You have a passion and you definitly want to do something with it later in life? You want to work in a field where you can exploit that passion and convert it into money? Of course! We all want that and we all have the right to do so. But maybe you are not sure enough about your passion, is this really what you love to do? Is this actually your passion?

Why wait until you’ve figured out?
You can wait until you’ve figured it out all of the blue, or you can take some actual action. Start right away, and the start doesn’t need to be very big, just start exploring, experimenting. Test what you really love, go beta on your passion!

How to go beta on your passion

• Find your passion. A big one and the most important one, you would say. But this is just a beta version of your passion! So you can be wrong, you can do something and find out that you don’t ‘absolutely love it’ and that is ok, cause this is beta! Look for your passion, imagine what you would love to do for the rest of your life. Found it? Great, next step!
• If it is something you can do for yourself, do it! Is your passion sharing ideas on kind of teas, or papyrus scrolls? Start a blog about these subjects! Find a readership who is also interested in the topic you are interested about and start develop yourself on that topic. After having a blog for a year, you will be way more knowledgable than before on the subject and it will be a great experience. And with a blog, you maybe can start to cash in on your passion just a little. Besides all of that, you are building an online presence and that can be your resume when you leave college, or start applying for a job.
• Go and intern! If your passion is something you can’t do from your own home, look for a company which does what you love! If it is your passion, you would do it for free (and of course, some experience, resume building), so go interning! Find a company what is doing what you love to do and find somebody who you can talk to who works there. Tell him/her that you are absolutely loving what they do and that you want to do exactly what do, but not right now. But you want to intern right now, in order to find out if this is really your passion. You are free, you are motivated, why shouldn’t they hire you?
• Evaluate. Is this what you really love to do, is this what you can do the rest of your life? Congrats, you’ve successfully found your passion and you may be ready to take your beta version to an official version! Is this not what you really love to do? Start over again, nothing is lost! You’ve just got more experience!

If you are not ready to quit your normal job, if you are not sure enough about your passion right now, start a beta version of your passion. Test, test more and find you ultimate passion, with experience and a resume as a bonus!

This is a guest post by Stefan Knapen who runs the blog StudySuccessful.com, a blog full of study hacks and personal development tips.

How often do you complain about something? Be it the weather, another driver, a service or simple about yourself that you’re not good enough? Everpopular are curse words (when your computer crashes) and quick sarcastic remarks. You’re not alone.

It has a been a while ago, actually it was back in 2007 when the pastor of a Kansas City church told people in his congregation he wanted them to test their limits. “The one thing we can agree on, is there’s too much complaining.” according to the Rev. Will Bowen, and so he asked the group to stop complaining, criticizing, gossiping or using sarcasm for 21 days. An insane idea so far, how would you monitor something like that.

Another stroke of genius: the Reverend issued purple bracelets to those who were willing to take on the challenge. If someone caught himself complaining he was supposed to take off the bracelet and place it on the other wrist. A simple way to physically label a complaint. As soon as a wrist-swap was made, of course the counting started over. Rev. Bowen took three and a half months to reach his 21 day milestone.

The media hype

On the website www.acomplaintfreeworld.org there is a counter stating that over 6.3 million of these purple bracelets are in circulation around the world. You could say that’s a huge number, or you could realize that there are over 307 million people living in the USA alone. They also have a twitter account, with just over 400 followers. On facebook just 12,000 people like them. Looking at it that way it’s not a huge success. But that’s entirely besides the point here.

Obviously you don’t need a swank purple bracelet. You could swap your watch, a ring, the keys in your pocket or even that mala you wear around your wrist. Anything that is easy enough to do but takes enough effort to make the act of swapping something to complain about. Use your own imagination here but choose something that you can consistently, anywhere and any time.

