I recently read the book ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho. It has been around for a number of years and I was a bit late to read it, but I am glad that I did because it is among one of the best books I have ever read (which is probably the reason why it has already sold millions of copies around the world).

Although this post is not meant to be a book review, I want to give you a very brief summary of what ‘The Alchemist’ is about, because it will help you understand the rest of my post.

‘The Alchemist’ is a story about a boy named Santiago who lives his life as a shepherd somewhere near the north of Africa. One day, as part of his life as a shepherd, he went to a village to sell some wool from his sheep. In this village he knew of a gypsy woman who could interpret dreams. He went to see her because he had experienced a very strange dream that he wanted to know the meaning of. The gypsy woman told him to go to the Pyramids of Egypt so that he will find a great treasure that is destined for him.The boy was very sceptical and unbelieving, and he walked out thinking that the gypsy’s words were utter nonsense.

However, back in the village, he meets an old man who was actually a great king. This king gives the boy the inspiration and the belief in the gypsy’s spoken words and the boy proceeds to sell his sheep and travel across the water to reach Egypt in search of his treasure.

From that moment on, Santiago embarks on a journey across the dessert. On his journey he learns much about himself and the world. He overcomes incredible challenges and he meets and parts with an Englishman, the woman of his dreams, angry tribe leaders and finally the alchemist. (An alchemist is someone said to be able to transform lead into gold).

As Santiago learns more about himself and the Soul of the World, he comes closer and closer to realizing his destiny and how to get there and eventually he does, while it was right in front of him all the time, he needed to go through the entire journey of crossing the dessert and overcoming incredible difficulties to be able to see and find his treasure.

Everybody Walks Their Own Path

You are not your father, you are not your mother or your brother or your sister or anyone else in this world.

You are you, and you are unique. Your life is unique and nobody else in this world will experience exactly the same things as you will. Nobody will perceive the world to be exactly the same in all aspects the way you perceive the world.

One of the best things you can do is to accept this fact. While it is okay to look up to others, and learn from their success and their habits, it is not okay to wish you were them. You have to be content with the fact that you are you, and it is up to you to become the best possible version of yourself that you can be.

Every single person in this world needs to walk their own path, from beginning to end. Your life path is different from mine which is different from my friend’s life path and so forth. Sometimes that path may be very clear and easy to follow, and sometimes it is like a jungle with no clear path. That is when you need to make the path, pick up the machete and cute the bushes,plants and branches out the way so you can make progress. (Figuratively speaking of course).

When there is no path and you have to make your path, it is by no means easy. It will go very slowly, it will be very tiring, and sometimes you have to go back and start a new path in another direction because the current direction leads to a dead end.

You can compare cutting your own path to for instance quitting your job to pursue your dreams and passions of starting your own business. The fact that it is so difficult and that it costs so much effort is the reason why so many people do not do it. They are too scared to start the journey towards their dreams by making their own path where there is no path.

If you choose to follow an entire path that someone else has already made you will likely not live up to your full potential. You don’t learn as much from it, you don’t grow as much and your success is not the same as when you cut your own path after the easy path ends.

The Only Way To Learn Is To Do And To Make Mistakes

Theory and observation can only teach you so much. You can sit next to your parents in the car for years and yet when you have to drive it is really difficult. The chance is big that you are going to make many mistakes before you are as good as your parents are at driving.

You can study the theory and techniques of boxing for years, but when you get into that ring for the first time, you are going to make mistakes and take a lot of punches. It takes experience to become good at something. Experience is just a fancy word for having made many mistakes and having learnt from them.

Making mistakes is not a crime, it is not even a failure. It is what you need to do to get better. Ask any successful person and they will tell you they have made tens if not hundreds of mistakes when they were learning to do what they are now so good at. I have made many mistakes in my life so far, and I will continue to make many more in the future, I’m certain of it. Yet, I do not regret making these mistakes because they have made me who I am today, and they are part of the path that I have to walk.

