an annual turnover of 40,000, but I did work around 12 hours a day, however it was from home. After a year or so the business decreased dramatically for various reasons and I could no longer get the money I was getting before. So I folded the business and went back to BT on a temporary contract working with the people I had worked with before. I noticed how unhappy most of them were and they were getting paid a hell of a lot more than me. I was grateful to my friend and manager for giving the chance to earn a bit until I re-evaluated my life. Again I turned to the social care sector and the same things happened as before, I had no experience. So again I looked at voluntary work, but managed to get a job as a support worker helping the homeless and that is where I am today. I am not totally in sync but I am a lot closer than I was before and I am happier for it. My wife is now in the same situation. She has grabbed her balls and gone to university full time to study for a degree, she left a job paying nearly double what I earn just now. It's a bit scary but we KNOW it will work out and we have made moderate adjustments to our lives to help her dream. 7 tips 1. Do you need to change your job or do you need to change the way you do your job? Write down all the things you don't like about your job Now write down all the things you do like It maybe you don't need to change your job it could be your working practice or the people you work with. Some people have left jobs and later found out it wasn't the actual job itself they didn't like it was an aspect of the workplace they didn't like. You need to know this first before you do anything else.

2. Do you know what you really want to do? Most people don't know what they really want to do with their working life. Try the following exercise: Write down 7 things you love to do Write down your 7 best talents (be honest and don't be shy) Write down 7 jobs you'd love to do Write down 7 things other people say you're good at Write down 7 courses you would take at university if you had the chance After you have down this look at all the things you've written and try and find a common theme. It might be teaching, it might be learning, it might be driving just try and find the theme. 3. If someone gave me a million pounds If someone gave you a million pounds to change careers what career would you choose? Whatever you answer will give you an insight into the type of job you really want and for some the type of person you really are. 4. Build a bridge to a new career If you can invest the time and money you might still be able to work and learn a new career at the same time therefore giving you the chance to move one foot out of the door of your current job and one foot into a new job. 5. Be willing to learn What keeps young people young is their enthusiasm for learning. As we get older we tend to think we are too old to learn something new. The more we learn the healthier our brains are. It has been shown that if we keep our minds active our brain can regenerate and build more synapses and keep us youthful in mind and spirit. It is a myth that you cannot teach old dogs new tricks. Get this out of your thinking pattern and you can change your life. Be willing to take courses or go to university or college or back to take some exams, what is holding you back. 6. Change your thinking A lot of people have gotton into such a rut about their jobs that they believe it will be impossible to leave their job without getting the sack or being made redundant or retiring. A lot of people also believe that they are being selfish if they think about leaving. If you feel you are being disloyal to your employer, don't. You really are only a number and you can be replaced. This might be hard to swallow but it's the truth. You have to start thinking about what you want and need. Speak it over with your partner; get them on your side. Do the figures and the training and everything else, but look after you and you will be better equipped to look after other people e.g. your family. 7. Grab your balls You've figured out what you want to do, you've done some training, you've done the figures, spoke it over with friends and family, you've done everything. Now grab your balls and jump.

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Claim back your energy

Lots of us are giving our energy away needlessly every day. It is no wonder that a lot of us feel drained, in the morning and at night when we have finished working. We are giving our energy away to people and projects we shouldn't be. What do I mean by this? Think of your typical day it could go something like this; wake up with an alarm clock at 7am, drag yourself out of bed, get the kids wakened for school, brush teeth, shower, get kids wakened for school, make breakfast, shout at kids to get up for school, put make up on (if you're a woman, or a guy whatever flicks your switch), tell the kids to stop arguing, get packed lunches ready, shout at kids to get ready, get them into the car, kiss your partner goodbye, go into the office, read your e-mail, think of all the things you've got to do that day, talk on the telephone getting harassed sometimes, you get worried as time is running out and you haven't finished your work, go home at 5pm or stay on, feeling even more harassed as you know your partner might be upset, you eventually go home, speak to the kids and your partner, make the dinner, clean the dishes, kick back relax go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. This is a typical scenario and I've only scratched the surface. We drain ourselves every day by talking to people who steal our energy. We drain our energy by waking up in the middle of a dream (we are more lethargic if we have woken up during REM sleep). We drain our energy shouting at our kids, pick your battles well. We drain our energy fighting with loved ones, when you argue and fight with someone and it upsets you afterward you are giving someone else your power, you need this power so keep it to yourself. Here are 7 tips for keeping your energy 1. Ditch the alarm clock If you waken each morning with an alarm clock try and stop this habit. It might sound a little scary at first but it is worth it. Whilst we are sleeping we go through stages of sleep. In the morning we are often drifting in and out of REM sleep. If are awakened abruptly from REM sleep it is difficult to recover from the grogginess we feel. The alarm clock often wakes us up. By ditching the alarm clock you wake up naturally and your brain will automatically adjust to your sleeping cycle and prompt you when to wake up. Sound a bit far fetched. I have been doing it for over 12 years and I have honestly never used an alarm clock in all that time. If I need to get up a little earlier than normal I remind myself what time I need to get up. What does happen is that I sometimes wakes up a few hours before the stated time and then 1 hour before it and then half an hour before it, but I still get a good rest as my brain is taking care of the sleep. Don't go cold turkey; set the alarm clock for 10 minutes later than normal. Before going to sleep tells yourself what time you want to get up.

2. Stop shouting at the kids This is a tough one for some of us. I still shout but only when I've reached saturation point. Children learn by example and I started to notice that my boys were using the same technique as me when they wanted to get their point across or they were upset. This is clearly not good for you or for your children. Now if my kids do something they shouldn't have we will sit them down make them know we are angry or upset and punish them accordingly (by this I mean take away something they like e.g. the TV, computer or something else). When you shout when you are upset you are literally throwing your energy to that person and the bad vibes it creates can last a long time. 3. Fighting with loved ones One of my clients was really upset a few weeks ago and couldn't stop crying. I asked him what the problem was and he said he had had a fight with his girlfriend and they had split up and he felt as if he was having a breakdown. I spoke with him for over an hour and one he had calmed down I said did he realise he was giving his power to another person. He was letting someone else control how he thought about his life therefore how he felt and how he acted. This was a simple statement but a powerful one, my client got it. He was able to control himself and to a degree his thoughts and able to reclaim some of his power. Every day we lose some of our energy by giving credence to what other people think about us. Be yourself always and you will lose less energy. 4. The silly things How many times have you got angry or upset waiting in a traffic jam, a queue for a bus, a queue in the shops, losing your keys, your wallet. If we stop to think about the things we get upset about we would realise how silly it was. I lost a sheet of paper this morning for an insurance pack I had to send back. After 5 minutes of looking for it and not finding it I was starting to get angry. I immediately recognised this and just let it pass. I still couldnt find it and thought whats the worst that can happen. I wrote a quick note to the insurance company and explained I had lost the paper they had sent but I was sure they would have a copy of it themselves. Its the little things that can upset us the most. 5. People you work with They are just that, they are people you work with. They are not your friends, they are not your relatives they are people you work with. Their opinion of you doesnt matter therefore do not let them upset you. If you need to say something to them do it immediately and dont let a small comment from them simmer inside you. If you do this you will gain a lot of your power back and sometimes a lot of respect.

6. Stand up for yourself. The quickest way to gain control of your energy and gain more power is to always stand up for yourself. When I was younger I was bullied and later on in life I had massive problems with confrontation, I just couldnt handle it at all. I realised what an effect this was having on me and over time I realised I didnt really stand up for myself. An incident happened when I was around 17 and I stood up for myself, scary as it was, and I was empowered. I gained my self respect back and gained respect from others. I always stand up for myself in the right situations, choose your battles well. Dont think everyone wants a fight with you; you can still have a laugh with someone if they are making fun of you as long as it is with your consent i.e. theyre laughing with you. 7. Whats the worst that can happen? This is my wife and I favourite phrase Whats the worst that can happen. If you find yourself panicking about things, anything, ask yourself whats the worst that can happen and most times its not as bad as you think it is. When youre panicking youre gibing your energy away to something non existent. When you worry about things youre giving your energy away to something non existent. Change your thoughts, gain back your energy and change your life.

www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog

Visualising the life you want

The visions in your head create the life you live! Everybody who has ever read a self development book of any kind knows this, but it is worth re-iterating. It literally affects every single area of our lives from going for a walk to building up a business. We have to realise that our thoughts are real and they have energy. Think about what you do every morning to go to work. You wake up; picture your place of work and either roll back to sleep or jump up, ready for action. You picture, in your mind, what you have to do for the day, either dreading it or looking forward to it. You are picturing your outcome for the day ahead. You do this with almost everything you do day to day. The thing is when we have pictures in our head and dread the image we are never going to have a good day and we leave our days in the hands of fate. If you took 10 minutes out of your day, dont say you dont have the time because thats just not true and you know it, we could have a great day, a great week, a great month, a great year and ultimately a great year. A lot of people are concentrating so much on what they dont want that they are attracting more of what they dont want. I was talking with a friend the a few weeks ago and he told me his son was always getting into trouble at school and seemed to attract children who wanted a fight. During the conversation it was clear that his son was always on his guard in case someone picked on him or bumped into him. My friend told me his son always had a scowl on his face and looked angry all the time, another reason he was attracting attention to himself. I got a chance to speak with my friends son and he did indeed have a scowl. We spoke about his problems at school and he told me what my friend had told me. I asked the boy of he could try something for me. I asked him to be aware of every time he scowled and to straighten his face, literally. I also asked him if he could try a fun exercise very morning and that was too picture in his mind having a great day at school, I asked him to picture having a laugh with his friends, playing football, and getting on well at school and enjoying himself. I didnt mention about the fights or anybody who was causing the trouble. I wanted him to concentrate on the good things and not wake up every morning thinking he was going to get into a fight. My friend reported, a few days ago, that his son has not been in trouble for a few weeks and had actually enjoyed going to school. How it works By visualising something you are literally creating a ball of energy, it is real and it can be directed. It is attracted to the same type of energy you have created e.g. positive energy you have created will attract positive energy someone else has created. Sound far fetched?

Try this: Stand up. Feet together, legs straight. Bend down and try and touch your toes without bending your knees. See how far you get.

Now try this. Picture in your minds eye or feel it, if you think you cant visualise, yourself bending down and touching your toes but this time going further than you did the first time. Open your eyes. Now do it again, bend forward in your minds eye and bend forward and go further than you did the last time. Do this a few times. Now stand up for real and bend down, without bending your knees, and try and touch your toes. I am willing to bet that you got further than you did the first time you tried it. This is the power of visualisation, only this time it is affecting your physiology as well, thats for another article. For now, take it for granted that your thoughts stem from mental energy which forms a physical energy which is attracted to the same form of energy of others and attracts back to you. If you do this only once you may get something back in return. However of you do it often you will get what you wish for or visualise for. The process works like this; Set your desired outcome Visualise it in your minds eye Focus on it often, preferably a set time every day Always give it positive energy. Be sure not to mix up those positive thoughts with thoughts of negativity, which is quite easy to creep into your thoughts. This works every time and the only reason it wont work is you working in negative thoughts into your thinking when visualising your desired outcome. Positive thinking This might sound clichd, but it is true. You will not attract positive things in your life if half your time is spent thinking negatively. If you keep thinking about the lack of money you have you will NEVER attract money into your life. Also be prepared to work for your desired outcomes. Dont just visualise 1 million pounds and expect not to work for it. You will have to be aware of the synchronicities that will happen after a few days of your practicing your visualisations. Be on the lookout for people coming into your life, books presenting themselves, signs in general that will lead you towards your desired outcome. If you have any stories about how this has worked for you let me know or if you have any questions let me know and I will be happy to answer your questions.

www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog

Staying in love
Having a great partnership whether in your personal life or your professional life is easy, to begin with. However longer term it can be harder. It doesnt have to be this way at all. In this article I will show you a really simple trick to stay in love with your partner, your job, your kids, your education, any area of your life. When we do something there has to be a payoff at the end. For example going to work everyday, the payoff is the money which is deposited into your bank account every month or every week. You may not like it but you still do it as the rewards are greater than the pleasure of staying in bed. You may not like going to the gym but you do it as the rewards are greater than being a bit flabby or downright fat. There is a payoff for everything we do in life. Think about it for a minute, I challenge you to think of something you do which doesnt have a payoff; you go to the toilet to relive your bladder and to stop feeling uncomfortable, you eat to stop the hunger, you make love to produce endorphins in your body and make you feel good, you go to work to get paid, you take the dog for a walk so he doesnt make the house messy.everything has a payoff. The payoff What most of us do though is make the payoff the primary goal. Would you go to work if you didnt get paid? For most of us that would be NO! NO! NO! So your primary goal, in this example, is go to work and get some money. My aim when I go to work is to try and make the payoff less important. Yeah right! You might be saying as if that could happen. I do like my job, I wouldnt do it if I didnt get paid but I still like it and I enjoy what I do. My job is a path to what I really want to be doing in my life and that is changing peoples lives, it is my first step to that outcome. What do I do to make the payoff less important than the actual work I do? Change my perspective on your work. My main job is to help prevent and to help sustain tenancies for persons who have previously been homeless. Now, I could in, do the minimum, complain about the large caseload I have and the amount of time to do an effective job but I try and look at my job in a different way. I have the chance to change a persons life for the better, I have the chance to help them stay in a house or a flat and possibly help them to become the person they want to be. Once they are in their flat or house I still work with them to try and maintain it, and to help them find employment or help with their health needs. I cannot help people who do not want to be helped and there are a lot of people like that in my line of work. However once in a while someone extends their hand for help and that hand is met with a multitude of hands willing to help and I have a chance to be a part of a life changing process starting with helping to put a roof over someones head. Thats the bigger payoff, the money is a good thing, it pays the mortgage but spiritually I get the better payoff.

