Viktor Fankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, ‘Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies all our freedom.’ In the most extreme conditions of privation imaginable, Frankl discovered that he was, remarkably, free to choose his response to any situation.

I love this quote because it sums up the essence of my philosophy. I believe it is the cornerstone of a happy and effective life. A real, experiential understanding of this radical freedom is life changing, liberating and empowering. To suddenly come upon the realization that we have always been free, not in some abstract sense, but in a real, personal and imminent way, is like being let out of prison.

We are not free to control others

The point is that we are free. And so is everyone else. That means we cannot impinge on the freedom of others. This is not some moral statement. I’m not saying we should not interfere with other people’s freedom – it is simply impossible to do so. You cannot make another person do anything. Even putting a gun to someone’s head cannot make them do anything. If someone is threatened to the extent that they fear for their life, they are likely to comply with whatever is being demanded of them, but this compliance is not a result of the threat – it is still a choice they make. If you doubt it, think about the people who have been threatened and not complied – think about people who have died for what they believe in rather than comply with an external demand.

The belief that we can control and coerce others, bending them to our will, is the cause of a great deal the misery in the world. This belief, springing from the external control psychology that we have overwhelmingly been conditioned to accept, is the cause of much of our pain. To let go of our belief that we can control others is astonishingly liberating. To accept other people as they are, to make no demands on them, simply to dance our own dance, as Anthony de Mello would have put it, and to accept that we cannot but allow everyone else to do the same, is not only the only choice that makes any sense, but is also the only way we can make any difference in the world.

We have a choice

In every situation, there is a choice. Accept that we cannot control other people or try to force, coerce, manipulate and bully to get our own way. The latter course of action damages relationships and, in the end, leads to pain and dysfunction. Or, we can accept people as they are, accept they are utterly free agents, accept that we cannot force them, and concentrate instead on building relationships with them and on building the inner world which echoes back to us as our experience. When we have good relationships, things work. Perhaps not in the way we might have expected, or even in the way we would have preferred, but things will work. The world is not ours to control, so let it go, and let it work in its own miraculous way. This is the effortlessness to which Lao Tzu alluded when he wrote, ‘The world is a mysterious instrument, not meant to be handled. Those who act on it never, I notice, succeed.’

We are responsible

We are responsible for ourselves. We make our choices and then we must live with them, not blaming others or circumstances, and not cowardly abdicating responsibility to some external forces. We are not victims! We are in control.

By the same token, we are not responsible for other people. Their fear, their anger, their pain, their misery – it’s all a choice they make, as freely as we make ours, and they need to shoulder the consequences of these choices – they are not our crosses to bear. Their happiness, their success, their joy – it’s all their doing, not ours.

Being proactive

So here lies our freedom – it is inside us every moment and we can recognize it and live our lives according to the truth of this freedom, or we can continue to behave in the way we have been conditioned by society and try to force our way through life, pushing and coercing others into doing our will. One way is peace and happiness, the other way is pain and madness. Being proactive is the first of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits and is the cornerstone of a truly effective life. I believe that living a proactive life, centered in the self, accepting that we can change nothing but ourselves, and choosing to focus on the good in our life and seeking to attract more it to ourselves is the purpose of our existence.

The idea that our experience is an ‘echo’ of our inner world is a theme I will explore further in another post.

Author bio: Mark Harrison writes for a number of self-development blogs. You can download his new book, Thirty Days to Change Your Life, at EffortlessAbundance.com.

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

The Limits of Our Freedom

Our moods are like weather, constantly changing.  When a cloud appears, it’s time to mobilize all your resources to help you get through it.  Whether you feel blue, blah, or just plain gloomy, here are some useful ways to help the cloud pass a little more quickly.

Note:  If your symptoms are extreme enough to affect your daily functioning for two weeks or more, or if you have thoughts of hurting yourself, please see your family doctor or a counselor right away.