Taking Responsibility

The most difficult part of forging your own path is the fact that you have to take responsibility. You have to take action and risk failure. You risk making mistakes, wasting time, losing money and being laughed at. To take this kind of responsibility takes serious courage and determination, but in the end, that which does not kill you only makes you stronger.

Do not view taking responsibility for your actions as a burden. Instead, see taking responsibility for your actions as taking responsibility for your own life. You are taking control of your own life so that you can head towards where you want to go and how you want to live.

Your Destiny

I cannot tell you what your destiny is, I don’t even know what my own destiny is. I do believe that when you live your life to the fullest, be the best person you can be (love generously) and work hard, that your destiny will reveal itself. My definition of destiny is that one thing that feels like you were put on this earth to do it or to complete it.

Life is full of surprises, both good and bad, that is what makes it interesting and fun! Whether you believe in destiny and fate or not, you have one life and it is yours to live and enjoy. Make the most of your life and become the best person you can be. Do not let your fear or other people’s opinions hold you back from living the way you want to live. Follow your heart and follow your dreams and do not be afraid to have to forge your own path in order to get to where you want to be.

Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Don’t just read this article if you agree with it, put it into action. Take that first step of your thousand mile journey today, and take it one step at a time.

P.S. If you have not read The Alchemist yet, I really suggest that you do because it is an amazing book.

Photo Credit

Here are a few suggestions to debug your mind of those little bugs that make your life less than perfect.

9 Ways to debug your mind

1. Know your own mind – Know your operating system

Not knowing your own mind is like not knowing what operating system your computer uses. Unless you know the operating system you can’t buy software for your computer and if you do chances are it will malfunction or not work at all. Knowing your mind is knowing what values and principles you live by. You might now know all your values and principles but you certainly know some of them. For example would you ever steal from someone, more than likely you wouldn’t, so that is one of the values you live by – I shall not steal from someone else. What about honesty? what about being authentic? What about having compassion for others? What about working hard? These are all values and principles you live your life by. By looking at and developing each value and principle you can start to strengthen each one.

2. Work on your beliefs – Learn the software

Are some of your beliefs outdated? Your beliefs about yourself and the world around you are constantly being updated but you can speed the process up and enjoy a fuller, richer life by knowing what your beliefs are and strengthening them to move you forward. Your beliefs are like the software you have on your computer, you know they are there but you might have not made the best use of them. For example I have photoshop on my computer but I really only use it for cropping, and touching up photos, when there is so much more I could do with photoshop if I only took the time to learn more about it. So it is with beliefs – I believe I am a decent writer but I have never pushed myself to put my writing out there and work on it more and begin to polish it and find my own voice. There are also some beliefs that no longer serve me well so I should drop them. For example I am now quite a confident person but beliefs from my past try and muscle their way in to my current belief, it’s now time to let go of the old belief and live the new belief.

3. Dropping past memories – Deleting old files

Memories you have which can be harmful to your well being are best dropped altogether. Easy to say, harder to do. Some people spend a lifetime in therapy trying to understand why something happened from their childhood, why? Acknowledge that something bad has happened to you and whilst you might never be able to delete the memory you can choose when to access the memory. It’s like having old files on your computer, that will never do you or the computer any good but you choose to go into the folder and open the files up every day. It’s time for the delete button. If the memories are still raw, then that is a different story but if the memories are years old then it’s time to hit DELETE.

4. Take time for yourself – Shutdown your emails, skype, and chat software

Our lives have become so busy with 1001 things to do for our kids, our families, our partners, our work, and friends. Sometimes you just have to shut the world out for a bit and take time for yourself and do something you enjoy. It’s like every time you go on the computer and there are people sending you emails, sending you tweets, wanting to googletalk or talk to you on skype. Shut everything down and take time for yourself. Take a day off work, don’t tell anybody, send the kids to school and spend the day reading, browsing shops, walking, in an art gallery, anything just to be yourself. The time we spend alone is time recharging our batteries.