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Falling in love again What the hell has all this got to do with staying in love with your partner? Everything! You have a payoff by being I love, you have a payoff by loving your kids, you have a payoff by loving life but its a two way process you love and adore your kids, they will get love, affection time and attention from you and you get happy, loving, responsible children. But what happens when the kids are being a pain in the arse, what happens when your partner has two sets of love handles, what happens when you hate your job? Start falling in love with what you originally fell in love with! Take a moment to think of 5 reasons why you love your children Take a moment to think of 5 things you love about your partner Take a moment to think of 5 things you love about your job (and there will be some) Take a moment to think of 5 reasons you love going to university When doing this exercise you have to put your heart and soul into it. Dont just say it out loud, feel it, see it, look at your partner and see those beautiful eyes you adore, hear the voice that gets you excited, feel their heart, think back to when you felt all those things. Do it with everything that may be dying in your life. You have to re-acquaint yourself with those feelings as those feelings can go if we dont notice it going.

Feeling the love Some people think I dont think I love my partner anymore, what happened? take time to get acquainted with them again. I am not saying your relationship will change overnight however, if you start to think about your partner all over again your partner will see the changes in you, they will feel a different vibe from you and they will respond. We have to feel the feelings we felt when we first fell in love and that keeps us going. We are not meant to just drift along hoping that the feelings will stay. Thats what it means when people say you have to work hard at a marriage, you have to work hard to feel the love for you partner. Its true for anything in your life. Just re acquaint yourself with what you felt when you first started on the thing in your life and you can get the feelings back and subsequently the love back. Feel the hate Incidentally you can do this in reverse. If you dont want to like something anymore, chocolate for example. Think of 5 reasons why you really hate it makes you fat (see yourself being fat, see yourself being ridiculed, see yourself naked in the mirror as a fat person), it clogs your arteries (see your blood vessels being blocked, see yourself being out of breath,). You get the picture. If you can really put emotion into this and do it often it is a very powerful tool for change in your life.

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Letting go to get what you want

Have you ever gone for a job interview not caring at all whether you get the job or not and invariably you end up getting it? This has happened to me a few times and in different areas of my life. The best time it ever happened to me was the night I met my wife. For years I had been dreaming about my perfect partner. I visualised a woman with long dark hair, she was petite, intelligent and able to stand up for herself. I pictured us having two children and I pictured the house we lived in, I gave it the works. I had this in my head for about 6 years. Every time I went out for a night out I would look for her. I dated in-between but never really found anybody whom I could say shes the one. I eventually grew tired of looking and on the 19th July 2002 I was walking along Argyle street in Glasgow on my way to work and I said to myself thats it, I love being a bachelor and that is the way I will stay for the rest of my life and at that I gave up the fight to find my perfect woman. During the day I was saddened as I hadnt found the one. Earlier on in the week I had been asked to go to a 40th birthday party from some colleagues at work and I had said maybe but on that day I didnt feel like it, I was feeling a bit down. Later on I decided to go as everybody else seemed to be going. I got chatting to a few friends on the night out and we were having a laugh and at 7.30pm a woman walked in wearing a red t shirt and a pair of brown cord trousers, I looked up and said who the hell is that! I later found out it was a colleagues sister. She was not interested in me at all at the beginning but then a song came on that I loved, I held out my hand and asked if she wanted to dance and it was electric. Her name is Sharon, she had two boys from a previous marriage whom I adore, we have a fantastic house, we have a love that I have never known and we have a little dog called Trinity (after the character from The Matrix), perfect. The point of that story was to show that I had all the ingredients of getting what I wanted except I had emotionally held on too tight to my desire of having my perfect partner. As soon as I let go of the desire she came to me. All areas of life This happens in many areas of my life and I have to catch myself before I become too emotionally involved. Michael Neill stated in his book you can get what you want Imagine what you want is like a beautiful butterfly in your hands. If you squeeze too tightly the butterfly will be crushed, if you hold your hands too loosely, the butterfly will simply fly away. The secret is to hold it gently. This is true in most areas of your life. Have you ever dated someone who just held too tightly to you, they clung to you, they called all the time? How did you feel? A bit claustrophobic I would guess and I would also guess that you are no longer with that person. I have noticed that my web design and hosting business bradlewdesigns ticks over nicely as I do not focus on it too intently and I dont need money from it. I get passive income from the hosting side of it and I get to do something I love from the design side of it, and that is working with computers and learning new technologies. And due to the fact that I dont need the income from it I tend to get more work.

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The recipe The goal you need to have a goal, preferably written down so you can check on it from time to time. Visualise Picture in your minds eye everything about the goal, how it looks, what it smells like use all your sense. Now get emotional with it how do you feel inside about it. Do this often but feel relaxed when you are doing it. Steps Take gentle steps toward your goals. If you want to start a business, enquire about it; enjoy the process of research and finding out. Too many people want everything to happen yesterday. If you take it easy youll enjoy every minute of the process, setting up the bank accounts with your business name on it, doing your website, getting an accountant (one who you feel connected to and who knows your business), if you take gentle steps you will feel less stressed and enjoy the whole experience. Rest and let go - Let go of your goals for a bit. Stay focused on what you want but let the tension and stress you might feel go. Just hold up your hands and say I need some time with my family, I need a break, and I need to go fish. You need to let the cosmos catch up with your goals and their next step. You cant do everything at 100 miles per hour if the cosmos only works at 60 miles per hour. Just take some quality time to reflect and you will reach your goals a lot quicker. When I first started this blog, only 4 weeks ago I checked my stats every hour I was obsessed. I then dropped it to every few hours then every day and now I check it when I feel like it. I try to concentrate on the articles and the ideas in the articles rather than the money now. It took me 4 weeks to pull myself back, but I love doing this now, even if nobody writes a comment or clicks on the ads or makes a donation, I will continue as I love doing it.

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7 tips for fantastic kissing:

Kissing is often an overlooked art when it comes to seducing your partner. Obviously there are many types of kisses and they can be used in different settings. Here are some kisses that are used with partners. Greeting kisses with your partner The hello kiss: A quick kiss on the lips which says hey babe, how was your day. The hello kiss +: A bit longer than the hello kiss, this kiss says hey babe, I was thinking about you today (eyebrows raised). Not even in the door kiss: A passionate kiss which says, well! It kind of speaks for itself.

Lounging about the house kisses: Just a quick kiss: A quick kiss just to remind them you love them Kids are out playing kiss: A longer kiss followed by the words the kids are out playing.. Youre getting it tonight kiss: passionate, playful, long and hard saying Im horny!!! Just before sleep kiss: A quick peck on the cheek or lips to say goodnight babe.

Making love kisses: Thank god, the painters have left kiss: Menstrual cycle is over and its time to get back on track I really want you kiss: long, passionate, all over the face type of kiss saying Im hungry The spiritual kiss: slow, long, softer, passionate which says I love you on a deeper level

There are a million more types of kisses Ive only named 10 of our most popular, sorry! 10 of the most popular ones I have read about and seen on TV. But, what makes a good kiss? How can you improve your kissing? Here are 7 tips to make that perfect kiss: 1. Men: Have a good shave, by this I mean a close shave. Women prefer passionate kissing when the man has had a close shave rather than the man with stubble. 2. An obvious one this but do not eat strong tasting foods like curry or garlic, unless your partner is eating it too. 3. Do not kiss your partner if you have a mouth infection of any kind, viruses can be carried through the saliva when kissing. 4. Make use of your partners body and kiss them all over, kissing is not just meant for the mouth. 5. Vary your kisses from soft, long kisses to hard and passionate kisses 6. Kiss with your eyes open and maintain eye contact, most people close their eyes when kissing, so keeping your eyes open can be different and fun. 7. Do it in private. Most people hate seeing other people kissing in public. I dont mean the quick pecks I mean the passionate I really want you kiss. Have you ever seen this in the high street, its gross. Leave the passionate kisses in the privacy of your home or where nobody can see you.

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Change your mood

This is a great exercise for changing your state as NLPers would call it. Picture the scenario: Youve woken up one morning full of the joys of spring, and the pouring rain, youve received a letter stating you are due someone 542.33. How does that make you feel, pretty pissed off I would imagine. You obviously have forgotten all about this but it still doesnt stop you from being in a bad mood pretty much the rest of the day. A great exercise to try and a very simplistic one is by doing the following. Think of five things you are proud of in your life: your family, yourself, your business, your kids, and your wife everything you are proud of in your life. Feel the emotions when you look at your wife and feel how blessed you are, feel the feelings as you mentally see your child do something for the first time and you realise theyre growing up, feel all the feelings associated with the proudness you feel. Now think of five things you have done in your life which you felt great about; ,making the school rugby team as captain, getting out of debt, meeting your wife, playing with your children. Feel the feelings again, how did you feel on all of these five moments. Now look at five of your biggest successes and do exactly the same, feel the feelings, get into the scene again and feel the feelings, play some of your favourite music in the background. Really get into all the roles. Keep your eyes closed whilst doing this, and when youve got all the roles and your biggest successes and proudest moments click your fingers twice. How do you feel now? Are you sitting up a bit straighter, do you feel a bit brighter? If you have done this exercise correctly and really put your heart and soul into it you should have changed your state of mind within the matter of five minutes. Heres the thing, every time you do this exercise click your fingers twice as soon as you have finished doing it. And pretty soon you should be able to change your state by clicking your fingers twice. Try it for 21 days

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Oozing sex appeal and being more attractive

Think about the people in your life who are attractive, not from TV or films, from real life. When I say attractive I mean the whole package, someone that draws you closer, someone you want to listen to when they speak, someone you like laughing with, and someone who is attractive in appearance. Take a few minutes to do this. Of the people you picked as attractive how many of them are visually attractive, good to look at? I am sure there a re a few who are not your cup of tea but you still find them attractive. Why is this? Attractiveness is a state of mind! It truly is. Think of some of the people for example on TV who may be conventionally unattractive but have that certain something that makes them attractive: For example my wife thinks James Belushi has something about him, and Adam Sandler, Jerry Lewis, Helen Miran, Karen from Will and Grace. What makes people attractive is their confidence, their zest for life and their I dont give a shit what you think about me attitude. How to change your feeling about yourself A lot of people for years have told themselves they are not attractive and guess what; they wont be to other people as well. You wont attract people to you if you feel unattractive yourself. You have to stop the years of that little voice in your head saying Im ugly, Im fat, Im unattractive, if you tell yourself that often enough you will be all those things. From TODAY start telling yourself you are attractive. I dont mean look in the mirror and say I am attractive, I am attractive, positive talking does not work like that. You have to see yourself in situations where people are attracted to you, you have to feel the emotions of those situations, and you have to tell yourself occasionally throughout the day that you attract the right kind of people towards you. This may take a few weeks to get you really from the unattractive mindset to attractive mindset. Due to the years of conditioning your mind has had it will find it difficult to give up on the image that you are unattractive. Persevere Keep going with the above exercise, everyday remind yourself how attractive you are. Think of all your best qualities and focus on them instead of focusing on the bad points about yourself, goodness knows we all have them but what makes the difference is that the attractive people dont necessarily focus on them all the time.

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I hate being around people when I was younger as I thought I was no good at talking, I thought people laughed at me, I thought I was no good. However the one thing I had going for me was relative good looks, and the only reason I knew this was because people kept on telling me and pretty soon I kept telling myself and pretty soon I really believed it. Then after years of self doubt I changed my inner talk to telling myself people did like me, people did think I was intelligent, I was funny etc. Its the inner talk that keeps us believing what we believe. If you look for enough evidence that you are attractive you will find it, so start looking. Exercise; List the things you are good at, the things people say shes really good at that, or what you think you are good at yourself. For example you might say I get on well with people, I am great at empathising with people, I love my job, I am kind, and I care a lot about animals. List everything. Now pick the top five most important ones to you. Or the next 3 weeks, see 21 days to a new habit , focus on your chosen 5 attributes. Every chance you get just remind yourself how good you are at (chosen attribute), see yourself being good at it, feel yourself being good at it. Make sure you do this every day and at every opportunity. I will write a follow up article on this topic as once you have mastered you inner talk on attractiveness you will be overwhelmed by the change it brings in your life. You will need to try and cope with the new you and its not as easy as you might think. You can also apply this technique to all areas in your life.

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21 days to a new habit

Research shows that it takes 21 days to develop a habit. Thats 21 days of going to the gym every day or exercising in some way every day, 21 days to meditation, 21 days to eat healthily, 21 days doing, 21 days of anything. When you want to start a habit, dont tell yourself you are doing it for life, tell yourself (your conscious brain) that you are going to try it for 21 days. For example if you want to start the habit of meditating tell your conscious self that you are trying it for 21 days. Now, when you have completed this for 21 days your conscious mind has the choice of stopping it or carrying on, or so it thinks. Your neural pathways have formed already and you will more than likely continue with your new habit, you will have seen the benefits along the way your unconscious will want to continue if it has been beneficial. This can also work when trying to break a habit, however research has shown that the neural pathways to any habit could be lifelong and a cue or a trigger can cause us to start back up an old habit, like smoking. This is not a bad thing; we just have to be aware of our thoughts when we have given up a habit such as smoking. When starting or breaking any habit we tend to tell our conscious mind we are going to change and its for life. Your conscious mind will just say is that right? Im in charge here, Ill decide so there will be a battle between your two sides of your conscious mind. If you tell your mind you want to try something for 21 days it wont be so unwilling to co-operate. This might sound a little strange when I say talking to your conscious as it is your conscious talking to your conscious. We all know we have conversations with ourselves, should I go to the pub should I not, should I go to the gym should I not. There are a hundred conversations we have with ourselves everyday. When we want to start something or give up something, smoking for example, you might normally say to yourself right thats it Im giving up for good. Immediately your brain kicks in and says no smoking for life, and then it starts to think of all the situations it likes a good cigarette in; first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee, going out for a drink at night, at work when youre a bit stressed, just after sex etc. Your brain thinks lack of instead of the benefits of. It cant really think as clearly about the benefits because it hasnt yet had the benefits of giving up smoking but it knows the supposed pleasures that smoking brings. So what habits can we start for 21 days? I have made a list for myself that I am in the middle of doing; Give up sweets for 21 days Meditate for 21 days Write in the blog every day for 21 days Get up before 6am every day (Ive actually made this a habit now) Drink a vegetable juice for 21 days This is just a small list of the things I am doing. Feel free to share your 21 day new habits.