Complaining gets you nowhere

Most of the time complaining is just a way to vent irritation about something, to let the people around you know you disagree. But does that really do anything? A quick complaint is so easy, a quick stab at something. Does it change what just happened into something that no longer irritates you? If it’s a person you complain about, that person will either still be there tomorrow (a colleague) or they won’t (a total stranger in the street).

If that person is still there tomorrow, clearly complaining won’t do you any good because you’ll still have to be in their presence for some reason. If that person is not there tomorrow (or even in five minutes from now) and is a complete stranger, all you did was let the world know what you thought. Is the world waiting to hear your negative thoughts? Or will others start complaining about you because you complain?

Likewise complaining about a failing computer won’t get it fixed, complaining about a lack of money won’t make you rich and complaining about how other people drive (you -of course- are an excellent driver) won’t change how they drive. It might just be because they are not in the same car as you. Just a thought.

Investigating self

Everybody complains, it’s a simple fact of life. Although some people complain far less than others. Complaining actually can make a difference, but only if you complain to the right people who can actually do something for you. In general other people aren’t waiting to hear you complain about something just like you don’t want to hear others complain all the time. That is, unless you have a common subject to complain about in which case you get a group of people complaining to each other about the same thing, and nobody doing anything about it.

What do you complain about and what does it do for you? Please share in the comments.

What does coffee taste like?

How does the sun feel on your skin?

What’s it like to ride a motorcycle?

There are whole libraries written about these and other experiences trying to tell you what things are actually like without you have to experience them. Thousands or even millions of bloggers trying to tell you how awesome life is. But there is a problem there. Although it’s fascinating to read about other people’s experiences, or even to watch (hyper)realistic fiction on TV so you can join in the feelings, it’s not the same. Watching (or reading about) successful people and how they made it -while amusing- gets you nowhere. Time is spent living through other people and every once in a while you’ll hear “I wish I could do that” or “I wish that happened to me”.

You can never truly and accurately convey an experience.

A long time ago while training as a therapist a few people with disabilities were asked to help us understand things. Among them was a woman, blind from birth. One of the most intriguing questions asked was “If you dream, what do you dream about” Have you ever thought of it? Of course someone who lost their sight during life could still be able to dream images, but what if you’ve never had those images in the first place. The answer made sense: She dreamt conversation, sounds, smells and touch. All the other senses were there. She would feel the sun on her face, smell fresh spring air and heard birds sing.

Later on another question came to mine, but that later was many years later.
“How do you know when you are dreaming and when you are awake?”

Welcome to the matrix

It’s the classic “blue pill or red pill” here. How do you know that what is in front of you is reality. To cut that one short you will never know for sure that what you believe you experience is reality. This blog, religion, your body, it might all be a figment of your imagination.

Another thought that came up was how could you explain that woman what the sun looked like or what the color red was. In this example most people would easily understand that you can’t possibly convey that experience to the other, simply because there is no reference.

That blind woman could not argue with you that an apple is red or the sun golden. She had no reference, she never experienced it.
Now on to other examples, the most important being a religious experience. Can you tell someone what you experienced if they never experienced it and so have no reference? You can’t, you simply can’t… and still, there are so many out there who try constantly to convey that experience. Don’t they know you can’t pass experience on?

Enlightenment is in the eye of the beholder

You can’t argue about experience… ever. If someone experiences something a certain way, that’s their experience and you will never share that experience. If you believe it’s the same dive deeper.

This is Zen at it’s core. Every experience is unique, nothing is ever the same. Sure, you can refuse to dive deeper and claim that the experience is the same, but that would be superficial and almost an insult to your knowledge. Especially after reading this blogpost.

Deep down on some level everything is unique. Just because you haven’t had a religious experience involving an Aztec God doesn’t mean he isn’t there. Just because you’ve never had a near death experience doesn’t make the claim less legitimate.