5. Learn new habits – Upgrade your software

Our habits can also become outdated and if we do the same as we have always done we will always get the same results. Just like your computer if you use the same software without upgrading it you will be missing out on the true potential of the software. Your habits need to be constantly upgraded and new ones introduced over time. If your habit is to exercise only after you have noticed you are piling on the pounds and then stop exercising, then it’s time to look at this habit and rework it so it suits you better and saves you the anguish and pain of piling on the pounds.

6. Keep your mind active – Learn new software

Our minds can become dull with the drudgery of life and going over the same things day in day out. We become bored and settle for a less than perfect life. If we constantly learn new things about our world and the people in it the world and life will not seem dull. Imagine if you were to keep using the WordPress software which came out all those years ago, your blogs or websites wouldn’t be all that exciting, now there is so much more WordPress can do and the current version on 2.8.4 is so much more powerful. Our minds need to keep active and constantly learning new information in order to keep on working in later life.

7. Dropping the deadwood – Delete user permissions

As hard as it sounds there are some people in our lives who do not belong in our lives anymore, you’ve moved on perhaps they have to, but you still keep in touch for some reason, it could be pity, it could be guilt or misplaced loyalty. Whatever it is, if there are people in your life who drag you down, are negative, are not as committed as you, it’s time to say goodbye to them. Change the user permissions on the computer and lock them out. They will move on and you will move on, it’s called life and you will both feel better for it.

8. Recharge your mind – Putting your computer on sleep mode

We are living in an age of information overload and as we learn to adapt and evolve to this we have to find a way to recharge our minds. One of the best ways of doings this, I find, is some form of meditation. 20 – 40 minutes per day will do wonders for your energy, productivity and creativity. When I have mentioned this in the past some people object stating that they cannot get 40 minutes to spend on meditating. The 40 minutes spent on meditating will free up at least 1 hour of your time during the day by recharging your mind and being able to think more clearer, more more productive and have more energy. So if you look at it from the point of view that you are saving at least 20 minutes per day instead of losing 40 minutes per day this might change your mind about meditation.

9. Developing thinking skills – What language is your computer using?

Your computer software is only as good as the language it is written in. Imagine if all software was still written in an old computer language how far would computing have evolved – not very far at all. As computer languages have evolved programmers have written software with the ability to predict what may happen and ‘if’ something happens what to do about it. Our thinking skills are vital to be able to communicate with each other to get our thoughts across to someone else. whilst we were not taught thinking skills formally, we have developed thinking strategies over the course of our lives. It’s important to look at thinking as a skill in order to develop it. Using cognitive brain enhancing programs are one way to develop thinking skills as is reading more on the topic, which is way to big to go into in a post this size. Another thing I would recommend is reading about philosophical issues, I think this is a great exercise to develop thinking skills and can lead you to places in your mind you didn’t know existed.

Hope you enjoy them

9 Personal development posts to enlighten your mind

Want to Fail? Just repeat these 3 phrases daily – LifeDev.com

Forgive an accident – The Happiness Project

Take back your personal power part 1 – Craig Harper writing for Lifehack

Create a profitable online store in 5 easy steps – MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

System Overload – Edragonu.ro

How to build a high traffic blog without killing yourself – Tim Ferris

Work-Love-Sing-Dance – Quantum Learning

Ghost in the machine – MindHacks.com

How to become more successful – StevePavlina.com

How is it possible to reach my goals now if I’ve failed in the past?

Every single person on this planet can reach their goals if they really want to. Don’t worry I’m not going to give you stories of people who have overcome, seemingly, impossible hurdles to reach their goals.  This is about you, nobody else.  Every time you set yourself a goal or a target you are wrestling with yourself.  However there are ways to give yourself a fighting chance of reaching your goals.

A scenario

You’re all ready to go, you’ve set yourself a goal in your head and you’re saying ‘Right, this is the first day of the rest of my life’ you screw your face up like a sherpa puppy dog, clench your fists and say ‘I’m going to do it this time!’ Then a few days later you don’t reach your goal and say ‘Oh well, I knew it wouldn’t work anyway, but I gave it my best shot.’