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Say NO to boast your self esteem

Being poor, not doing well at university or school, a poor social life, poor self esteem, lack of confidence as we all know is in your head. You have probably heard it all before but its worth re-iterating a million times for some people to listen. All too often we get tied up in thinking that our worth is based on the size of our house or the size of our cars and who we hang around with. Our worth is based on who we think we are, and our worth is only gauged by ourselves not anybody else. What we have to do to claim ourselves back is forget what other people are saying about us. By this I mean your social circle, your familys (your true family, the ones that have loved you all your life) opinion of you count and it is good to listen to them as long as youre getting a balanced view and there are no hidden agendas. Forget what you think your co-workers think about you; forget what the people on the street might think about you. Do what you do and be proud. This is all very well saying this, but how do we stop ourselves from worrying about what other people might think of us? We have to decide that we care about us. In other words make a conscious decision, and say it. I come first. I have to take care of myself before I can take care of someone else. Now this will take a long time to engrain this feeling within us. To do this you will need to make a conscious effort to stop at certain things you do and say I come first. Maybe when your coworker has asked you do something you are uncomfortable with, stop and say to yourself I come first and you will find the courage to say no to your co-worker. Say NO more often. When that little warning bell goes off in your head and you get that little tingle in your stomach that says somethings not right say NO. You know what I mean and you will have lots of examples. Well that is the time to say NO. That little two letter word can send your self esteem soaring and gradually build confidence in you. Now I dont mean you say NO to everything, I dont want you getting the sack or losing out on a relationship or anything like that. Just say NO when it feels right to say NO When you have practiced those two suggestions above for a few months your self belief will have improved enormously. When this has happened you will find that you will care less about what other people think about you as you are being more congruent with yourself and you will feel comfortable with yourself. Let me know if you have any stories about saying NO and how it has changed your life.

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The Cancer view of life

Whilst doing a course on suicide intervention I met a lovely woman who stood out from the crowd because of her energy and zest for life, as did her friend and work colleague, lets call them Lana and Gillian. Chance had it that I was sitting next to Lana in group work. Before the group work started I was chatting to her and asked her about herself. She happily recounted her life story and then she told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and ever since then she let go of the things in life that held her back. This woman did everything she wanted to do in life, she went on holidays to places she thought she would only dream of, sky dived, loved her family more, stopped thinking about what other people thought about her. It was very clear, before she said a word, that there was something different about her. Now the strange thing is that she had a friend who worked beside her who had the same kind of energy. I believe that simply being around her friend and work colleague, Lanas energy had rubbed off on Gillian as well. It was a very strange thing to witness. By the end of the two day course, Lana and Gillian were the ones who stood out for being very level headed, very thoughtful, kind, and most of all the ones who laughed the most. I was touched. My wife was also on the course, but in a different group to me. She said she had noticed Lana when she had first walked in, I think a lot of people did. And she didnt look in any way out of the ordinary; I believe it was her energy. This tells me two things: Letting go of your inhibitions lightens you. Your energy becomes purer and less tainted by the worries and the constant wariness of having to conform to the way other people think you should act. Lana truly did not care what other people thought of her, I believe she would be great in her job. Gillian, to a lesser extent, also had the same attitude and again I think she be good in her current job role. Changing your perspective on life will literally change your life: Although Lana had been diagnosed with breast cancer she stood up in her battle to fight it. She didnt lie down to it. As a direct result of her being diagnosed with breast cancer Lana managed to clear out the stuff, in her mind, which was not important to her and concentrate on the things which were important mainly her family, friends and her dreams and ambitions. I imagine it must have been like walking through a jungle trying to chop down all the branches, weeds, ferns, watching for snakes and spiders etc and then when she was diagnosed with cancer, after a while, she could see straight through, the jungle was free from all the branches, weeds, ferns etc and there was a clear path. I am happy to say Lana is now completely free from the breast cancer and proud of her prosthetic nipple! Changing your perspective How do you change your perspective on life without being diagnosed with a life threatening illness? There will be different areas of your life that you may have to focus on whilst trying to change your perspective on life in general. It is useful to get a visual picture of where you are in your life and what areas need attention it is worth noting which areas of your life need a perspective change.

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Use this link to chart and print a wheel of life and find out what areas need looked at. For each area put in a percentage of where you are happy with e.g. I am happy with my family life so I would put it up to 80% meaning I dont have a lot of work to do with my perspective on my family life. Using the information When you have charted all the areas look at the ones that need attention, typically those under 70-100%. So if you scored 50% with your finances you need to look at this area in your life and possibly change your perspective on it. The chart is also useful for looking at areas in your life where you need to focus more attention, so you get two for the price of one. Okay, you now know which areas you need to focus on and possibly change your perspective on lets try it out with an example. We have a young woman who feels she does not have a lot of money and cant buy the things she wants in life and has too much debt. Her perspective on life is dont have, cant get. Now if she performed a simple switch in thinking like and looked at her life from a homeless persons point of view she would realise she has a lot to be thankful for. Yep easy for me to say and a bit sanctimonious but stay with me here. If she kept looking through the eyes of a homeless person, she might ask herself Do I have too much or what have I bought that I dont really need? she bought the new dress for the Christmas night out, that was 70, did she really need it. If she really wants something badly she could have saved that money or invested it. Now talking of that night out, it cost 70 for the dress, shoes to match 50, the night out itself, 70, the taxi home 15, all in all 205 for a Christmas night out. Now that could have paid off her catalogue debt. This is a very simplified example and its not that easy to shift your perspective, at first. You have to practise and practice all the time. One thing I do and my wife does, which she has done most of her life, is take time out of the day, usually in the morning to be grateful for the things you have. Honestly it sounds saintly and a bit weird but it works. I am truly grateful for my wife, my children, the house I live in, the job I have, the internet connection, the luxury I live in, the luxury of time. I am honestly grateful. Right now I want a 42 inch plasma screen TV and have done for about a year. Its 1200, do I need it, NO, can I afford it, YES! do I still want it YES!, have I got it NO! However I look around me and see all the things I have. I truly live in luxury and most people, if they are honest will admit to the same. If youre looking at this article from the comfort of your own home, the very fact that you have a computer and an internet connection tells me you are well off. You are in the top 30% of the wealthiest people in the world. Think about that for a moment, there are around 4-5 billion people out there worse off than you. Getting what you want Everything you want in life will come to you if you take steps toward it. In the meantime change your perspective on what you have right now and you will change your world. Still works towards getting that new car or losing weight, or getting a new job, but be grateful for what you have right now. Exercise to try In your mind think about the areas on the wheel of life you looked at before: Now with each area on the wheel thank the universe, thank god, thank yourself or whatever or whoever, thank them for what you have. Post a comment here and tell us what you are grateful for.

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50 best personal development blogs

Personal development is my business and my life. In the 6 months that I have been blogging I have come across some excellent blogs in all subjects and thought it would be a good idea to share some of the top blogs in the different areas. This month I will look at the personal development field. Youve probably all seen the positive blog network (PBN) logo in the sidebar. These are some of the best personal development blogs out there and we will be expanding. The PBN will expand over time and you will have instant access to some great blogs. Here are a few others that you might like to check out. They are in no particular order.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

www.greyspk.com Great blog, great guy www.pickthebrain.com/blog/ - Originator of the Positive Blog network www.geniustypes.com Well laid out blog and quality content www.ririanproject.com Predominantly a list blog, but great stuff nonetheless www.positivesharing.com The chief happiness officer, blogging at its best www.talentdevelop.com Personal development with a twist of film www.craigharper.com.au This guy does everything, listen to the radio shows they are very funny. www.mindhacks.com One of my favourite blogs http://www.lifeoptimizer.org A great addition to the Positive Blog Network

10. www.encouragingcoach.com/wordpress - Beth is a life coach with good content on her blog 11. www.steve-olson.com Another great site form the Positive Blog Network 12. www.stevepavlina.com Still one of the best out there 13. www.cultivategreatness.com A well thought out blog with really good content 14. www.lifehacker.com Personal development from a geeks point of view; dont live to geek, geek to live 15. www.justindriscoll.net/blog - A good motivational blog 16. www.wisebread.com another great blog form the Positive Blog Network 17. www.salesmotivation.net Motivational sales talk from gary jones, from the Positive Blog network 18. www.thefastlane.info some good stuff on this blog 19. www.kthdsn.com/blog/ - A simple, no nonsense blog 20. www.youalreadyknowthisstuff.blogspot.com/ - A life coach with something to say

21. www.lazyway.blogs.com/lazy_way/ - Blogging the lazy way

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22. www.thedisquiet.com/index.php - Helping men who have something missing in their lives 23. www.davidmaister.com/blog - a career development blog 24. www.howtobecooler.com/ - Social skills for the shy and insecure 25. www.askdanandjennifer.com Dating advice blog 26. www.blog.lifebeyondcode.com a great blog with some great podcasts 27. www.polyphasicsleep.auriumsoft.com/ - An interesting blog about sleeping patterns 28. www.life-coach-thea.blogspot.com/ - Hundreds of coaching tips on this blog 29. www.briankim.net/blog/ - I love this blog 30. www.radicalhop.com/blog - Thinking outside the box blog 31. www.problogger.net Not really personal development but Darren Rowse has certianly helped my blog 32. www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/ - They dont come much better than this 33. www.cognition.ens.fr/~alphapsy/blog/ - personal development from a scientific point of view 34. www.lifehack.org/ - Another great blog you have to check out 35. www.lifecoachesblog.com Another one of my favourites 36. www. headrush.typepad.com/ - All about the brain and science 37. www.davidseah.com another brilliant blog on getting things done 38. www.abetteryoublog.com An inspiring blog to change your life 39. www.bruceeisner.com/ - A weird blog with some brilliant posts 40. www.enchillcom.blogspot.com/ - another good blog with some good articles 41. www.generativetransformation.typepad.com/ - Another inspiring blog with some inspiring articles 42. www.unlimitedchoice.org/blog/ - Lots of posts lots of advice 43. www.urbanlighthouse.blogspot.com/ - A Simple blog with some good posts 44. www.miloriano.com/ - A man on the way to the top 45. www.liveyourinspiration.com/ - Dont be put off by the navigation theres some great stuff here 46. www.laurayoung.typepad.com/ - Always a pleasure reading the stories on this blog 47. www.sharpbrains.com/blog - Your onestop brain fitness centre 48. www.optimindzation.com/blog/ - Some useful articles on this blog 49. www.universeofsuccess.com/ - Another great blog with some good articles 50. www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog - One of the best

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Anchoring a habit
I was reading an article written by Gleb Reys Creative habit naming and I thought it was a great idea. It got me thinking about how else we could develop habits so that they dont become a chore for us. If we anchor a habit to another habit this would increase out chances of developing the new habit. I never really gave it much thought but I have been doing this unconsciously for a number of months. I have been practicing the law of attraction and part of this involves thinking about my intentions every day and I also think about what I am grateful for every day. When I get up in the morning I go downstairs and turn on the computer. Now my computer being quite old, it takes about 7 minutes to boot and load up all the software etc so I use those 7 minutes to internalise everything I am grateful for in life: My wife, my kids, our health, our love for each other, my job etc and then I go on to visualise my intentions for my life, and I have around 20 at the moment. I turn my computer on every single morning which is the habit and I now practice my gratitude and intentions which is anchoring the habit to an existing one. This is a great idea for doing other things we might not necessarily do. For example, I spend about 1-2 hours every day in my car driving to see clients etc. Instead of listening to the radio, I listen to podcasts I have downloaded, books on CD, self help developments books, and my intentions. I also practice speaking in my car gestures and all, it doesnt matter that I look a bit crazy I dont know the people who might be thinking this so what does it matter. I am practicing a seminar in my head I am giving for the law of attraction, its a 5 hour seminar, and because I havent really done it before I am quite apprehensive so I am practicing it in the car. So I am anchoring a new habit to the existing habit of driving

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Attracting money into your life

I suspect most people would like to attract more money into their life, but are you ready for it? Mentally youve got to be ready to receive money. I am noticing more and more in my life that the law of attraction really does work especially since I downloaded my intentions onto my iPod, I wrote about it here. Money has been coming into my life ever since I removed the blocks in my mind about money. I used to believe that I would never be able to make money, I didnt have any special talents to make money, I had failed in the past etc etc. These thoughts definitively hindered my progress in making money and as soon as I dropped them and believed I deserved money in my life and believed it would come, it did. There is a great way to change your thinking about money and attract more of it. Put some money in your wallet! Esther Hicks wrote about it in Ask and it is given. I have started carrying more money in my wallet and believe it is a catalyst to me receiving more money. How the hell does putting money in your wallet attract more money? Okay try it. Put 100 ($150) in your wallet and do not spend it. If you need to buy something at the shop do not use the 100. Whenever you see something you like you can say to yourself I can buy that if I wanted to. Resist the temptation to buy it, but say to yourself Ive got the money to buy it. Do this for a few weeks and see what happens. You are mentally preparing yourself to receive more money into your life. If you try this for a few weeks your mind has fewer blocks about money coming into your life as you have spent that 100, mentally, 100 times. In your mind you have spent 10,000. You might have passed a clothes shop and said I could buy that if I wanted to and you could, you had 100 in your pocket. You might walk past a computer shop and see that iPod you wanted and say to yourself I could buy that if I wanted to. Your mind goes from lack of money to lots of money. I really do believe that what we think about is what we attract in our lives. I have seen the transformation in my life and I have seen more money than ever coming into my life. If I am being completely honest I have had to slow the amount of opportunities coming my way as I do not have time to take on the jobs I am offered. However the amount of money coming into my life that I have not worked for can continue til the cows come home.

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As an example I used to run a small book dealing business which I stopped in September 2005. I filled in all my tax returns etc and thought I was up to date with everything. 5 days ago I was at a hall helping some of my clients fill in benefits forms and get advice on benefits and child tax credit etc and someone was there from the tax office. I casually asked if I would be due any rebate. After explaining to me that the tax office would eventually get around to issuing a rebate it would be better to ask for it and I could receive it quicker. She asked my to write a quick letter and she would hand it in. 3 days later (yesterday) I received a cheque for 543. Now if I hadnt seen the girl from the tax office I wouldnt have asked the question about a tax rebate. The tax office might have issued it eventually but I hadnt received anything so far. Try it If you are open to receiving money you will receive it. If you dont believe this rubbish that I am talking try it for yourself, dont knock it until youve tried it. If you have a deep seated belief that this will not work it may take longer to start attracting money. If you are open to this you will manifest money a lot quicker. If you dont have 100 in your pocket try it with 50 and work up or try it with 20 and work up. Everybody deserves abundance in their lives and that includes you and there is more than enough to go around.