• Experiences of all kinds are unique and personal
• You can’t convey an experience on it’s deepest level
• Nobody knows the truth, however you might experience it
• You will (probably) never know if your experience is the truth

It’s the experience of this truth that Zen Buddhists try to reach. They call it Satori or “Gaining insight”. That is, experiencing the truth through an intuitive knowing, a direct experience. But as soon as they logically try to capture it, it’s gone. As soon as you apply a filter you kill the truth. You can’t share it in any way. In the end, all you can do is invite other people to share an experience with you in real life, it’s the closest you’ll ever get.

What experience would you like to share?

Have you ever tried to deliberately mess something up? It’s hard to make it look convincing isn’t it? It’s impossible to create an genuine mess when you know how not to mess up.

But looking at “how to mess up” isn’t what we are after, we’re always looking for ways not to mess things up obviously. The internet is overloaded with “how-to’s” to take your hand and guide you through all the steps and help you not to mess up. It’s all very nice obviously, but it doesn’t focus on what it is that makes you fail.

Why you fail

Did you ever stop and think about why you fail at something? Why it’s not the best you can do? If something is the best you can do but it’s not good enough, is it still a failure? That’s up to you, but  would it be the same kind of failure if you didn’t give it all you have to give and so failed. Knowing full well that if you gave everything you’d succeed.

If you’re just not good enough, you’ll just have to get better. And that’s not what this blogpost is about. This blogpost is about failing where you could (should?) have succeeded just because you didn’t give it your best.

A few questions for the conscience

Look back at your resent failures, yes it’s painful but it’s for the greater good here. Did you fail because of not being good enough or because you were slacking. With those failures you were slacking on, can you recall working on the project? I’m going to make a few guesses here:

• You weren’t focused
• or worse.. you were multitasking *shudders*
• and you weren’t spending enough time on the project

I know, I know, it’s almost as if I was there with you and have seen what you were doing. There are two problems here, the time spent and the focus.

Spending enough time

Taking just 20 minutes to work on a task is certainly a good idea, but by itself it will do nothing for you. You’ll have to do more than just sit there and watch a timer as it counts down. Watching it will actually slow it down! Spending enough time has a lot to do with knowing what you actually want or need to do. As soon as you have a clear images of the goal, make an estimation on how long it will take. The first pit-fall presents itself: your estimation is off, maybe even by as much as 90%. Either you over exaggerate the time it takes (no wonder you’re reluctant to do it) or you thought it was far easier than it actually was  (no wonder you got in trouble at the deadline).

Focus

If you have read the four hour workweek you know the Pareto principle: 80% of the work gets done in 20% of the time. Great! So now you can cut down your estimation by 80%. Wrong again! The 80-20 principle when applied to work implies that the 20% of the time you spend on work you actually do the best you can. You focus on the task, no distractions whatsoever. No checking facebook, twitter or steeping a pot of tea. Petting your cat or answering the phone, although nice breaks aren’t to productive as well.

Giving it your best: combining focus and time

In the time you actually work on something, do just that and nothing else. You might find it hard to keep that focus but with some training in meditation it’s actually not that hard. Steeping some tea or brewing a cup of coffee will have to wait until you take a short break. For whatever length of time you are working, cut out all distractions and know exactly what it is you are working at. You can do it!

Fail to fail

If you spend enough time and focus on whatever it is you are doing, you-can-not-fail. It is now impossible for you to mess up. And if you do fail, you either, didn’t focus enough, didn’t spend enough time or spent your time focused on the wrong thing.

Now you know how not to fail, what are you waiting for?

Are you having trouble focussing on a single task, being constantly distracted by thoughts? Have you ever listened to your mind chattering away in your head?

You have, haven’t you!

At night when you lie in your bed you can’t stop thinking about things, how life should be, what your goals are or what you’ll have to do to become successful.

The good news is, we all do that. The bad news is,  we all do that.