Did you really give it you best shot?

Here is the conversation of the above scenario between you Id and your Super-Ego

Id: ‘I want to reach that goal‘
Super-Ego: ‘We’ve been here before and it’s sure to fail, look at everything we have to do to reach that goal, it’ll be too hard’
Id: I don’t care I want to have it!
Ego: Okay, let’s plan this, we all want the same goal but we have to take it easy.
Super-Ego: ‘Ego, we have failed in the past what’s the point of even trying.’
Ego: Let’s just try again, we’ve had some success in the past.’
Id: ‘Yeah, yeah, knock yourself out, go for it.

A FEW DAYS LATER

Super-Ego: ‘Oh well, I knew it wouldn’t work anyway, but I gave it my best shot.’
Id: ‘Of course you did, you thought about it really hard, you did lots of good work (Sarcastic tone), you didn’t take any bloody action but you did think about it really hard, it’s a shame it didn’t work out, I still want it.
Ego: This is another thing that’s going to dent my confidence in the future, maybe I should hold back a bit more and listen to the Super-Ego.

The Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego

Most of us have heard of the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego, they were terms coined by Freud as part of the Structural Theory of the personality.

The Id is the part of you that craves pleasure and the basic desires in life like food, water and sex.  When it gets the basics it moves on to other pleasure seeking thrills; ‘I want that new car it’ll make me feel so happy, I want a new dress, I want a new house’ it’s always want, want, want with the Id.

The Super-Ego will give you all the reasons why it will or won’t work, it will look to your past and look at the successes and failings of the past and correlate it with your current goals.

The Ego is the go between for the Id and the Super-Ego trying to satisfy both of them with reasoning and acts like the mother/father figure.

How will this help with reaching your goals

Knowing that the Id and the Super-ego are constantly in battle is useful to know in many ways.  For example, imagine setting yourself a goal of making 1 million pounds in 2 months.  The Id is going crazy, jumping up and down thinking about all the pleasures it might bring.  The super-ego is going crazy thinking about all the reasons it will never work and poor old ego is is stuck in the middle trying to appease both of them.  When the goal to make 1million pounds fails, the Id is extremely annoyed, the Super-Ego is saying I told you so, I told you so and the Ego has it’s hands on it’s head saying ‘Oh my god, this is a nightmare.’
So your aim is to satisfy all 3 parts of the personality.   How do you do this?

3 Ways to reach your goals quicker

All of this helps to entrain your brain into thinking about success and directly communicates with the super-Ego to appease it and make it believe you can achieve your goals.  In essence you are giving yourself evidence that your goals can be achieved.

For a more indepth look at the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego you can read more here:

The Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego

What is split testing?

Putting it simply, imagine you have a page where you are selling a product you are promoting.  You promote using adwords and social media.  Okay, so have the sales page and there is traffic coming to it, you are using this as the base sales page to measure against.  You then make another sales page which is exactly the same except this time you change the headline on that sales page.  You then drive traffic to the two sales pages and find out which one performs better i.e. which brings in the most sales or the most signups to your newsletter.  You then take the best performing sales page and use that as your base sales page.  You then make another sales page and make it exactly the same except you change a graphic and then find out which ones performs better.  You keep doing this until you have optimised your sales page.  Yes it takes time but you will see your sales gradually going up over time.

How you can apply this principle to your life

This is a very powerful way to change your life for the better and sometimes you can often see results within a few days.  The truth is if you keep doing what you’ve always been doing you will always get the same results.  So if you are getting crappy results from something in your life it’s time to change something that you’re doing in that particular area.

This might not make much sense to a lot of people so I will give you an example from my own split testing.

Example 1:

Rich Schefren has found a statistic that states that a lot of people spend more time on their emails than they do with their kids.  This is a quite sad, but in people’s quest to become independent and start their own business it’s very true in a lot of cases.  I know I spend a lot of time with emails, I have around 20 websites, only about 5 that I really work on and I check my emails as they come in and deal with them there and then.  The first thing I did was check how much time I spend on my emails each day, I don’t mean opening them and reading them I mean opening, reading and acting on them i.e. check out a website someone has sent me a link to.