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Being a dad, not just a father

Being a Dad is possibly the biggest responsibility you will ever have in your life. It will be the longest commitment you ever make in your life and it will be the source a lot of you r emotional turmoils. I am a dad of two boys aged 9 and 11 and they constantly drive me nuts, make me laugh, make me mad, make me feel proud; one minute I am on a high with them the next minute I am on a downer. No other relationship will be as wild as this. But what is being a dad? I was out today in Glasgow with my two sons and the youngest one, who I am probably hardest on, as he is probably the hardest to deal with, was complaining of being cold. We were walking along and he started singing a little marching song: I dont know what youve been told, but my big butt is freezing cold and we all started laughing, I mean real belly laughing and tears forming laughing. It was one of those moments that happens every once in a while and it does so much for our relationship, it brings us closer than ever before. I constantly feel I could be a better dad. I feel I work too much and dont see my kids or wife often enough and its this time in their young lives which I will affect the most if I am with them. My wife also feels like this sometimes and we convince ourselves we do it for the family and for the future. The truth is we are good parents and we do spend enough time with our boys. However, unless you are not working I think one always feels that they do not do enough for their kids. The fact that myself and my wife are so loving towards each other makes a huge difference in the boys lives. It is teaching them so much about relationships, about love, about respect, about how to treat other people. All that from a kiss, a cuddle, a look and a bit of larking around. The three stages of boyhood Research has shown that there are distinct stages in boyhood, and in general there are three. Ages 0 6 years: Boys are still very much attached to their mother. Their father is still very important, and it is important to be around. However the mother shows the boy warmth love and shows that the world is a safe place to live in. Ages 6 14: This is the stage when boys want to develop their sense of what it is to be male. This is where the dad steps up and takes the reigns form the mother. The mother is still very much there, but plays a less prominent role. This is when the boys are learning about skill and being male. There is a big change and they want to play with swords, guns, knives and want to wrestle with their dad and siblings. The dad is the role model in every sense, their sense of humour, their playfulness, their love and respect for the world is learned from their father at this stage. Ages 14 Adulthood: This is when the mother and father take a step back and let other role models take a more prominent role. This is when the parents have to, as much as possible, make sure that their son has role models and peers in their lives that will be a positive influence.

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Tips for being a great dad You cant be a great dad all the time, but as long as you are conscious of the way you are parenting your boys it will go a long way. My wife and I have frequent discussions about parenting and how we could be better parents. We have an open and honest talk about where we can possibly improve. We also tell each other if we think the other is being unfair in certain aspects of parenting. Over the years the most important tips I would give about being a great dad are; Make time for your children: it is so easy to get caught up in other things in life, like work and use it as an excuse for neglecting your children, or family in general. Always be there: It is not always possible to be around all of the time but it is possible to be there all the time at the drop of a hat. If you children call you and say they need you, be there. If they say they need to talk to you in private, be there. If they need you for a life to a friends house, be there. In every sense, just be there for them. Be open: I am always hugging my boys, being playful with them or wrestling with them. I think it is important to show your feelings to them. It stops your children wondering what you are thinking if they see you acting different on some days e.g. being quiet, being angry etc. A simple I am angry with my boss at work will suffice, children worry about their parents as well and worry more about if they have caused the worry. Make the unpopular decisions as well: Its important that discipline be dished by both the parents, if possible. This way one parent is not seen as the bad one all the time. It is not fair to the other parent if you leave all the hard decisions to them all the time. Be active and show support for each others decisions in front of the children. Being a dad can be very hard work but it can also be very rewarding. I love my boys and cherish them. I am not always a good dad but I question my responsibility every day and thats what will make me a better dad.

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Being unhappy to find happiness

Many of us, or most of us, are trying to find happiness outside of ourselves. Happiness is an inner game and should be pursued on the inside. If we continue to look on the outside we are going to be disappointed as we always look for more and ultimately happiness becomes the end of the rainbow, something we can never reach. How we define happiness is the key to our success of finding it inside of ourselves. For example the first few months of blogging I wanted to make a million pounds and follow people like Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse, Debbie Weil, Robert Scoble and Seth Godin but I quickly learned I was not going to make that. I did lose heart but I kept on writing and I wondered why I did keep writing. The answer was of course because I loved the writing and the possibility that some people might find my articles useful. From then on I wrote because I loved writing, I wrote because it might help other people, not because it was all about the money. What happened then was that the money started coming in and more ideas came my way and now that I concentrate on the writing the money side takes care of itself and I intend it to keep on taking care of itself until I can finally do what I love doing full time; either writing for the blog or giving seminars. We have to take time to stop and think about our lives every now and again and re-evaluate what we are doing and whether or not we are happy inside or chasing the rainbow. One of the ways you can test your happiness is by testing your unhappiness, sound strange. Okay, heres how it works. (Warning! this is a very powerful exercise so be prepared)

Exercise
Think of something that would make you unhappy; for example losing your house, or losing your family. Reflect on that for a moment, what would your feelings be: sad, miserable, lonely, suicidal, and really go for it and try to imagine the thing that would make you unhappy. When I do this exercise I imagine losing my family and I really do get to the point of being tearful (okay I admit it, I do get tearful). Now, come out of the scene you were in and look at what you have. For example if you pictured losing your family, look at your family now. How does it make you feel? I always feel extremely grateful and look at them in a different way as if I have been given a second chance with them. This feeling lasts a long time before I slip back into my normal loving self. However, what it does is let me be thankful and never take them for granted. So it is with life. We are so busy chasing the rainbow of happiness we forget what makes us happy now. We have to get that feeling back. So many of us are working hard to make money, working long hours, nearly killing ourselves all in the pursuit of happiness for us and our families when in fact if we loved our families first and loved the job we were doing we would find that happiness here and now and not in the future. How many of us have seem something on TV and said It really makes you appreciate what youve got? I bet most of us have said this however how long has it taken us to forget this and get on with our lives and forget what we really have! For any of our dreams to happen in the future, and they will if we intend them long enough and work at it, we have to be thankful for what we have in the here and now. I am thankful for my wife, my two boys, my dog, my house, my job, my mum, dad, sisters nieces and nephews and my health and I am thankful too you for reading this.

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Changing beliefs
Our beliefs about the world around us and ourselves can be limiting and can, in a lot of cases, be unfounded when we question them. This article looks at beliefs and how they are formed and what we can do to the beliefs that may be holding us back. From the day we were born we have been programmed to believe other peoples beliefs. The biggest example of this is religion. I was programmed from the moment I could talk that God created the world, my parents told me this, my school taught this, my friends believed this, the church told me this; everybody believed in God and it was sacrilegious to believe otherwise. When I was ten years old I asked some of my friends how do you know there is a God, various answers were proffered from just look at the grass, look all around you; it proved God created it. I used to look at them and think that wasnt proof. So I asked my parents and their take on it was how else could we have been brought into the world if it wasnt God. I asked lots of questions and asked lots of different people even ministers and priests and I did not receive, not one, single satisfactory answer to the question, how do you know there is a God?. So, at about the age of 14 I boldly announced I did not believe in God when I was asked the question, this was met with horror and disdain except from my mother. The point here is, believing in God was not my belief it was someone elses and someone elses before them and someone elses before them etc etc. It was, to me, an outdated belief without foundation. However far from being liberated by this conclusion there was a gaping hole in my life, if there wasnt a God what is my purpose in being here, what is anybodys purpose. I searched for answers in books, in myself, from friends, from groups of different people and I couldnt come up with a satisfactory answer. I still dont have a satisfactory answer to that question and it haunted me for years, until I started to swing toward the belief that there was some kind of unified conscious that we could tap into. I had been studying psychology and particularly Carl Jung and liked some of his ideas like the collective unconscious, then I found Edgar Cayce, Dion Fortune, Robert Bruce and theories of the Akashic records, spiritualism etc. I liked these ideas and I liked some of the theories although some of them were a bit wild. The question to myself was, was I just deliberately trying to be different and a bit strange or did I genuinely believe in the theories? Well the answer is I know I dont believe in a God of any kind. What I do believe in is a universal force that everybody and their granny can tap into should they so wish. I havent really voiced this belief as it is my belief and it is not a firm belief it is a soft belief at best, but it is a base to start with. What are beliefs? Our beliefs help us provide stability in our lives by compartmentalising everything in order to make sense of the world. As an example if you see a group of youths on the street, wearing hooded tops and being rowdy a lot of us might immediately try and compartmentalise these as follows: youths - loud hooded tops street corner dark = dangerous = steer clear = fight or flight This is a very simple example but one that shows where our beliefs lead us and what actions it prompts us to take once we have boxed all the relevant categories and then put them together and then formulate a belief.

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Obviously beliefs are perpetuated the more we come into contact with that particular scenario, like the one above. So a belief can be seen as the compartmentalising of different things together to form a particular belief, which in turn causes us to act in a certain way. I used to believe in the tooth fairy when I was really young, and when I found out that my mother used to put a 10 pence piece under my pillow I was a bit distraught but I pretended to go along with the belief to get more money. The only reason I found out that my belief in tooth fairies was not real was because I saw my mother putting money under my sisters pillows when I was younger. It was experiential; I knew there were no fairies because I saw my mother putting the money under the pillow. However, how many of our beliefs have we questioned in our lives? Not that many I suspect because we have never had to question them, weve never had evidence to the contrary to cause a massive shift from one belief to another. Changing our beliefs Exercise: This is a very quick exercise for you to try in your head; it will take a few moments; List the things you believe to be true about yourself: My list would be; intelligent, honest, good looking, a bit overweight, inner confident, and so on. Now try to think of each belief and ask where it came from. For example I believe I am intelligent because I have a degree, I am very questioning, I read a lot, I pick up things easily etc etc. Now, all of these reasons are beliefs within themselves e.g. I believe that people who read a lot is a sign of intelligence, now this is not the case as it would depend on what the person was reading, so therefore I have to refine that belief to; people who read, what I class, as intelligent books are intelligent. Break this down further; how do I know that the people reading these intelligent books are actually comprehending the words they are reading. So therefore I have to refine the belief again to; people who read and comprehend intelligent books are intelligent. Now I have the dilemma of asking what comprehension really is. We can dig deeper and deeper until we unearth the core of a belief which is nothing really than a set of other beliefs. Where does this leave us, does it mean all our beliefs are unsubstantiated? No, it means if we dig deep enough we may find some of our belief are unfounded and find they are outdated and do not fit with our lives.

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How can we use this knowledge? The knowledge that our beliefs are not set in stone can be a liberating revelation and we can use this knowledge to change some of our limiting beliefs about ourselves and our lives. Analysing our beliefs gives us more of an awareness of that belief which we can then go on to use in our everyday lives. Choose a belief that is holding you back. For example I used to have the belief that I was a bit thick. Unconsciously I questioned this belief and simply analysed what intelligence was; am I aware? yes; can I comprehend?yes; can I socially interact?yes; there were a whole load of other yes which led me to say well Im not that thick or stupid. So I started to do things that were more congruent with being intelligent, I joined a chess club, I read a lot more books I was interested in, I went to university, I tried a whole host of things to prove to myself I wasnt stupid. Now the belief that I am intelligent has been fully installed in my brain, I do not question it anymore and havent done for years. Go through all the beliefs that are holding you back and analyse each one in turn and see if you can install new beliefs over the old one and start to act congruently with your new belief.

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Breaking your outcome barriers

I have many outcomes I wish to achieve in my life and there are many outcomes I have already achieved. What usually happens is the outcomes keep getting bigger the more I achieve. This is a great sign that I am doing something right in my world. Over the years I have heard a lot of people say, keep it real and keep your outcomes realistic and achievable. Yes make them achievable but if its achievable its not unrealistic. Let me share a story with you going back to 1998: I was elated as I had achieved my dream of making over 30,000, on paper, on the stock market. I hade been investing in shares since 1998 but I soon discovered I loved the thrill and started day trading. I lost a lot in the beginning, about 4000. I set myself an outcome of making 100,000 and focused on it for weeks. My balance started changing from being in the red to being in the black. I upped my trading game and started playing the markets using spread betting. Within the space of a few months I was getting closer to my outcome of 100,000. However as soon as I started going from a deficit to making a profit I stopped concentrating on my outcomes. The tech market was really flying and I was feeling on top of the world. I was skipping university (one of my other goals was to get a degree in psychology) to stay at home and day trade. I remember one day I had 100,000 in shares, again on paper; I was trading on a 14 day contract. Then the tech market started falling. I panicked but thought it will turn again, this was just a blip. Pretty soon I couldnt get rid of my shares as nobody was buying they were all selling. I wouldnt sell for the ridiculous amount they were offering. Then the realisation of the market being in meltdown hit me. Eventually I went bankrupt to the tune of 65,000 and it was not a good feeling at all. I walked out with an education in money and a degree in psychology; I managed to get my degree in 2000. That was the year that changed my life forever. I was so low and feeling down. I started looking at my outcomes again and started to concentrate on them again. I attended a seminar by Jack Black and immediately said to my friend thats what I will be doing with my life. I wanted to be a motivational speaker. To get there I had to achieve other outcomes first. I was in a small flat in Govan, Glasgow (not the best area of town). I set outcomes to meet my perfect woman, which I have written about, be married, have a lovely house with a veranda overlooking the garden, a car, no debt, 2 children a boy and a girl, have money in the bank, have a good job. These were all outcomes way beyond what I thought I could realistically achieve but I kept at them and focused every day. Today I have all those things (except for the veranda) and I am extremely happy with my life. I am still looking at being a motivational speaker but I am about 10 steps closer to that dream than I was. The point of the story is to illustrate that no matter how low we are in our lives we can still concentrate on our outcomes even if it feels impossible to reach. The other point is that no matter how unrealistic our outcomes seem keep working on them as todays realistic is tomorrows standard.