Would you like to learn how to overcome this and get an almost laser-like focus? It’s just one of the benefits of meditation. There are reasons besides enlightenment why people meditate, very practical reasons:

1. You’ll develop a laser-like focus

During meditation you train focussing on one single task. In most types of meditation this task is counting your breath. For 20 to 25 minutes you sit perfectly still and just count every exhale. Each distraction -that is, each thought that is not concerned with the counting- is ignored once you realise that you got sidetracked. And of course, noticing you got sidetracked is the first step in going back to what you were supposed to be doing.

2. You’ll need less sleep

It’s true! If you meditate every day you’ll start noticing that you sleep better. Not only will you fall asleep easier because you can control that chatter in your mind but your sleep will become better as well because you’ve already started to process everything that happened during the day while you were meditating. If you make meditation a part of your bed time ritual, just imagine how rested you’ll feel even before you actually go to bed. Lights out in ten minutes, or less.

3. You unclutter your mind

How stressed do you get when you’re in the big city, in the subway during rush hour perhaps. All those people talking, all those noises. A constant bombardment you try to drown out with your iPod. That might work great in the world out there, but in your head it’s the same thing. A lot of noise, a lot of talking all-the-time. If that won’t get you worked, up nothing will. With meditation you learn to single out that voice in your head that does matter. The rest will go away with time because you no longer listen to them. Your thoughts will become much clearer.

4. Your pain threshold increases

Meditation is quite uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong there, it’s a ritualized form of self-torture with a happy ending. You’ll be sitting in a position that will cause your legs to start aching after 10 minutes and by the end of the session it just might hurt a bit more. Meditating on a regular basis will train you to ignore this minor discomfort and focus on what you are doing instead. It’s not that uncommon for people to actually shed a few tears the first times. That’s all perfectly alright, you’ll be able to handle it soon enough.

5. Your endorphin levels rise

Managing the pain has a lot to do with endorphins. A hormone that reduces the pain signals from your body to your brain and makes you feel good. It’s the same hormone that gets released when you reveice a long hug from your loved one, eat chocolate or take a long run. (The runner’s high) This hormone stays in your body for a short time and if you meditate daily you’ll always have some of it in your bloodstream so you’ll feel good, all day long!

6. You’ll automate happiness

There’s even more to these endorphins. Given enough time – a few weeks- the thought on meditation alone, seeing your meditation mat or folding your hands in the same way as you would while meditating will cause a Pavlovian reaction. What’s so great about that is that wherever you are and you feel like you need a quick fix of “feelinggood” (right before an exam) you can mimic the meditation posture and your body will react. Say goodbye to performance anxiety.

7. Your overall quality of life will increase

After meditating for a while, not only will your focus become better but your overall quality of life will increase too. You’ll feel better about yourself, better about your surroundings and you will have a clear mind that allows you to focus on your goals. Becoming aware of the present moment will lead you to being able to influence the present. A better life starts now, not tomorrow and meditation forces you to be in the present.

A summation: It will make you feel great!

Meditation is good for you. You could find hundreds of reasons and find that they all interlink somewhere. The biggest benefits are:

• your ability to concentrate will drastically improve
• you’ll find discomfort easier to handle
• it will make you feel great!

And all it takes is 20-25 minutes every day. Time you have to spare because you fill that time with unproductive things right now.

If you want advice on meditation or have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line or leave a comment.

You’ll experience less stress, you’ll save more money and you’ll be healthier. Just a few benefits that you can enjoy when being a minimalist. But don’t just take my word for it. Here is what some other bloggers have to say about minimalism:

MNMlist

“Often we don’t really need those possessions as much as we might think, and even when we do have them, we’re not as secure as we might think.” A blogpost on the troubles with getting rid of your possessions. It’s actually by far the hardest thing out there in the minimalist approach: the initial struggle to reduce your belongings. Leo argues that your belongings give you a false sense of security. You’re prepared for all sorts of events. The idea of being prepared goes a bit overboard when you have a triple redundancy on your car, a stack of over 20 dinner plates and you just can’t get rid of that old tv. “What if the new one breaks down, I won’t be able to watch tv for a while”

Keeping stuff means you need a bigger house to store them all in.