1. Break tasks down into small chunks and feel a sense of accomplishment when you complete one piece before moving on to the next.
2. Reduce your schedule so you have more time to relax.
3. Write your feelings down on paper.
4. Listen to your favorite music.
5. Take a moment at the end of the day to remember at least one thing you accomplished, even if it is something basic like getting out of bed, and congratulate yourself.
6. Eat three healthy meals every day.
7. Minimize your alcohol intake.
8. Engage in an activity that requires your concentration so you can be present rather than lost in depressing thoughts.
9. Express yourself with artwork using paint or pastels.


Image courtesy of Petra

10. Treat yourself with a great deal of compassion, like you would a young child or your best friend; let go of judging yourself.
11. Find a balance between keeping yourself busy and letting yourself rest.
12. Look your best when you walk out the door.
13. Recognize that you probably are not feeling down 100 percent of the time, and enjoy these reprieves.
14. Notice if you are telling yourself a story in which you are the star of a sad and hopeless drama.  See how this story doesn’t serve you.  Pull your attention away by doing any of the activities mentioned in this list.
15. Watch a funny movie.
16. Do something special for yourself – take a bath, eat a meal of your favorite foods, get a massage.
17. Talk to a trusted friend about how you are feeling.
18. See if an endless loop of negative thoughts is playing in your mind about yourself, the world, and the future.  Know that these thoughts are very likely to be distortions of the actual truth.  As Byron Katie suggests, ask yourself, “How would it be if I didn’t think that thought?”
19. Move your body – exercise, take a yoga class, enjoy a walk in nature.


Image courtesy of AtomicPuppy68

20. Be around loving family and friends.
21. See if there is a problem you can easily solve that would help you to feel better.
22. Take a shower every day.
23. Go to sleep at the same time every evening, taking an hour to wind down with a book and some herbal tea before you get into bed.
24. Find the most loving place within you and extend your love to the part of you that is hurting.
25. When you notice you are caught in endless TV watching or internet surfing, shift your attention to something more supportive.
26. Turn your attention inward to realize that there is a part of you that doesn’t feel down.  When you observe yourself feeling blue, take a look at that which is observing.  Where is the gloomy feeling?
27. Welcome your feelings and accept them as is, rather than fighting them or wallowing in them.
28. Go inside yourself to find the strength to keep going.
29. Let go of saying, “I should…” or “I shouldn’t…”
30. Remember that the feeling will pass – and if it doesn’t seek professional help.
31. Whatever you feel you lack, offer it out to someone else.  For example, if you feel you lack love, be loving; if you lack friends, be friendly toward others.
32. Give generously to people in every way you can think of – give a compliment, do something someone you know would appreciate, pick up the check when you are out with friends.
33. Think of five things you are grateful for every day, and feel the gratitude in every cell of your body.
34. Plan an enjoyable activity with a friend.
35. Go outside to let the sunshine in or use a light box.


Image courtesy of Philipp Hilpert

36. Smile.  Research shows that when we smile, we eventually begin to feel happier.
37. Let yourself have the space to cry, then move on.
38. See if this mood is a tap on the shoulder to get you to notice something about your life.  Is there a gift that is being offered to you?  What can you learn?
39. Take some slow, deep breaths, letting your whole chest expand as you inhale, then exhaling out whatever you are holding on to that you don’t need.

Any more suggestions to add that might help another reader?  What is your experience of digging yourself out when you are feeling down?

About the author: Gail Brenner, Ph.D. offers practical and inspiring wisdom for realizing true happiness at her blog, A Flourishing Life, focusing on real solutions for self-defeating habits.

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

Feeling Down? 39 Ways to Boost Your Mood

Competitively, that which is easy gets you very little. If it is easy, anyone can do it, so it is of low value. Tying your shoes in a special way will get you no recognition from anyone except maybe a kindergartener. Doing a couple of simple math problems to review for a placement test won’t help you much. The point of tests and the free market is to separate those that go a bit further.