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Think big Thats the beauty of setting outcomes, you dont have to worry about how they will be achieved, just concentrate on achieving them. Another huge lesson I learned from all of this is dream big. When I first started setting outcomes for my life I thought about achieving little things, and then when I achieved them I had to think a little bigger. Dont limit yourself when setting your outcomes. If one of your goals is to get out of debt dont focus on paying of one credit card at a time concentrate on having absolutely no debt and having money in your savings account? The breakthrough method of achieving When I used to practice Tae Kwon Do I had a mental block about punching through the boards. I was always afraid of breaking my hand and I couldnt quite hit the thickest board hard enough to break through it. My teacher saw this block and told me I was hitting the board to break it; I looked at him slightly puzzled. He told me to imagine that the board is 6 inches behind its actual position and try to break the imaginary board. I mustered up the energy and force and imagined a board behind the actual one and broke through it first time. This was a great breakthrough for me in tae Kwon Do and in life. He told me to do this when fighting an opponent, if you are aiming for his stomach aim 6 inches behind his stomach, if you are kicking his leg aim 6 inches to the side of his leg. This way I am concentrating all my energy and power on the imaginary rather than the actual and I am going through the actual board, leg, stomach or whatever it may be. This was the single most important lesson I ever learned in Tae Kwon Do. It is the same with your outcomes. If for example you want to make 10,000 in savings this year, aim for 20,000. If you want to clear your credit card debts this year aim to clear of all your debts. If you want to meet a nice partner to settle down with aim to meet the perfect partner to settle down with. For every single outcome you want to achieve in life, aim that little higher and you will get more of what you want in life. Now I know there will be some people who say Oh you are just setting yourself up for failure this is rubbish. Anybody who wants to succeed at something will always achieve it if they work hard enough and know exactly what they want and work on it mentally and physically every day. Aim beyond what you want to achieve

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Clear your house to clear your mind

Do you ever wish you were more organised in your daily life? Sometimes I feel there is just too much going on in my head that it overwhelms me and I cannot get things done. A great way to shake this feeling is to clean the house. Cleaning the house and ridding it off old clothes, old toys, old books (personally I cant throw books away or give them away) and giving it a general spring clean is like a shower for your mind. It seems to clear the mind and make way for important tasks to get done. Why does cleaning the house make us feel this way? Cleaning the house frees up energy for you to concentrate on more important things in your life. When I see a pile of ironing that needs to be done and I say Ill do it tomorrow, when Ive got a bit time there is an instant post it note stuck in my brain saying do the ironing. That niggling feeling stays with me until the job is done. Of course my wife does this a lot of the time, which sometimes makes me feel worse as I know I am not pulling my weight. I have lots of post it notes stuck in my brain and they all niggle at me until they are completed. Think about all the things that need done about the house, the garage needs cleared, the loft needs cleared, the wardrobes need emptying, throw out old clothes, throw out old toys, fix that leaking tap, do the garden, clear the shed, paint the bathroom, sort out your paperwork there are lots of things that need our attention. Now is the time to do them. I know you might not have time but make it. 3 hours of spring cleaning the house might free up 10 hours in your daily life as your mind will be free to concentrate and focus on other tasks, so its worth the effort. If you dont believe this, try tidying and cleaning the untidiest room in the house and pay attention to how you feels afterwards. Often when I do this and have motivation to carry on and clean the rest of the house. One of the biggest small tasks is cleaning out the bedroom and kitchen drawers. Here are my 10 tips for springcleaning your mind by springcleaning the house Schedule time at the weekend to start your clean, this way nothing else will get in the way. Start with the undtidiest room in the house and dont finish until its clean and tidy. Reward yourself every 90 minutes (if its a big clean) every 30 minutes if its smaller clean. I usually have a cup of tea and a biscuit. Dont turn on the TV for background noise as something will distract you and you might want to sit down and watch. Instead turn on the radio for some noise, or turn on a program from Hayhouse radio If you are starting the clean in the morning get up an hour early and you will be more focused. If you havent worn it in 6 months chuck it. Throw out old christmas, birthday, mothers day, fathers day, granny day, dog day, that time of the month day cards. I only keep the cards my sons made me and wife gave me. If you cant manage the springclean in one day, concentrate on one task at a time or one room at a time and spread it over x number of days. when your whole house has been done take another day to go round the whole house for a few hours and give a general clean.

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Make a habit of cleaning a room every day. Making a habit of cleaning a bit every day will free your mind for other important tasks. When mess build up in the house so it builds up in your mind, if you clean a bit every day it keeps your mind free. Delegate: this is a great way to keep the house tidy. I dont mean deleagte all the jobs but delegate smaller jobs to your kids. My kids wash and dry the dishes, keep their own rooms tidy and take out the bins. This has an added bonus of making them more indepenedent and teaching them skills for when they leave the nest (well, thats how I make myself feel better).

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Clouds of consciousness
Recently I wrote a little about something called clouds of consciousnesses. Its been ruminating for a while and I am trying to find a way to describe it or play with it. At the moment it really is a case of suck it and see what happens and play around with different ideas. I am rapidly coming to a place whereby there is a definite idea about this formulating. It is probably nothing new but I have not read about it or seen anything on the internet. Of course the books I have read, the radio interviews I have heard with physicists and other scientists and spiritual people all go a long way to me formulating this idea. When I was nearing the end of this article it got me researching along a path of: consciousness, reality and spirituality and led me to two scientists; David Bohm, a great physicist who only died in 1994 and Dr David R Hawkins a scientist whose work is fascinating me at the moment. I thought you might like to read about them yourself. The theory just now goes something like this. Clouds of consciousness are something we all have. There are various levels of these clouds that surround us and, should we wish, and open up our minds enough, we can tap into a lot of them. There are various levels between each of the four levels mentioned below, but for now I will write briefly about the main four clouds. Self consciousness These are the clouds which immediately make up who we are, what we think about ourselves and the world around us. Imagine a band of clouds tightly surrounding your head. This is where the self consciousness cloud lies. These clouds contain everything that encompasses your current reality, everything you think about, everything you believe, everything you believe about the world and other people. It almost blinds you as you are only seeing, thinking and feeling what is immediately in front of you. You have not formulated any original ideas about the world and decided to question your life. The first 4 of Maslows hierarchy of needs would reside here. Most of us would stay in this state of consciousness until the day we die. However I truly believe there is a global shift happening and that pretty soon most of us will die whilst in the awakening consciousness stage. Your ego resides here also; everything you do is for the benefit of yourself. Awakening consciousness This is the second level in this theory. In this stage you have started to question some of your beliefs about the world, yourself and the people around you. You are not operating from a self point of view you are starting to think about the bigger picture and to help others and to find ways to be able to do this. You can access a higher aspect of yourself, but may not necessarily understand it completely. I believe this is what is happening in the world at the moment, there are more and more people at this level of consciousness and it is culminating in a mass awakening. More and more of us are starting to believe there is something more to life and something more to our minds than was previously imagined. I am not talking about organised religion, that was a way of stifling the awakening, the real religion is when youve found GOD within yourself, GOD is not an entity with laws, GOD is a belief within yourself and a connection to other states of consciousness. The awakening consciousness is the beginning. In this state of consciousness you are starting to believe that you create your own world, you create and manifest the things and people around you. It is the beginning of what Maslow would call Self actualization

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Here comes the tricky bit. I cant write about the other levels of consciousness as I have never experienced them. I believe I have experienced glimpses of them through lucid dreaming, astral projection and inspirational thinking, so from this point on it is mostly hypothesising. Awakened consciousness - After awakening consciousness there would be a permanent state of awakened consciousness whereby you live in a world dominated by your thoughts to serve others. Your ego is a residual memory however you will still be self aware but from a spiritual point of view. I believe Buddha, Christ, Allah, Mother Theresa, Krishna Marti, and other spiritual beings all lived here. This type of consciousness begins to transcend the reality as we know it. It has one foot in the real world and one foot in the pure world. Universal consciousness - The pure world, this could be where your mind goes when you die, its the library of the world. The mind could be uploaded into a melting pot of mind, consciousness and spirit for the good of the future world. We, as living beings, can maybe tap into this universal consciousness when we have that a-ha experience, or astral project, meditate, through kundalini, basically if we momentarily transcend our Awakened consciousness, and to transcend the Awakened consciousness we have to have transcended the other levels. So we have to break through various clouds of consciousness to get to the universal consciousness. If we were to live in this cloud we wouldnt be of this world, we wouldnt need our bodies.

Practical value Having a theory like this brings up a lot more questions than it answers. However, for me, its stimulates my goal to be awakened, I wouldnt be overly concerned about what people think of me, about earning money, about getting clicks on my Google adsense ads, about getting visitors to this blog all the things ego is concerned with. Okay, its good having theories but theories should have some practical value. How can this theory have any practical value? For me it reminds me that I am still living in a state of self consciousness and it reminds me to try and have more awakening consciousness moments. Recently I got back into the habit of checking my stats for this blog, purely an ego thing to do as I had started to think about the money it was earning rather than the content it was providing. I was writing articles that I thought readers would want rather than what I really wanted to put up. I have spent three days on this article as I have a passion for its content, other articles, due to inspiration can be written and uploaded in 1-2 hours. So having theories like this reminds me every day that I am still living in my self conscious world and reminds me to at least try and have more experiences in the Awakening consciousness cloud. Since writing this it has led to me change my view on reality and what it really is. I have been struggling for a while with the concept of reality and how ones persons world can be so different from my world. This will probably be the subject of my next article.

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Getting connected to you

Sometimes I feel like my life gets covered over by unimportant things and I lose my inner core. Its hard to explain but things like work, trivial arguments, trivial tasks, bills, social events etc all paint over whats really important to me. My life and my inner core is my family and somewhere along the way the fact that they are my inner core gets forgotten. Its like pouring syrup over me which is hard to get out of. Its very easy to get covered in this syrup and a lot of people dont recognise it until its too late. Ask yourself the question What is my inner core? (What do you most cherish in the world and want to spend more time doing or being with?) It could be your family It might be a passion you have It might be spending time with yourself It could be anything If you vaguely understand what I mean here you might be sitting saying yes, I know what you mean. I have felt like this for a few weeks and thought about ways to clean the syrup from my core and here is what I have come up with. Take a day off work. Simple and yet the hardest thing to do for some people. I am in the middle of a project just now which I get a lot of phone calls from clients etc but I took the day off. I left my phone in the office and stayed at home. The kids were at school and my wife had a day of Uni so we went shopping together and then for a coffee at Borders, it was brilliant. When I went in the next day, nothing had changed, no world crisis, no emergencies just a few enquiries. Its a sad fact but we can all be replaced at work quite easily, we might be missed but we can be replaced. Remember this if you are doing more than your fair share. Make a point to spend time with your passion everyday. By this I mean real time. If your passion is your wife, sit down and talk, not over dinner or in bed at night, talk and let each other know how much they mean to you. Spend time with the kids. They grow up so quickly its frightening. Get the little things out of the way. Little things we have to do niggle us and are in the back of our minds. Get them done and out of the way so you can concentrate on your inner core and whats important. Get the housework done. When we work in a clean environment if frees our mind energy to concentrate on more important things. Do less of what takes you away from you. If you work lots of hours every day work 1 less hour per day and spend it with your inner core. Deep down you know what your inner core is and you know where it is not. By this I mean you know what you want in life and you know the things that steal the energy which keeps you away from what you want. Think about this often and figure out small ways which leads you back to your inner core. The small things done every day will soon build up to be the main thing in your life.

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Giving up smoking
It has been around 18 months since I gave up smoking and every time I meet a smoker they always ask how I did it. I have to say it took me three times before I eventually gave up for good. There were lots of different factors that led me to even start thinking about giving up; however the main one was my own health. Other reasons included my children, they kept telling me I was going to die and got quite distressed about it; the smell in the house; the smell on my clothes; feeling like a leper when going outside to smoke. There are a million reasons to give up and only one reason to continue and that is addiction. I used to tell myself I could give up if I really wanted to but I didnt want to. The truth is I did want to but felt it would be too hard and I didnt want to fail, so it was easier to say I enjoyed it too much. I enjoyed the supposed feeling it gave me after dinner, with a cup of tea, whilst having a drink etc. However when I realised it was me who was creating this feeling and not the cigarettes things started to change in my way of thinking. I began telling myself it was easy to give up smoking and after about 2 months I gave up for good and havent looked back since. I worked on my belief system about giving up smoking and convinced myself it was going to be easy and when the time came it was easy. My tips for giving up smoking would be: Give yourself compelling reasons to give up, dont do it for other people, and do it for yourself. Set a date about 2 months in advance of when you will give up and tell yourself every day you are going to give up on that day. Dont try patches or gum with nicotine in it. Once you told yourself for two months when you will give up just give up Tell yourself every day it is easy to give up smoking; your brain will really start to believe it after a month or so. Tell your friends and family you will be giving up on that date, this gives you a little pressure and shows your friends and family you are committed. Break the old patterns of behaviour surrounding your smoking e.g. if you smoked after your dinner at night, go for a walk instead or go clean the bathroom. Pretty soon your mind will get out of the old habit and start forming new habits. It is easy to give up smoking, however we have been conditioned to believe the opposite is the case. Our mind will believe whatever we tell it to believe and adjust our physiology and cravings accordingly. When you tell yourself it is easy to give up smoking for two months, it will be very easy on the day to give up, you have to believe it.