The Everyday Minimalist

A 20 something blogger living out of a suitcase since 2006. Having lived in 1600 and 1200 square foot apartments and now living in a 600 square foot studio. Just imagine the difference in monthly rent! and immediately two benefits come to mind: the first being that rent, it’s probably going to be cheaper and secondly: you can vacuum the entire space without unplugging the vacuum. Cleaning 600 square foot while owning just a few things means you have a lot of empty floorspace. Enough space to exercise, lie flat on the floor and stare at the ceiling for a while or dance.

A smaller home and less stuff means easier cleaning

Far Beyond the Stars

You know about the 100-things challenge. Everett took it one step further and decided to go with just 50 items for a while! “The 50 things movement doesn’t count shared items like cooking supplies, bedding, and furniture. I was only counting personal possessions that only belong to me.” Give it a little thought, what if you could live with the freedom of having so few things that you could tuck it all in a suitcase. You’d no longer have to wonder what you would be packing when going on a holiday, you’d just pack every single thing you own!

Everett dropped the 50 things and went back to 75 after a while, to make life just that little bit easier (think laundry…) “Living with less isn’t for everyone, but I’ve discovered that it can make life a lot simpler when you decide to opt out of the endless cycle of consumerism.”

Less stuff means more mobility

Wake Up Cloud

“Having the latest gadgets is cool, but I also realize that it is largely unnecessary and something I’m going to grow tired of within a few weeks.” As soon as you realize this, you can start saving some serious money. Do you actually need that iPhone, iPad or high powered notebook? Or worse, phone, pad AND notebook. Thinking about needs versus wants will help you here. Will owning the latest thing seriously make you happy? And if so, for how long. Especially on the more expensive things, think about how long it took you to save up all that money and so where you will spend those hours of your life on you can never get back. And so Henri realized: “happiness doesn’t come from things, it comes from inside of me.” You can be happy with nothing, and unhappy with everything.

Less desires lets you find true happiness

Simple. Organized. Life.

Is there something wrong with you if you choose to own less? David has been told this countless times. Many people think an empty house is an empty life but they couldn’t be more wrong. For them it certainly is true because thy identify who they are and what they are worth by their possessions. Minimalists however find their worth not in the stuff they own, but what they carry with them in their mind and hear. Happiness really does come from within. So is there something wrong with us because we know where to find true happiness?

Minimalists are completely sane and have a full life

The Minimalist Path

Minimalism can be applied just about anywhere in life, and David points out that it’s actually fun! Yes, you know and I know, but do others know as well? Spread the word. You get perspective and control over your own life. There are less things to take into account when making a decision, less stuff to worry about. Although on the one end there are a few who think that going minimal actually costs more, David makes a clear statement that it actually doesn’t cost anything to get organized.

Sure, if you own just a few things, you’ll be inclined to make those few things the best they can be. If you can own only one computer and it’s essential to your income you’ll be wanting a very reliable laptop and those are expensive. If you have just one coat or one pair of shoes, you’re going to make sure that they will last. It’s still cheaper than buying something new every week or month and -maybe that’s just me- it’s fun to go hunting/researching for the best possible buy.

Minimalism goes great with frugality and quality

Step 1 minimalist

The final blog we’re visiting it written by Brett and gives you the absolute best reason to become a minimalist: Time. “Looking at every aspect of minimalism, it constantly comes back to creating more time to focus on and act upon what we love, while discarding the rest.” Remember that triple redundant car I mentioned? If you spend some time (and fun) on hunting down the single best car you can buy, you don’t have to work all those hours to buy the other two, work all those hours to maintain them, and have a garage that will fit them while you drive around in the first one. Bigger garages come with bigger houses, that come with higher rents or mortgages. Well, you get the idea.