The results for 1 week astounded me.  I spent, in 1 week, 12 hours dealing and acting on emails – 12 hours! I found that a disgusting statistic.  For that same week I spent 9 hours purely with my children, that is going out with them alone, or sitting down with them at dinner, taking them to school, sitting with them for their homework, fooling around and watching TV.  I have my laptop downstairs and work all night so my wife and children always have access to me but that’s not what I am talking about here I am talking spending time away from the computer and with my children.  Only 9 hours with my children as opposed to 12 hours on my emails.  I did spend more hours with my wife but not that much.

So, split testing this.  The next week I checked my emails midday and at 4pm.  I deleted all the emails that would not drive me forward on my online business quest or bring in more money.  I kept the personal ones and dealt with them there and then but all the other ones, if they did not drive my business forward or did not bring in more money I deleted them.  This meant deleting the next big marketing ebook promotion, deleting the cool link to a youtube video, deleting the cool website link that someone sent me, deleting the newsletters I am subscribed to and deleting the ones that promise me an extra 2 inches.

The end result:

You’ll see from the chart that I spent a lot more time with my children and I certainly was a lot happier and felt a lot better by being away from the computer.  My children, I hope, were a lot happier at spending more time with me.

Now, I have a base measurement I can work with.  The best result was spending 5 hours on email and 14 hours with my children.  I now work with this and try and find ways to spend even less time on email, this could be done by hiring a virtual assistant to screen my emails but I am not at that stage yet but you get what I mean.

Example 2:

I used to have a terrible time getting my children up for school in the morning.  I would wake them up to 7am, wake them up again at 7.05am and then start shouting at 07.10am at 07.15am we had fell out, my children might be in a bad mood, I would be pissed off and by the time everybody was ready we might be late for leaving for school at 08.10am.

This went on for months before I tried waking them up at 06.45am.  I would wake them up gently, give them a hug and ask if they wanted an extra 5 minutes, I would wait until they confirmed that they wanted an extra 5 minutes.  I would then give them 10 minutes and wake them up again.  The second time I told them that they had had an extra ten minutes and it was time to get up.  The transformation was amazing, no more shouting in the mornings, no more rushing about and we always get to school on time.  That extra 15 minutes made a huge difference to me and my children in the morning.

With split testing your life you constantly tweak until you get to a result you are happy with.  Another thing you’ll notice with split testing your life is that it’s got to be measurable, if it’s not measurable it’s going to be hard to test and change.

Other areas of your life you can split test

I have found this is a great way to self improvement and can be done on almost any area of your life. I have found that I am much more conscious about how I can improve my life and where it can be improved whereas before I might moan about certain areas of my life and how bad it was.  Now, if I am unhappy about something I try and find a way to improve it.  The more I split test the more I think about ways to improve my life and my families life.

A word of warning, I would only do a few split tests to get you into the swing of things.  Some tests might take a few weeks whilst others might take a few days or even a few hours depending on what it is.  Once you get into the swing of it you will be able to do a lot more and your self improvement will take huge leaps.

Some people do this unconsciously but I hope now that you will see that split testing can be a fantastic self improvement tool.  If you decide to try it or already do it let me know your results, it would be good to know how you get on with this self improvement tool.

Be yourself

If you’ve read all the other parts of the series you will have a strategy for getting to know yourself and getting to know others. Now I want you to take all that knowledge, roll it into a little ball and then I want you to be yourself.

What does ‘Be yourself’ mean?

How many times have you heard someone say ‘Just be yourself’. You’re going for an interview and someone gives the sage advice ‘you’ll be great, just be yourself’ , after you’ve picked them up off the floor and apologised for smacking them in the mouth, you ask yourself ‘what does that mean?’
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Being yourself means you are comfortable with who you are and you are confident enough to realise that not everyone will have the same opinion of you. You will not be at the stage of trying to impress everyone all of the time and you’ll know this is impossible anyway. You’ll know that what others think about you does not matter, and you will save so much time in your life by not worrying about what others are thinking about you.