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How to make the gym more interesting

Keeping fit and losing weight are excellent motivators for going to the gym but sometimes it can be very boring. My workout in the mornings are; treadmill for 12 minutes, abs 3 reps, biceps 3 reps, bench presses 3 reps, legs 3 reps, bike 10 minutes and rowing machine 1000 meters. I started looking at my workout when it became a little stale and frankly boring, so this is what I have come up with to make the gym a little more interesting: Close your eyes. I close my eyes on all my exercises, except for the treadmill. This way I can visualise me being in the Olympics. When I am on the rowing machine I am sitting in the boat with Steve Redgrave as my rowing partner and my family are on the bank of the river cheering me on. I imagine my oars going in and out of the water and it can be very real when Im in the zone. When I am doing my biceps work I close my eyes and imagine that the only way I can get my family back is to finish the last rep. When I am on the bike I am in the tour de France and again I see my family on the big screen cheering me on. This has the added benefit of strengthening your visualisation acuity. Visualisation is a great way to attain your goals see Visualise your life Vary your workout routine. If you are the type of person who does the same thing in the gym all the time, why not try varying the routine. Try reversing your routine altogether, if you normally finish with leg curls make this the start of the routine. This simple little thing allows your mind to wake up a little. I always imagine peoples brains walking into the gym like Elmer Fudd, shoulders drooping and saying Same old routine, treadmill, biceps, leg curls, bike, walking and rowing spice old Elmer and get him thinking for a change by reversing your routine. Try it with a partner. Someone else suggested this to me. I am the type to workout alone however I know a lot of people like a partner as a motivator. I think this is a good idea as it can be good to have someone cheering you on and just pushing you that little extra. Watch the television. Most modern gyms have TV screens in them; why not switch to your favourite channel and workout to a little TV. This can help take your mind off the exercise itself. Pretty soon youll have run a mile, burned 150 calories, lost a few grams and watched Oprah all within the space of 15 minutes. Listen to your goals. Last month I wrote an article Change your life with a computer and a headset if you tried this it means you can listen to your goals whilst at the gym. This is what I do every morning. Sometimes I zone out and dont hear them as I am visualising but they are still being heard. I think this is a great way to focus on your goals whilst getting fit and losing weight at the same time. Join a class. This can be an excellent motivator as you automatically try a little harder when other people are around pushing you that little bit further. Push yourself some more. When I first started going to the gym I was running at the same pace, lifting the same amount of weights, and rowing at the same pace. Now I tray and add a little every week. I used to run 5 miles per hour (a 12 minute mile) now I have pushed myself to run 6.5 miles per hour (just over a 9 minute mile). I have also managed to row 1000 meters in 4 minutes which was a great achievement for me. I can lift heavier weights, cycle faster, run faster etc. This is a great motivator for me as I am the type to push myself all the time and love competition. These are only a few suggestions for making the gym more interesting. Why not share your gym tips and we can all be gym freaks in no time.

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Kaizen for personal development

In the pursuit of self improvement we can look at many different areas. An area I have been interested in for a few months has been business, particularly the practice of Kaizen. Kaizen literally means "To become good through change". It comes from the Japanese words "Kai" meaning school and "Zen" meaning wisdom. It has been adapted throughout the world across many businesses and has been used for years. I remember when I worked as a production operator at Hughes Micro-electronics they used the Kanban Kaizen system. What is Kaizen? Kaizen was created after World War 2 as a way of continuously improving the work place. Masaaki Imai is considered the father of Kaizen after releasing the book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. Kaizen is not a case of the management getting together once a month; it involves every employee in a company putting forwards suggestions for improvement. At Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, 60 to 70 suggestions per employee, per year are written down, shared and implemented. I didnt really get it when I was working at Hughes as I was there for the money and for partying at the weekend. However having looked at it again it is an interesting concept. Wikipedia has this to say about Kaizen: The goals of Kaizen include the elimination of waste (defined as "activities that add cost but do not add value"), just-in-time delivery, production load levelling of amount and types, standardized work, paced moving lines, right-sized equipment, etc. In this aspect it describes something very similar to the assembly line used in mass production. A closer definition of the Japanese usage of Kaizen is "to take it apart and put back together in a better way." What is taken apart is usually a process, system, product, or service. Kaizen is a daily activity whose purpose goes beyond improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates hard work (both mental and physical), and teaches people how to do rapid experiments using the scientific method and how to learn to see and eliminate waste in business processes. Kaizen for personal development I am working with the idea of Kaizen for personal development. I believe it would be good for all areas of life. One of the principle ideas of Kaizen is to change the easiest things first. Now that I have read about and absorbed the ideas of Kaizen I have started to introduce one area and implement an action plan every 2 weeks. The first one I have implemented is the wasted amount of time spent on the computer.

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At the moment I spend 5 -7 hours on the computer per day. I spend around 3 hours working on my own blog and working on the one I manage. So it leaves me about 4 hours spent surf without thinking (SWT). Its a case of surfing and reading blogs on areas that interest me but for no other reason than for personal pleasure. I also work and SWT together, so I might work for half and hour, SWT for half an hour, work another half hour, SWT for 1 hour etc. So what I have done now is work first, get all the work thing out the way. That would include writing articles, submitting them to article sites, submitting to social bookmarking sites, promoting the blogs etc. I have found doing it this way I work for longer, so instead of working 3 hours I work for 4 hours. Then I spend two glorious hours SWT. What I have noticed so far is the SWT time has become more focused on work. The SWT time has been cut to two hours as well which saves me 1 hour per day to work on other areas of my life. When I started wiring this article I began looking for other articles on other blogs mentioning Kaizen and I found a few great ones. Jason Thomas over at Lifehacker.com has a great one and discusses how he has implemented into his life. Themanufacturer.com has an interesting article written by Jon Minerich Kaizen in your life To implement the practice of Kaizen in your life, pick an area which you think might benefit from change. Look at the process closely and ask what changes could you make to make it better or quicker or have less wastage. I have found you can implement it in every area of life, from doing the housework to spending more time with the children. It is a slow process so I wouldnt go head long into this. I would look at one area at a time and build it up from there. The frequency at which you implement changes is obviously up to you however I would space it every few weeks or every month.

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Rewrite your past to create your future

Ever thought your past dictates the state of your life just now? Why not rewrite your past to create your future. There are theories galore stating that what has happened in your past can have a huge impact on the way you are living your life just now. This has become part of the human psyche and it is an embedded belief in a lot of people. Well why not relax this belief and while were at it lets change the past. When you really break it down your past is a collection of memories you hold in your head. Read that statement again your past is a collection of memories you hold in your head. That might sound ridiculous but its true. What might sound even more ridiculous is that some theories state that you cannot prove your past existed, but we wont go there just now thats for another post. Last week someone asked me what I had for dinner the previous night (who knows why he asked me, I didnt even question that at the time), anyway I thought back to the previous night. In my mind I pictured myself and my family sitting down and eating together at the table, I pictured us talking about school, work and the usual chit chat. I then remembered tucking into pasta bolognaise. So I replied to the person asking that Id had pasta bolognaise. I went about my business as usual and then remembered I had been working late the previous night, and I hadnt sat down with my whole family it was just my wife I had sat down to dinner with, the kids had already had their dinner. And I didnt have pasta bolognaise, Id had rice and chicken. So what! You might say, but Id effectively re-written a part of my past, albeit momentarily, and we do this everyday without realising it. Our memories are not always accurate; in fact Id say they are inaccurate most of the time. We are changing everyday, our mood changes, our perception of life changes from day to day, our interactions with people change from day to day, our belief system changes all the time, our knowledge and expectations change. The psychologist Frederick Bartlett called this Schemata. According to Bartlett, memories are organized within the historical and cultural frameworks of the individual, and the process of remembering involves the retrieval of information which has been unknowingly altered in order that it is compatible with pre-existing knowledge. Neurophilosophy.wordpress.com I remember in my early twenties life was totally down and miserable, I felt sorry for myself, I thought people didnt like me, I thought the world was against me. Now, when I was feeling like that I was still collecting memories along the way, bleak memories, depressive memories when in actual fact it was my perception of the world at the time but it wasnt necessarily a true representation of life. However, I have collected the memories from that part of my life and carried it on into the future. I have since gone back and revisited those days and managed to change the overall feeling of the time. When I have gone back it is not specific memories, rather it is a cloud of feeling that I am changing. However it works with specific memories as well.

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Dont deny your past What I am advocating is changing the feeling of your past, not deny the events that happened. By changing the feelings of the past you will be altering your current and future life. Use this as another tool to get yourself to feel positive about your world. If you dont feel positive about your world just now and havent done for a long time it might take a long time to change that view. Why not make the changes now instead of waiting on the changes to come. Quick exercise Think back to when you last felt angry with someone Go back into the memory and start to change various aspects of it. Change the colours in the scene, change the way people are interacting with you, look at the person you are angry with and study them and try and gauge their feelings. Freeze frame the scene. Study the person again and mentally ask them questions, how are they feeling? Did something happen to them to make them feel this way? Ask yourself how you are feeling, was there something that made you feel this way. Now replay the scene again and notice the changes in yourself and the way you feel about the situation, are you still as angry? This is a simplified way of changing a memory, but it can be that easy sometimes. Over time if you do this long enough and practice it you will start to feel a shift, mentally and possibly physically, depending on how much you have been working on your memories. I believe this method could be extremely useful in other areas of our lives such as during ill health. I believe that our memories and thoughts affect the cells in the body. If we are ill at any stage in our lives would it be possible to change the illness by remembering a time when we were well and projecting it into the future?

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Self discipline, willpower and motivation

Self discipline Taming the lazy monkey Every morning I have a freezing cold shower, why? Because part of my mind says Dont do it, its just stupid and that same part of my mind gives lots of different reasons not to do it. Each morning I fight that inner voice and discipline it to accept that I am taking a freezing cold shower. I believe there are benefits to having a cold shower which is why I started the discipline in the first place. Self discipline is a skill and once you get to grips with it, it can alter your life. What is it? Self discipline is the training of your mind to control, perceived harmful, urges, and to continue to control these urges until a satisfactory resolution has been sought Self discipline occurs in every part of your life right now, you might not have recognised it but it does. When you get out of bed in the morning to go to work, that is self discipline; when you brush your teeth every morning, that is self discipline; when you have a shower or a bath every morning, that is self discipline. Although you might not have recognised it as such we use this skill every day in our lives. Imagine if you harnessed this power to change different aspects of your life. There are many areas of your life it could benefit; in fact it could benefit every area of your life. If you want to give up smoking, no matter what programs are available to do so, it ultimately comes down to self discipline. If you want to lose weight, yes its great that there are groups of people who are doing the same as they can be a good motivator but again it comes down to self discipline. Whos in control of your mind? With television, computers, e-mail, radio, mobile phones, video, iPods, newspapers, magazines, etc there has never been an easier way to reach our minds through advertising. A lot of us dont realise that we are all being manipulated in some way to do things that may be harmful to us. I am not talking conspiracy or anything like that, its been a natural progression. Advertisers have become a lot smarter and appealed to our psyche rather than our rational minds, there are some great adverts out there which slip into our minds and build up and eventually get us to act to buy something or do something. For example our children, especially at this time of year, they are bombarded with adverts for toys and they have to have the latest thing. Why is so much spent on advertising for children when its the adults who are buying? Because its the children who ultimately apply the pressure for us to buy the latest toy. We all give in and buy that toy dont we.

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The practice of self discipline Whilst its hard to control your thoughts and actions as a child it should be easier for an adult, you would think! However this is not necessarily the case. If youve not been taught self discipline as a child how are you expected to self discipline yourself as an adult? The truth is self discipline comes automatically for some us as our responsibilities become greater. For example when we get a job, we have to get up at a set time, we have to work a set number of hours, we have to conform to the companies rules and procedures, thats all self discipline. Usually the things we learn to practice self discipline in are the things we are rewarded with e.g. our job, going to the gym, saving money, making love. Depending on the person some of these rewards will be bigger and have more meaning than some of the others.

What good would self discipline have in your life? What if you could practice self discipline in everything you do? How would your life change? Would it change? Think of these questions for a moment. Some of the areas in your life you could change might be; The amount of time spent with the kids Your weight Your fitness The tidiness of your house The tidiness of your office The cleanliness of your house Fixing all the broken things in your house (fix that shelf once and for all) The amount of time spent watching TV Watching what you eat Fasting for one day per week Having a cold shower every morning Get your finances sorted out Write those letters youve been meaning to write Make the phone calls youve been meaning to make Organise your life Getting up early to be thankful of all the things you have The list could go on and on and I am sure you could add a few as well, let me know what you would add.

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Self discipline, willpower and motivation

Willpower
Willpower is the initial force needed for you to take action. Picture the scene: Its pissing down with rain outside, its cold, youre lying all cosy and comfortable watching TV in front of the fire and the dog is crying to go for her daily walk. If youve got a lot of willpower you would get up and take her for a walk, if youre lacking in willpower youll carry on watching TV and justify to yourself the reasons for not taking her a walk. Will power and self-discipline go hand in hand. You need the willpower to start whatever it is you want to do and you need the self discipline to carry on where the willpower left off and this will go round in circles. For a specific task you might only need to engage your willpower once and self discipline will carry you through to your goal. On the other hand you might have to engage your will power a hundred times before your goal has been reached. For example every morning I have a cold shower it takes willpower to turn that dial all the way down to 0 for a freezing cold temperature. I used to do it gradually but now I just yank it right down to 0 when I have finished washing. My willpower is acquiescing a bit now and it is getting easier to do it but it still takes willpower and then the self discipline to stay under. Why do I do it? Because I can, I am proving to myself I control my mind and I believe there are benefits to be had from taking a cold shower. There are certain steps needed to kick your willpower into action 1. 2. 3. 4. An outcome (what is it you want to do?) A plan (how are you going to do it?) Action (get off your arse and do it!) Let self discipline take over and repeat steps 1 -3 if necessary

Okay youve managed to get out of the sofa, walk the dog in the pouring rain what now/ nothing, you have achieved your goal, but (always a but) do you want to go on to bigger and better things, of course you do. Start exercising your willpower regularly to keep it active and healthy. Here are a few exercises to keep your willpower active and fit: Read for half an hour every day Stand on a chair for 5 minutes a day (If anybody asks what you are doing tell them its a new form of meditation, you never know you might be able to give classes in it.) Take the dog for a walk every single morning for 21 days Stop drinking coffee for a week Get up half an hour earlier than usual for 21 days Take a cold shower every morning for 21 days Dont eat sweets of any kind for a week I am sure there are lots of things you could think of to exercise your willpower; the above list is just a few examples.