Minimalists have more time to spend on the important things in life

Where it all comes down to

There are plenty of benefits to be had in living the minimalist lifestyle. It will save you time, money, space, stress and distraction among other things. You’ll be rewarded with a sense of freedom and control over your own life, and live green and save money at the same time! You want to live the minimal life? A good place to start is to take the one step towards a minimalist home.

One step at a time

Check out the Empire Building Kit and take one small step a day towards your business

Chris is offering his empire building kit one more time, but isn’t going to make a lot of noise about it this time. It’s a strictly low-profile launch so here’s a heads-up. You don’t want to miss out on this chance to work with one of those powerhouses in the bloggosphere.

What is the Empire Building Kit?

The EBK examins the process of building your own successful business. Defined here as a small business where you have one or perhaps two employees. At it’s core is of course something that the owner (this could be you!) loves to do. That’s the business part, the success part is defined as an annual income of $50,000 up to $150,000. A small business; a huge revenue. You like how that sounds? Read on!

Chris takes up this process in a way that works absolutely great and I’ve talked about often: ever smaller steps. There are 365 steps in the kit to be exact. One step a day the Empire Building Kit walks towards the goal of becoming your own boss (emperor if you will, or empress) You’ll get one mail a day, and all the extra’s.

Be warned however, the EBK demands hard work, as do all businesses. But you already know this so that won’t be a problem. If you don’t have a business yet, you’ll learn the fundamentals, if you already have a business the EBK will help you seriously increase your business income.

What do you get?

As said, the launch is under the radar but Chris offers you “a FREE copy of Backyard Biz Profits that helps you apply online biz-building principles to your local city or neighborhood.” if you pick up the kit TODAY. (It will cost you $50 after that) That of course is just the bonus, the kit itself comes in three flavours, depending on your taste: Emperor-in-Training, Hail Ceasar, and Alexander the Great (More info on the options at the Empire Building Kit site)

The kit is packed with video interviews, audio recordings and case studies. Everything you’d like to know. These aside you also get the 365 daily steps to that empire of your own. The case studies will teach you a lot about how real people actually did it and became their own boss. But you’ll not only hear how they did it, you also get the inside information about money, it’s what keeps a business going after all and you’ll need to know these things.

Think not only along the lines of “How much money did you make last year” but also “What is your best seller” and many other questions. There’s no use in just being told that you earn “enough”, that would be like shopping for a new car and nobody willing to tell you the mileage you’ll get or what the insurance would cost. You need details like that and the Empire Building Kit offers you the details.

Check out the Empire Building Kit and take one small step a day towards your business

“If you just believe in yourself everything will work out”. How often have you heard that one before?

You can’t count the times? Neither can I.

Whenever we believe in something, who is the is that believes? Well, it’s the “we” who believe right? But who is we, or for that matter, who are “you” and who am “I”. We, you and I are just projections of our being, and we call it our self. Self is something we create in our own mind, it’s just an idea in our heads.

Believing in self

There is an idea in our head that’s called self. A creation of the mind, and yet we unquestionably believe it. Somehow when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem that good an idea any more now does it?

Let’s continue with the mind warping.

Excluding the actually experience of the present moment, everything is just a concept. None of the mind games like believing and self can actually relate to our real being. This is because we project our beliefs, assumptions and identity onto the self. Not onto the actual being.

Who is this self?

Our sense of self comes from what we’ve accomplished in life, what we do and don’t do, what we believe, what we own, even our name is part of the self. They are all concepts, ideas in our mind. Ideas and concepts are the fabric of self. Turning that round we can say that our sense of self is fabricated from concepts, ideas. Who is self? Self is a fabrication.

Let’s have a quick look at our self shall we?

As an example, do you know the moon orbits the earth? If you’ve paid a bit of attention in school you’ll answer this with “yes” right away. A good perception of the world, your concept and the truth can see eye to eye. Great!