We have all met these types of people before and they are instantly recognisable. They have a quiet confidence about them, they are not brash, not ‘in your face’ confident, not loud, just confident within themselves, not afraid to speak up and not afraid to voice their opinion when needed. That’s what being yourself means.
It’s a shame, but most people do not become confident within themselves until later on in life. That comes with all the realisations in life and that it really doesn’t matter what others do, say or think.

How to ‘be yourself’

Unfortunately you can’t learn to be yourself by reading this article but I can give you hints on developing yourself enough to really be yourself.

1. Know the person you want to be – List all the qualities that you really admire in people and develop those skills within yourself.
2. Be quiet for one whole day – For one whole day try and not to breathe a word to anybody. If you are on the phone all day this will be difficult but try not to speak to your colleagues. Watch how others are interacting with each other; watch how they react to you being quiet. You might feel uncomfortable at first but you will soon develop a silent confidence that it is you who is in control of you, and not others who are controlling you. This is a powerful exercise and it’s hard to describe here but I would urge you to try it.
3. Be honest – I mentioned this in part 3 of this series. Honesty is a powerful tool, yet it is not used enough. Be honest with yourself, really honest and you will learn a lot about yourself. Be honest with others and you will learn even more about yourself and others.
4. Dress the way you want to dress – ‘It’s not the clothes that wear the person it’s the person that wears the clothes’ If you like a particular style of clothing but have never had the courage to wear it, next time you are out, buy the clothes you like, wear them, and hold your head high. This all helps to assert your individuality.
5. Like yourself – It might sound a strange thing to say but I love my own company. I could spend days just being by myself and not be bored. I have developed this over time. If you are not comfortable with your own company how do you expect others to be comfortable with you? If you can, spend a few days alone and you will really learn a lot about yourself. I don’t mean sit and watch TV for 2 days, I mean go out shopping, go to a restaurant, go to the cinema, read a book.
6. Never gossip – If you’re a gossip, stop it right now. You are giving your power and energy away by gossiping about other people, no matter how much people listen to you when you have juicy gossip.
7. Create a set of principles and values – This is another powerful tool to learn. Think about a set of principles and values you would like to live by and start living them, e.g.

Never gossip
Always be honest but tactful
Family comes first
Always be on time
Be trustworthy
Be faithful
Hard working

These are obviously just a few and I am sure you have your own principles and values. However, a lot of people don’t know what principles and values they live by. So it is good to look at the type of life you wish to lead, look at the core values and develop your life around these.

If you have read all the other parts of this series you will notice a common thread among them all and that is know yourself and be comfortable with who you are. Until you really get to know yourself and know how you want to live your life, making friends might be difficult or you may make bad choices.

I really hope you have enjoyed this series, I enjoyed writing it. I will be making this into an eBook if you are interested in buying it. I will put it on my CYT Guides page in the next few weeks or so, however you can read it all here for free:

How to make true friends – Part 6 – Attracting the friends you want
How to make true friends – Part 5 – Get out of self deprecation mode
How to make true friends – part 4 – Body language
How to make true friends – part 3 – The art of honesty
How to make true friends – part 2 – The pride of loneliness
How to make true friends – part 1 – know yourself

Recently I discovered how to create my own binaural beats and I was blown away with the results. So I read more and looked into the science of binaural beats and isochronics and I found lots of scientific research on the benefits of using these ‘digital drugs’. I studies more and learned as much as I could and started using a fantastic program for creating my own and I believe I have created some great binaural beats to help me to relax, help with my personal addictions, help alleviate stress and so much more.

Binaural Beats newsletter

For the last few months I have been working on a Binaural Beats subscription newsletter. Subscribing to the newsletter will give you access to:

• 3 Professional Binaural Beat downloads
• 1 self development eBook
• 1 Guided meditation download

There is a small charge of $15 per month for this subscription and I think it represents great value when compared to most Binaural Beat download sites.