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Self discipline, willpower and motivation

Motivation
Motivation plays a huge part in the exercising of self discipline and willpower. We have to have some kind of motivation to do everything we do in life. You wouldnt be reading this article just now if you didnt think you werent going to get something from reading it. We all need motivation in our lives however, depending on the size of the reward, we may not always feel motivated. The way to gaining more motivation is to make the rewards bigger. For example, rather than having a toy fight with my two sons, which they love, I usually want to keep working on my blogs. In the past I have said Sorry boys, Ive got work to do and I really need to get this done and then I would happily continue to work away safe in the knowledge that I had a good excuse to keep on working. Now I make the rewards of the toy fight more rewarding, I get to spend time with my boys, even if it is half an hour, it stops them from watching TV for half an hour, it is giving us all exercise, (were always knackered at the end of it), we laugh like we have never laughed and I feel great at the end of it. And after the half hour there is more blood pumping through my brain, more oxygen, better thinking, better clarity of mind, its all good. So, make the rewards bigger and you can have all the motivation you need. Motivation is a huge subject but I will not discuss it at length here. I just wanted to point out that motivation plays a big role when we come to exercise out self discipline and our willpower. Pulling it all together Okay, youve learned all about self discipline, willpower and motivation what can you do to put it all together and use it in your day to day lives? First of all you need to recognise where it will be useful to exercise your self discipline and willpower. I am sure you can think of areas in your life already where you will be able to use them. Write them down, a quick list. You might have already done this Once youve got a list, small or big, it doesnt matter. Pick two from your list and start to practice self discipline and willpower.

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For example if your two were to give up sweets and take a cold shower in the morning (ones I have done already), every morning get up, set yourself up for the day and tell yourself you are self disciplined and have lots of willpower, jump in the shower, once youve washed gradually turn the shower down to cold until it is all the way down to its coldest setting. What will happen is your inner voice will reason with you as to why its a bad idea to turn that dial down to cold, it will try and cajole you saying its too warm, start tomorrow, why would you want to do this anyway, just because you read it in a blog post doesnt mean to say you have to do it it will bombard you with reasons. Listen to that voice and just tell it I am the boss here. Do the same with giving up the sweets or whatever you have chosen to do. Keep telling that inner voice that you are boss and you decide what you do. A word of warning here. I would advise you not to go all out and try your self discipline on everything. I would start with a couple of things at first. Your willpower and self discipline is like a muscle which needs to be built up gradually. Good luck with this, its well worth practicing this it is one of the best tools to master in your life and one of the most beneficial.

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Silent power
Silent power is the ability to keep something held deep within yourself therefore allowing you an inner strength and determination which builds up to confidence. When I was younger I used to think being quiet and introverted was a sign of weakness, to me it meant I didnt have the confidence to be in amongst my peers. For years I tried to get rid of this and tried to be more gregarious and a bit of a lad but nothing I tried worked. Eventually I came to the realization I was this way because of my confidence not through lack of confidence. I didnt mind being in groups, I loved to listen to everybody else and listen to the banter. However I still tried to surround myself with people who I wanted to be like, all my friends were very outgoing, very confident, and quite arrogant. After a few years and an event that changed my life I decided to drop my friends, all except one, and move on. After this I became much more comfortable with who I was and I loved being the strong, silent mysterious type. Ironically I became more outgoing but still kept that inner silence. Inner Strength Being silent has strength about it. Have you ever held onto a secret for someone? Theyve made you promise not to tell anyone and it was a really juicy secret? How did it feel when the secret eventually came out and the person who told you not to tell anyone knew it wasnt you it came from? I would guess you felt proud, strong and a closer connection to the person. Now have you ever done the opposite? told the secret you werent supposed to, how did you feel then? Exactly the opposite: disappointed in yourself, disloyal, etc. Keeping things to yourself, in an unselfish way, has a strength which is manifested in your personality and subsequently your aural energy. Your aural energy is the energy you give off every day, people cannot necessarily see it but somehow they can feel it and sense it coming from you. People who brag about themselves all the time lose this energy and have to gain it from somewhere else, they want to feel important so they brag and boost stealing energy from people that give them attention. I remember when I was a teenager my friends used to brag about the girls they had been with and something inside me thought it was wrong to kiss and tell so when I went out with a girl I didnt say anything, I usually said we had a good night and left it at that. I once told the whole sordid details and ended up feeling shit about myself, the girl I had bragged about felt shit, and a lot of other people thought I was a right shit, needless to say I never ever did it again. The next time you feel like bragging or boosting about something or giving away a secret, try your hardest to hold onto it and see how much inner power it gives you and how strong you feel after it. Once youve felt this power you will never want to tell another persons secret or brag again.

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Slowing the world down

Sometimes its an absolute nightmare trying to juggle everything we have to do in a day. In the world we live in today we are available 24 hours a day. We work longer hours and take in much more information through TV, newspapers, iPods, DABs, the internet, smartphones, billboards, magazines, letters, junk mail, and e-mail to name but a few. Its information overload and we are trying to juggle all this with our work, family, and playtime. Our brains are amazing and we are amazing as a species. However sometimes weve got to give our brains a helping hand and say enough is enough. Here are some tips to slow down the mad world for a few minutes a day; Give yourself ten minutes at home and at work before checking your e-mails. This allows your brain that little bit longer to get into the swing of things and to prepare it for the day ahead. Take a lunch break. Make this a priority; I am amazed at how many people dont take a lunch break. I make it a priority to take an hour (54 minutes to be precise) every day. Turn off your mobile and go somewhere other than the office, this splits the day in half and it will set you up for the second half. If you are out and about all the time in the car, pull over to a nice spot, turn the phone off and just read for ten minutes or absorb the scenery. Despite what you think 10 minutes can be excused no matter how important you think you are to the company. Delegate as much as you can and concentrate on the important tasks. This is easier said than done, but try asking someone to do something for you; a voluntary agency, your children, your friends, your work colleagues etc. Make a to do list every morning and prioritise your work and tasks for the day. This gives a huge sense of satisfaction when jobs are completed and also motivates you to keep going. If its too much just stop doing it. I recently took on too many jobs at once and was halfway into a project and I realised I was stressing myself, I was cranky with my family and it was because I had taken on too much. I decided to end a project for building a website for someone and apologised profusely and gave him back the money. He was not happy at all and told me so. I felt really bad but at the same time it was a weight lifted and a lesson learned.

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Stages of your own evolution

I had my Christmas night out last night with my workplace and since I havent had a drink for 4 months or so I was feeling a little drunk after 2 or 3 drinks. I kept on drinking in the hope that I would become a little less self conscious about the fact that I was getting drunk. However this did not work and I felt even more self conscious, particularly because the boss was there and was not drinking. I couldnt get out of that place in my head so I decided to go home early, around 11.30pm. Anybody that knew me in the past would know that this is not me at all and I would be the one suggesting to go on to a nightclub at 2am in the morning, singing and dancing all the way there. As I tend to do when I have been out on a night out with the workplace I go over the events in my head. I came to the conclusion that I am just not that person anymore. Its another stage in my evolution, but rather than accept this stage I found it was quite sad to let it go and upon a bit of introspection it was because it had served me so well in the past. Now, this might sound all a bit serious thinking, after all it was a Christmas night out. It was just one of those realisation moments when I knew I had moved on from a stage in my life. I thought about this in the morning (this morning) when I woke up and thought about the stages of our evolution. I thought it would be a good exercise to try and think about the stages of my evolution. From an Erikson psychosocial point of view I would have reached the Generativity stage of my own evolution, from a spiritual point of view, according to Scott M Peck, I have reached stage 3 or 4 of my spiritual evolution, from a Freudian sexual point of view I have reached. who knows! The one I was interested in was the ego stage and according to Loevingers ego development stages I have probably reached the Conscientious and Individualistic stage. In James Fowlers stages of faith development I have reached stage 5 Conjunctive faith. I thought looking at these stages of development was useful as a loose guide and of course thats what all these theories are; loose guides. They are useful for thinking about yourself and how far you have travelled in your life so far. I know I have moved on in all areas of my life and sometimes it can be sad sometimes joyful but most of the time it is exciting. I am excited by life , excited for the future and hope you find some use with the above links.

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Template reality
Recently I have been questioning everything in my life, but most of all reality. I used to think reality was a given, we couldnt change it, it wasnt malleable, we were stuck with what we had. However when I started questioning it, really questioning it some interesting answers were brought up and I had to change my belief about reality itself. First of all we have to ask what different types of reality are there: Objective reality This is basically when we all agree on roughly what the world and its contents are. For example if the whole world were to look at a snake we could all name it as such, as our idea of a snake is pretty much the same across the world. Now, the same snake might elicit different reactions from people across the world, some people revere snakes others are terrified, others are curious etc, but we still all agree a snake is a snake. If we transfer this model and put it into our own lives we have no real control over our lives as reality is independent of our thoughts, it will still exist even if we believe it does not. Subjective reality essentially this is when you create the world you live in, you create the people, you create the people having their own ideas, you create the laws etc. This is possibly the hardest to get my head around, but I have been playing with it for a while with some interesting results. I have been playing with the idea that I can create anything I want by thinking and believing it can happen. I found I can get to the believing part when I start small and work up to bigger things. For example when I wanted money in my life I simply thought and started to believe that I would be given 10, sure enough 10 or more came my way by way of an unexpected source. Okay 10 worked, what about 100? That worked as well, therefore strengthening my belief that this really works. Okay what about 1000, I concentrated on my past successes with this, I believed it would come, and it did, it took a bit longer but it came in the form of money from a fund my wife received. I have experimented with other things as well and I must say I like this form of reality; its a lot more fun than having the view that everything in life happens to me by chance. However it is still a struggle to believe that I am imagining you reading this page and I am giving you thoughts. I am imagining my whole world. Another reality: Template driven reality So what about an alternative, probably not a new one but one I came about by questioning. A template driven model of reality. This is the marrying of the objective reality and subjective reality models, assuming there are only two basic models. In this model of reality we are each programmed with set rules about the world e.g. the law of gravity, this is the objective part of reality. However what we do with the template is up to us.

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The blog analogy I would imagine it is just like this blog you are reading just now. The blog itself is a basic template. Now by adding widgets on, adding plugins, writing my own content, manipulating various features of the template it looks and feels totally different from other blogs which have the same basic template. This is what gives us our uniqueness, our ability to shape our own lives. Now, imagine you were given a blog template and did absolutely nothing with it. You wrote a few times in it, you added various family members, friends; you updated it with some of your educational achievements and your job etc. You wouldnt really be excited about your blog Imagine the same blog being constantly updated with new content, new ideas, you promoted your blog regularly, you contributed to the world, more and more people came to see it, You updated the template design on occasion and you kept up to date with what was going on in the blogging world, you updated your knowledge of the world regularly, you kept on thinking of ways to improve it. Imagine your wants and desires in the world to be analogous to traffic to your blog. Which of the above blogs would get more traffic to their blog i.e. their desires and wishes fulfilled more times? Your own world and theory I can see the benefits of taking on a subjective world viewpoint and I have swayed more to living a subjective world viewpoint however I still find it difficult to totally accept it intellectually. However it doesnt really matter as I am having great time thinking about my own reality structure and playing with it, after all nobody else can prove otherwise. We are all living in a world full of theories so why not make up our own theories!

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The process of a dream

Over the years I have noticed that the things I have failed in are the things I have not thought out. I have started projects in the past and got really enthusiastic and then the enthusiasm dies. I have analysed the failures and discovered that I used to get the whiff of an idea and then go for it all guns blazing without thinking about it. Now the first thing I do is think about the outcome, I think about the end of the project and work back. I was speaking with someone last week who is very impulsive and has all these grand ideas, a bit like me when I was younger, and he said he wanted to be a pilot. I said that was a great and ambitious plan, so we looked into it. After he saw the amount of work and possible money involved he dropped that and move onto something else, I encouraged him to go for it but he said he wanted something a little easier to obtain. He then wanted to be a professional football player. If you can see the end of your dream and can see the outcome then the bits in-between become a little easier. For example, one of my dreams is to become a personal development speaker. The process worked like this; I watched Jack Black (Scottish Personal Development speaker) and said thats the job for me. That was about 9 years ago. I didnt do anything about at first, but I did read every personal development book I could. The dream did not die, but it was still a dream. 8 years later the dream was still burning a little ember in the back of my mind. I decided last year I would pursue this dream I had. I thought about the end and where it might lead, it would mean a lot of rejection at first, it would mean facing up to my fears, it would mean studying and writing a lot, it would mean perfecting the craft of speaking. I still wanted to do it. Then I worked back the way. A blog seemed a great way to start and would really show me if I had the commitment to do this as I would need to continue writing a blog for months maybe years before I got anything out of it. I am pleased with the blog and am still committed to it and have now set the wheels in motion and written a course about blogging which will give me confidence in speaking to audiences. Once I have the experience of speaking regularly I can develop the personal development course next year and roll it out.

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I am so much closer to my goal than I was. Youll notice the main ingredients of this dream of mine. The dream stayed a dream until I actually moved on it and started thinking about it and doing something with it. I saw the end of the dream and what it would mean to me if I achieved it. Now the wheels are turning quite rapidly and things are starting to fall into place. So if we broke it right down the process of achieving your dreams might work like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Your have to have a dream before you can achieve it. Think about the end and what it will mean. Act on the dream. Keep acting on it, make a call, speak to someone, do anything and keep the momentum. Review your dream regularly Achieve your dream

Its great having dreams and little daydreams and its also great keeping them that way, like the daydream of winning the lottery, you know it is unlikely to happen but its good to daydream about it. Now if your dream is something you really want to do, you have to act on it before you even get close to the dream. Take one step everyday to work on your dream, even if that means thinking about it. Thinking and visualising your dream is important to keep it alive. Take action steps, make phone calls, speak to someone about it, and get good at the processes in-between. Review your dream regularly, this will tell you if you are on track or if the dream is dying. If the dream dies then thats okay, it saves you a lot of time. If the dream is still alive keeping taking the action steps until you achieve it. You are reading this blog for a reason; why not act on that reason. Do one thing that will take you a step closer to your dream. Want to share your dream, share it here by leaving a comment. Youll always find someone willing to encourage you.