Moving on to a different concept, consider something more personal, something about yourself. Isolate this idea for a moment and let it linger in your mind for a while. Savour it for a moment. Notice how quickly you can confirm the idea? After all, it is about you. You know what you’re talking about when it comes to yourself.

What happens when you don’t believe

Now consider something that you don’t believe. The earth is flat! Yeah right, that’s not true and you can’t understand anybody believing that it is true. You don’t identify yourself with this concept. Correctness is you, not correct isn’t you and it never will be. That’s something for “others”. You’ll have no part of it, you won’t go there. (And you wonder why it’s so hard to admit you are wrong.)

All this, this answering of questions, confirming or denying ideas happens within a heartbeat. It’s so fast in fact, that you won’t notice it unless you know what to look for. But it’s very significant. Because if it’s true or not is not the issue, it’s just one of those concepts that you’ve formed in your head. They relate to you, me and us but not to the being.

Believing or not will change you, it will not change the being. It’s just a concept, nothing more.

This blogpost is a follow-up on my last blogpost on which Alan Perlman from over at the 9 to 5 alternative commented:

Many people–myself included–understand that there’s a third pillar, but may not know how to attack it. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.
Like, once you recognize the third pillar, once you know you need to act in the present and to change certain things, how do you do it? What’s optimal? – Alan

A quick refresh: There are three pillars in personal development, three choices you have right now:

1. Flee the present
   
2. Passively accept the present
   
3. Act in the present

Now we have those clear again  (if you want to read more: the three pillars of personal development) lets dive right in.

Optimal ways to act right now

The very first thing that comes to mind is something Carl (R Nelson, over at Drop of Change) tought me a long time ago. He called it the 3-2-1 Method and it’s actually as effective as it is simple:

When confronted with an issue which will only take a moment to resolve yet which you are reluctant to do get in your head for a few seconds.

Count down.

3…

2..

1.

Then do it. Say it. Write it down. Type it. Send it.

This is by far the simplest tactic around and works wonders. Coupled with a tactic taken from “getting things done” which is to do something immediately if it takes two minutes or less will get you through all those little things throughout the day that need to be done.

In that we have another clue how to tackle acting in the present.

Take the smallest possible steps

A topic I’ve written about a lot, like presenting you with 8 steps to reclaiming responsibility. I’m a huge fan of keeping things simple, always looking for ways to make a step even smaller. So small in fact that you can take those steps within two minutes. And you immediately do those things that take two minutes or less.

The problem with being reluctant to act is have steps that are to big to take. If I ask you to write a book in a year, would you?

Or would you postpone the task because writing a book is just to much.

Now what if I asked you to write a short story of say, 1000 words. That’s not to hard now is it? Write a short story every day and let each story continue where the last one ended and you have a book in a year.

Small steps, they might be boring. You’re just writing a short story, not a book. You’re just writing a few lines of code, not a complete program and you’re not making an online income, you’re just making a single sell. Totally boring but take enough steps… Do I have to spell it out? Every single step is getting you closer. You know that feeling when you tick something off your to-do list? Maybe a quick picture will help you recall that feeling:

Do you remember the feeling?

Feels good doesn’t it, checking a box, finishing a task. Some people even write down extra tasks on their to-do-list just so they can experience the feeling of checking the box. With huge steps, you get to check a box once in a while. That is, if you ever finish it. With small steps, you get a lot of boxes to check and chances are you will.

So what is optimal?

Once you recognize that you have to act in the now:

• Identify the act to be done now
• Cut that act up in the smallest possible steps
• Stop procrastinating and do those small steps. (It takes you just a few minutes after all!)
• If you have a hard time getting over procrastination, apply the 3-2-1 Method

And if you doubt this approach, remember that My way is the Best Way

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What is personal development all about? Did you ever wonder what it is that has people all fired up and wanting to change their lives? The brief answer to that would be “You have control over your own life, you just have to take it”.