I am committed to over-delivering with everything I create just now and if you have bought any of my other products ‘Your First Clickbank Sale’ and ‘Lucid Dreaming’ you’ll know you are getting value for your money.

You can read more about the subscription newsletter at

www.binaural-heaven.com

What are Binaural Beats?

The theory behind binaural beats is that if you apply slightly different frequency sine waves to each ear, a beating affect is created in the brain itself, due to the brain’s internal wiring. If, in the presence of these tones, you relax and let your mind go, your mind will naturally synchronize with the beat frequency. In this way it is possible to tune the frequency of your brain waves to particular frequencies that you have selected, using of the four bands: Delta: deep sleep, Theta: dreaming and intuitive stuff, Alpha: awake, focussed inside, and Beta: awake, focussed outside.

They have been used by thousands of people all over the world to treat such ailments as; depression, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, addiction as well as helping with relaxation, lucid dreaming, studying, and concentration to name but a few.

There is a mountain of research on Binaural Beats, just type the phrase in Google to find out more.

I hope to see you as a member of www.binaural-heaven.com and I promise you will not be disappointed by the downloads.

Many people suffer from self consciousness and the need to impress, and it shows. It’s easy for people to say: ‘relax, just be yourself’ that’s no good when you don’t really know who you are as you’re trying to impress too many different kinds of people.

I was self conscious around very intelligent people, but I got over it once I realised I was intelligent enough to speak to intelligent people, how intelligent is that!!

Know yourself

You can’t make friends with people until you know what type of people you want to like. To know what type of person you want to like you have to know yourself first.

How on earth do you begin to know yourself?

Write yourself down on a piece of paper, seriously.

On a sheet of paper get to know yourself by asking yourself questions, for example:

What type of films do you like?
What type of books do you like to read?
What sports do you like?
What are your hobbies?
Who do you like to spend time with?
What are your best personality traits?
What are your worst personality traits?
What are your goals?
What are your values?
What are your principles

By asking yourself lots of questions, you will begin to understand what makes you tick. When you know this you begin to see how you will live your life and then it will become clear what type of friends you want in your life. You have to know your own values and principles before you befriend other people.

Values and principles

If you don’t really know yourself you will befriend some people and maybe later on you will wonder why you ever befriended that person, it’s because they are not aligned to your true values and principles.

So, sit down with a good cup of tea, or whatever is your want, and make a date with yourself. Getting to know you, may sound ridiculous but you may be surprised how much you will find out about yourself.

Looking at your friends

Once you have found out what your true values and principles are, it’s time to look at your friends and find out if you really want to stay friends.

I remember having some friends in my teens. When I realised I wasn’t aligned to their values and principles and they were not aligned to mine, I decided to split from them. It was one of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make but it changed the course of my life.

Aligning yourself to the right people, and by that I mean the right people for you, you will become comfortable with yourself and you will start to feel confident and secure in your environment.

Once you are secure you can then start to move a little outside your comfort zone and stretch yourself. For example, if one of your values is to be a positive person, it will be natural to want to be around positive people. If you have been around negative people a lot, it might be out of your comfort zone to try and befriend positive people. However you will eventually do this, as you will be more secure and confident within yourself and know what you really want in life.

I hope you have found part 1 useful. If you have any questions or comments please let me know.