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Timeline perspective
Are you happy with all the different areas of your life? What about the old you, would they be happy with the way your life is just now?what about your future self? Heres a different approach to try to find out how happy you are with the different areas of your life. The Timeline perspective is learning to look at all the areas of your life from lots all of your different perspectives. It is looking at yourself from the past, the present and the future. Why? Why would you use the timeline perspective of yourself? I believe consciousness is an amazing aspect of human life and I also believe we can access consciousness from all ourselves, past, present and future. It may have a memory which we can tap into. I see consciousness as being a split up into different clouds and each consciousness cloud can be tapped into should we wish to use its knowledge. I am working with the theory that these clouds of consciousnesses can be tapped into simply by thinking about tapping into them. For example, if we want to tap into psychic consciousness all we have to do is think about having psychic experiences, we have to believe that I will happen, read about it let it soak us and sure enough psychic experiences will come. I believe this is how the Law of attraction works. We think that the law of attraction works, we eventually believe it will work and eventually it will work. It takes a giant leap of faith to believe it but once it starts to help us in our day to day lives the law of attraction will work a lot quicker. So we are tapping into the law of attraction cloud Timeline cloud Just as there may be clouds of consciousness for everything we can think of and some we have yet to think of we have clouds which pertain to us specifically. Within these clouds we can access our past consciousness, pour present consciousness and our future consciousness. I will discuss these clouds of consciousness in future posts as I am playing with the theory and trying to experience it as much as possible before formulating any concrete belief. This is the beauty of checking out all of my current beliefs its great to play with them , dismiss them and formulate my own, instead of someone telling me this is what you should believe and anything else is just stupid or crazy. Try it out Okay heres an example to play with and check out the timeline perspective. Look at one specific area of your life just now for example your career. Ask yourself these questions and be as honest as you possibly can. Let the answers come to you if you can and try and let everything that comes into your mind come out onto the paper or the computer. I will use my answers by way of an example. I am currently a support worker for the homeless; I have not yet made the transition to full time life coach or seminar speaker and internet entrepreneur.

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Are you happy with your current career? Yes I am very happy with where I am just now Think back to yourself 1 year ago, would that person be happy with your current career? - I think they would be a little disbelieving but I think they would be very surprised and happy yes. Think back to yourself 5 years ago, would that person be happy with your current career? Again he would be surprised and he wouldnt dream that he would be working as a support worker with the homeless. Think back to yourself 10 years ago, would that person be happy with your current career? He wouldnt have been happy as he wanted something else in, life; he wanted more prestige, more money. Now think of yourself 1 year from now, is that person happy with your current career? He is happy with the experience it gave him but feels it is nearing the end of that career. Now think of yourself 5 years from now, is that person happy with your current career? No not at all, he would be very unhappy if he was still in the same job. I think you get the picture now. What I found most interesting about this exercise is that I believed I would be happy with this career in all aspects of myself: past, present and future. However when I came to answer the questions about different aspects of my life it was really surprising what my past thought about my present and what my future thought about my present choices.

Accessing our future selves Now you might think how the hell can we access our future selves. For a moment think about what you are going to do tomorrow, possibly get up to go to work, think of the work you will do, the people you will talk to, etc etc. You have just accessed your future self. You always have to access your future self at some point. The moment you wake up you are accessing your future self you have to think about what you are going to do before you do it. This was a great revelation to me when I discovered it, and it is by no means a new revelation: You ALWAYS have to think about your future before you do it. I will leave this post here for now as there is so much more to say on this subject and I will be talking about it a lot in the future. For now I hope the meeting with your three selves goes well.

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Using your computer to change your life

Computers have changed our lives and our world beyond measure. I cannot imagine what I would do without my computer to communicate, to write, to organise my life, generate ideas, research, read, listen, make money etc. We are using the power of the computer to change the way we live but can we use it to change our lives internally? I would like to show you a way to use your computer to change your own life using the internet, a headset with microphone attachment, a set of intentions and a quick software download. This exercise is possibly the most powerful exercise you will do in your life and possibly the one that will change your life forever. Positive thinking I believe positive talking and thinking is not enough to change your life. Positive talking is using your conscious mind to try to communicate with your subconscious mind. The trouble is that, an estimated, 90% of your life is controlled by your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind has been imprinted a long time ago with programs of life making it very difficult to imprint new programs. To imprint a new program, it requires you to be in a relaxed state of mind. When you are in a relaxed state of mind you are emitting what is called Alpha Waves and that is when new imprinting can take place. There is lots of information on learning and your brain waves and learning have a search around Google. When you use positive thinking you are usually in a Beta state of mind, which is the normal waking conscious state. So it is very difficult to reach your subconscious mind using your conscious mind. However, we know that when you are sleeping your brainwaves are alternating between Alpha, Delta and Theta states. So to reach your unconscious mind and imprint new programs you have to reach one of the unconscious brainwave states. The easiest one to reach is Alpha waves and it is in this state that you can change your life. This powerful exercise requires a few pre-requisites. What you will need You will need a headset with a microphone attached. You can buy these really cheaply from any computer store. I bought mine for 13 after a donation I was given by a reader of this blog. Download some recording software so you can record your voice. I use the the Audacity software which lets you alter your recording when you have completed it. I am presuming you have a soundcard with mic in ports Some music that gets you into a relaxed state. Use classical music or relaxation music. I use a beautiful piece of music from the Estonian composer Arvo Part called Spiegel Im Spiegel. Write down 10- 30 intentions under 3 8 main headings. I have the headings: Family, Health, Love, Finance, Career, and Personal growth and I have 4 intentions in each category.

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The intentions After reading and listening to Marc Allen I always start each intention with In a healthy and positive way... Marc calls them affirmations but I prefer to use the word intentions. Another thing is to take your time over your intentions. Think about what you really want in life as this exercise is very powerful and you have heard the saying Be careful what you wish for you might just get it. Ready to record Make sure you can find 10 minutes free time when there will be absolutely no distractions, preferably having no one in the house at all. Turn on your favourite piece of music and then hit the record key on Audacity. Now start to read your intentions out loud. Do it in a calm, slow voice. When you have read out all your intentions stop the recording. When you are happy with the recording making sure it is clear, loud enough and easy to understand, duplicate the recording 5 times. Duplicate your recording using Audacity. To duplicate the recording it is just like copying and pasting on word. Highlight the recording or press CTRL+A > go to File > Click Copy > Now go to the end of the recording > go to file again and click paste (CTRL+V) and do this 4 times. > Now click on file and click export as MP3 and save it to a folder. You now have your recording but repeated 5 times. This will probably last from 10-15 minutes. Now you can listen to your recording whenever you want and have a spare 10 minutes to relax. You can download it to your iPod or MP3 player and listen to it when you are waiting in queues, or traffic jams, or whenever you have to wait a long time for something. Added benefits If you use this three times per day you have the added benefit of relaxing three times per day. This, as you know, has massive benefits on your everyday life. Its like meditating for 15 minutes, three times a day; this in itself will change your life dramatically. I recorded my intentions 9 days ago and have been listening to it every day, 3 times a day. I have noticed dramatic changes that I cannot put down to coincidence. Some of the things are: I have received 2 website commissions, I have lost another few pounds in weight, my relationships with my children are better, I am less stressed at work, I am making more money from the blog, and I have more energy, I am just enjoying life more. I am constantly amazed at way my life changes for the better and its definitely down to personal development. I was going to wait until the full 21 days was over before I wrote an article about it. However, I was so excited about the changes in my life that I wanted to tell you about it sooner.

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A challenge for you All this talk of intentions, the subconscious mind, Alpha waves etc might sound airy fairy to some of you. I would like to challenge you to try this for 21 days. The challenge is: Record your intentions as described above and then listen to your recording 3 times per day, every day for 21 days. You are only taking 30-45 minutes per day to change your life. I challenge you to do this and tell me there are no benefits to it. If you like you can send me an e-mail to let me know you are willing to take the challenge and I will e-mail you every day to give you that push you need to carry on with the challenge. I will add your name to a separate post entitled the The Change your life challenge and if you send me a link to your blog or website I will post a linkback to it. There is only 1 rule and that is you take the challenge and check in with me every day for 21 days, letting me know what you have done that day.

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What to do when you lose your mojo

Have you ever had that feeling in your life when nothing is working? Youre feeling down, people you thought were on your side are suddenly against you? You feel the whole world is against you? Unless you are a manic depressive hopefully this only happens once in a blue moon. What do you do when this happens? This exercise is not for people who are depressive and are on medication for their depression. This is for those times when we have lost it for a few days, our confidence has gone. You know you will go back to your old self soon but its shit feeling that way you do just now. This exercise should help. Depending on how deep the mojo losing has gone there are steps you can take to get the mojo back. It all starts at the start 1. Recognise when the mojo losing feeling started. Usually there is a trigger event that starts the snowball rolling and the downward spiral of feelings. An example trigger would be falling out with your partner, loss of a job, a failed exam something big but not huge. 2. Go back to the last known good configuration. This is a computer term meaning that if something goes wrong with a program, revert to a time when it was working okay. It involves going back, in your mind, to the last time you felt good about yourself and the world. This involves visualising yourself in the time when you felt good. Use your mind to the full, get the feelings back, and get the smell, touch, taste, and sounds back. If you can do this a few times a day for the next few days you will see a dramatic difference in the way you feel. 3. Thank yourself This is important. Feeling down for a few days is not a good feeling, however it reminds us how good our life really is. When we are in the black cloud of feeling down the world is not a good place, when the cloud disappears the sunshine is back. This is the time to thank yourself, thank yourself for your life (it is you who is creating it). When I do exercises like this it further strengthens my belief that we create, in part, the world around us. If we can control our state of mind we can, effectively, control the world.

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Your roles in life

How many roles do you have in life? I have at least 8 roles which I have to juggle and separate, when I say separate I mean mentally separate each role. At the moment I am a Father, a husband, a support worker, a coach, a counsellor, a website creator, a blogger, and consultant. I didnt really take notice of the different roles until a few weeks ago. I usually get up at around 5.30ish and work on the blog or a website. I usually wake my kids up at around 7am. So, 7am comes, I walk upstairs wake them and come back downstairs to cram a few minutes more work. I then shout at the kids for not being ready, or not brushing their teeth after me telling them for the 5th time. I then cram another few minutes in. At around 7.30am I wake my wife up for work or university and then cram another few minutes into work. Then when I know the kids are ready and had breakfast and their lunches have been made I then have a cold shower and get ready for work. I have a cup of tea with my wife and then get the boys ready for going out to school and off we trot at about 8.15am. So, from 7am until about 8am I have slipped between roles of blogger, website creator, father, husband, and getting ready for support worker; 5 roles in all. What happens is that I get grumpy as hell as sometimes, mentally, I am not finished one role before I slip into another. So I take it out on my family, not realising why I am being a bit grumpy. What is happening is that I am not mentally finishing one job before trying to go into another job and then not finishing that one before going into another. Its like reading 8 pages of a book, you start one page, dont finish it, go on to the next page, dont finish that one and so on and so forth. Nothing really gets finished. This is mentally frustrating and can cause stress and anger. I hate starting something and not finishing it, even if I dont like the task. I dont like things being left undone. Due to the blog and a few website commissions coming in I am much busier than normal the past few weeks. It was my wife who pointed out I was being a bit grumpy, which wasnt like me. We spoke about it and nailed it down to the mornings and nailed it down to not being able to concentrate on one role at a time. A tip for switching between roles This may seem extremely simple but the trick to switching between roles successfully is two fold: Recognise what roles you play in life and note down when you play them Set times for changing between the various roles. This has to be a conscious thing. For example if you work in the morning set a time for finishing that work and dont go back to it. I now finish my blogging and website stuff at 7am and am a father and husband until 8.30am; then I am a support worker until 4.45pm then I am a father and husband until about 7pm and then I am a blogger and website creator until about 10pm. Obviously this changes at the weekend and on holidays, as my father and husband roles greatly increase in time.

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This has helped me tremendously over the last few weeks, I am a lot calmer, less stressed, and I am getting more things done in life and am procrastinating less. What I also found useful was to create a pie chart of what roles I play and the percentage I play them. The pie chart shows a typical 120 hour waking week for me. It was interesting to see how much time I spend in different roles. Doing the pie chart a few weeks ago made me realise I needed to spend more time with my family so I rearranged a few hours to make more time for my family. I would like to get rid of the 25% I spend working as a support worker for the homeless, but money dictates. However I like my job but spreading the 25% around some of the other roles would be great.

What roles do you have in life? Why not create a pie chart like the one above or simply note down the percentages of each different role. I think you will be surprised at the number of hours spent in each role; it may let you look at life in a new way. If you do work out the percentages why not post them and I will create an overall pie chart for everyone.

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10 tips to stay sane at Christmas

Christmas and the New Year can be a stressful time of year for a lot of people. This neednt be the case. Here are a few tips for staying sane this Christmas. #10 Plan Christmas - If youve not already done so, plan your Christmas shopping in one day. This includes presents, food and decorations. Take 1 day to plan it and 1 day to action it. This way you gear yourself up for the stress and all that goes with Christmas. #9 Breathe - When you are in queues do your breathing exercises, ratio of 1:4:2, breath in for 1, hold for 4 and out for 2. So if you breathe in for 4, hold for 16 and breathe out for 8 seconds. #8 Delegate - Dont try and organise the whole day yourself allocate roles to your family. My sons roles will be to clear the living room before dinner, lay the table, welcome guests, whilst we can do the dinner etc. #7 - Be Happy This is not meant to be a stressful time of year, remember what its all about, the family getting together, having fun and enjoying your time together. #6 Quality time Allow yourself a break during the day or during the lead up to Christmas and New Year. You might think that if you tool half an hour to yourself the world would fall apart, it wont. Take a nap, sit in the bathroom, read a book, meditate, anything but make sure you allow time for yourself. #5 Allow mess Christmas is a childrens holiday as well, dont get too stressed about the place being a mess for a day or half a day. Children are messy and want to play NOW and dont care about clearing up, allow them to be a bit messy for a day then kick butt on Boxing Day. #4 Spending limit Stick rigidly to your spending limit. Every year, without fail, one of us will say Oh that doesnt look that much compared to the other one, we better buy a few extra presents. Although it may not look as if youve bought one of your children a lot compared to the other the amount of money spent is the same and thats what matters. Yes children will notice but if you explain to them, they are usually happy. #3 Get the food in early Very important this one. Dont leave the food shopping until last minute. You dont want to be stuck with Turkey breast slices if youve planned your meal around a 12Ib Turkey. #2 Relax Youve opened the presents, played some games, eaten the dinner, tidied up (a little), now Relax. Just chill out and enjoy the rest of the day. Put your feet up; better yet get a foot massage from your partner. #1 Be Thankful Dont want to depress you but be thankful. Count your blessings. There are millions of people worse off so look around your family and silently thank them, look around your house, and look around your estate. You are truly blessed.

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