But taking control means taking action in one for or the other. This blogpost gives you the three options you have this very moment. The -only- three things you can do.

Keep in mind that you are living in the present, it might be stating the obvious but it’s a key factor in taking control. You can not change the past nor can you change the future. You are living right now, right here. You read the first few lines of this blogpost in the past, and now too, this line has become past. Can you unread? Can you skip ahead a few seconds and know what you are about to read without ever having to actually read it? Of course not.

It’s stating the obvious but it I can’t stress it enough: This very moment is the only moment there will ever be that you have any direct influence on. Yes you can influence the future, but the only way to do that is to take action in this moment. If you;re not going to take action now, then when?

The first pillar

I’ve asked you to look around in a lot of previous blogposts and I’m going to ask you again. Where are you right now, not only physically but also mentally, professionally. Who are you right now?

After you have looked at yourself and your surroundings ask yourself if you are happy with this very moment. Do you like where you are? Or would you rather escape into some fantasy world about the future or daydream about how great the past was (”One day I will …” or “When I was your age I …” ). Postponing action to some future when things will be “better”.

As I said, you have exactly three things you can do in this moment. The first one is what I just hinted at: You can escape the present moment into either the past or future, perhaps even some alternative reality you have fabricated in your mind. The present is not a place where you want to be so you flee it.

Almost everyone flees the present, through daydreaming and fantasy or reminiscing about the past. Perhaps even the near past “I wish I was back in bed, it was to early this morning” or looking forward to the near future “I’m looking forward to having this blogpost online and reading your comments”.

There are more destructive ways of fleeing the present, in the form of addictions in all their disguises. Numbing the senses with alcohol or drugs, or even with medication like anti-depressants because the present is just to depressing and you don’t want to deal with it. Roughly 10% of US citizens is using anti-depressants and any given time. A further 8% of US citizens abuses alcohol. So that’s at least 8-18% of the population fleeing reality. I can’t find numbers on drug abuse but all included I can imagine one person in every five uses these extreme measures to flee reality.

Your first pillar: Flee the present

If you run away from the only moment you can influence, you can’t develop. Clearly not the best tactic if you want to change your life or develop your person.

The second pillar

Look around again, is there anything there you want to change? No? Wonderful! You completely accept the current position you are in. You’re content with life as it is at this moment and you don’t want to change anything.

You’re one of the lucky few who are content with the present. You have no urge to flee it or do anything to change it. Either that or you can’t bring yourself to take action and to stop whatever it is you are doing right now and do something else.

On rare occasions it’s true that you are completely content and wouldn’t want to change the moment. It’s far more likely though that you don’t have the guts to do something because the present is safe. You’re current situation -though not desirable- is a safe place to stay. You’re keeping the status quo because you’re unsure about what would happen if you took action. It might all blow up in your face, things could go terribly wrong and you would loose whatever safety you have right now.

Your second pillar: Passively accept the present

If you’re content, you don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to develop. All is well and you like the status quo. Enjoy it while you can because you never know how long it will last. Rest uneasy, nothing is permanent.

The third pillar

The third option should come as no surprise. The first to pillars don’t have much to offer when it comes to personal development. It’s all coming down to this last option you have.

Look around once more, are you content with the present moment? Are you getting everything out of life that you want? Are you living the dream life? No! There is more to be done, things that could be better or different. You don’t flee the present but you’re not happy with how things are going right now.

Your third pillar: Act in the present

This one pillar is at the core of the entire personal development movement. Being unhappy with how things are going and wanting to change your life. The other two pillars are constantly trying to lure you away though. They are the easier options, there is no work involved, you just have to sit there and do nothing. And that is exactly what you are doing most of the time, just sitting there letting life pass you by, second by second. Those seconds will never come back, that moment is gone forever and the current moment isn’t the same.

Yes it’s frightening once you realise it. Your entire life is this moment, and it’s only in this moment that you can act. If not now, when?