Read Part 2 of this series – The Pride of Loneliness

Other articles you might be interested in

Know yourself – Success Television

Know yourself tests – amusedbee

Isis on ego and choices – Spiritual Awakening

Benefits of Journaling – Rainbow dreams

Do you know yourself – AllNaturalWahm

What makes you fabulous – Powerful Living

I thought I would share 12 of the best posts I have read this week:

1. 9 things you can do to increase your income – Dumb Little Man

2. Learn the first steps to become an ‘unclutterer’ – Lifehacker.com

3. Simplifying your information intake – Lifehack.org

4. How to speed up highly creative tasks – ScottHYoung.com

5. How to turn rejection into triumph – Lifedev.net

6. Hopeless situations – StevePavlina.com

7. How are you programming yourself everyday – Goal Setting College

8. Beating the morning rush: The 3 minute ‘slow carb’ breakfast – FourHourworkweek.com

9. An interview with Jon of Freelancefolder.com – Blogclout.com

10. 45 Tips for a happier, Simpler and More Productive Life – thenext45years.com

11. 10 Curiously strong ways to declutter your car – alexshalman.com

12. The worlds youngest billionaire – Zacjohnson.com

In broken English with the help of a translator, Yamazaki is about to reveal the ultimate secret of mastery. This secret, he tells us, applies to the sword and to life.

“Three rules…

“First rule: Basic practice.”

OK, that makes sense.

“Second rule: Basic practice.”

Third rule?

“MORE BASIC PRACTICE!

“Like Nike…JUST DO IT!”

Power for success in personal and professional life is generated through motivation and discipline over time. These are the 3 components of what I call the “Kung Fu Triangle.” For today’s purposes, Kung Fu means mastery. To achieve mastery in any occupation, you must find or develop motivation to set your heart and mind to action. You must develop discipline: the habit of doing the work necessary to achieve your goals and…

…you’ve got to take your time! Basic skill can be developed in a short time. Mastery takes as long as it takes.

If you press me for THE most essential component in the development of power, I’m going to say “discipline.” Motivation is usually very strong at the beginning of any endeavor. Time is simply a matter of perseverance. The component that takes over when motivation occasionally wanes and sees us through long periods of perseverance is “discipline.”

How to develop disipline

So how do you develop discipline? Yamazaki gives us the answer: PRACTICE! Simple, not always easy.

Discipline can literally be practiced with every waking moment of every day. Simply get up and get about your business. Specific goals can help you stay focused and on task; that helps develop discipline. However, discipline is the development of mindfully staying on task that transcends the obvious and sometimes robotic checking off the task list.

Practice discipline by mindfully assessing what needs to be done before you set yourself to action. Appreciate the work in front of you for the part it will play in your plans for success. Enjoy the task at hand for what it is: a chance to express yourself fully and in the moment. Enjoying the moment makes a menial task meaningful and a difficult task bearable.

The art of the Japanese sword, like all martial arts, is deceptively simple. If you take it down to its essential elements, the art of the sword is the technique of developing and expressing power in the moment of a single cut. Any battle is series of single cuts. Mastery of the art is available only to those who are willing to dedicate themselves fully to the practice of the simple elements that generate this power. You can learn the basic mechanics of a cut in just a few moments. It takes a lifetime of practice to bridge the span between that knowledge and the true skill of master.

Applying to your business and personal life

Can you apply this philosophy in business and personal life as well?

Nearly everything you do provides an opportunity to develop and practice the habit of discipline. Practice discipline in work and at play. Participate in activities that challenge you to apply discipline. I’m a little biased, but martial arts provide a perfect opportunity to practice discipline at any age! If that’s not your bag, take a class, find a hobby, develop your job skills, develop your relationships at home and in your community, volunteer, do anything that will challenge your mind, body and spirit and provide the opportunity for you to practice. That’s how you develop the habit of discipline. Find something that needs doing and just do it!

Discipline is the key to personal freedom, and freedom is the ultimate expression of personal power.

For a complete course in the art of discipline, read Jim’s book Dynamic Components of Personal Power. Click here for more information and to book Jim for your next event!

Watch for Jim’s coming book: The Dying Art of Discipline, available now as a seminar.

About the author

Jim is now a regular at ‘Change Your Thoughts’, if you haven’t already visited his site I would urge you to have a look. Jim is an author, businessman, personal development trainer, black belt Karate instructor, football coach….the list goes on. He is the creator of the Dynamic Components of Personal Power program. Visit Jim’s site at www.jimbouchard.org for more information on his self development program.