Average Difficulty Actions Lead To Adequate Gains

Doing items at a medium level of difficulty will get you somewhat valuable gains. Running 3 miles to train for a half-marathon will keep you on pace, and will take a good amount of your energy. This will be worth it to you, but it won’t amaze anyone else. While average types of actions don’t necessarily hurt you in any way, sticking at the median level leaves you unable to build up real momentum. Awards, support, and recognition don’t tend to arrive for those who are sticking to doing the average. It isn’t that others don’t want to acknowledge your work, but that someone else’s work shines brighter than yours, moving yours into the invisible category. On the other hand, it is good to keep some of your regular habits in this category.

Keep Your Actions In The Difficult Category

Doing things in a new way, or in a substantially better way, is what remains in the difficult category. Breaking through the competition means you have to outdo them in your thoughts, efforts, or attempts. Standing out as remarkable requires at least one extra step beyond where others are going. If you are delivering a PowerPoint presentation just like 15 other people, and have colored slides like everyone else, it might have taken you a little more effort, but others will not heavily notice you until you add in another layer of difficulty, like organizing your slides so they unfold in reverse, or something similar that is innovative. Anyone could be this remarkable, but it takes a bit more thought, and some fearlessness, to not quit during the process out of concern for looking out-of-place.

You do get back what you put out, but in the realm of competition, you have to put out more value than, or out-learn, your competitors to stand out in recognition or place. To get into this small set of successful people, you must have your focus on your actions. Your focus is not well spent on doing more of the regular, which will keep you where you are, as opposed to where your desired destination is.

Example #1: Writing For A Newspaper

If you are writing a column for a newspaper, average content will look okay, and fit on the page next to the other articles, which will make it just fine to skip over it. If your material and presentation is enough to suit description as “up to par”, but is not any more absorbing than that, it will just be read on some passes based on its presence, but it won’t get any eyes directed to it. If you want your creation to get people directed toward it, you have to put yourself in their shoes and see that they are looking for the big hit. They would rather have you go crazy with a concept, and make your point in an outlandish way, than have you cower back in fear, and write it in a way where the main concept is so watered down that it become generic and unfocused.

Example #2: Academic Classes

If you look back at classes you have taken in the past, some of the ones you will remember the most are the ones that were the hardest at that time. While you may have struggled heavily during them, you now look back at those classes as the ones that really built you up as a person. These classes would not have been as valuable for you had the teachers and/or people who set the curriculum planned it out that way. Their focus on packing the difficult into the standard class structure left a solid impression in your mind, and you can do the same for others by keeping a focus on the difficult tasks which are at your grasp.

* * *

The photo shown above is of my friend and I hiking up a mountain trail, taken at about three  hours of the way up the mountain. It was more difficult than a regular trail run, but was certainly worth it.

What are you currently doing that you would classify as difficult? How do you focus your mind and actions on doing the difficult? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

Author Bio: Armen Shirvanian writes for Timeless Information on topics including mindset development, social interaction, communication, and competition. He has also created a compilation eBook that has thorough discussion about 11 valuable quotations. You can check out his articles and eBook at www.timelessinformation.com

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

Focusing Your Mind On The Difficult

A few months back, during a conversation with one of my mentors, he said something that I will remember for the rest of my life.  “All this planning and focusing is good, but doing is better” was the exact phrase that came out of his mouth.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was one of those “aha” moments we get every so often.

Now the reason he was saying this to me is because I had been working on a semi large project for that past month or so and I was really close to finishing it.  However, I had stalled somewhat and found myself in a state of “planning and focusing” rather than “doing”.  So, for weeks I was fairly unfruitful in churning out anymore work on this particular project.  I was explaining to him where I was in the process and mid conversation is when he let out the phrase I will never forget.  I know this may seem simple but it’s very profound.  From that day forward my workflow has changed incredibly and productivity has increased tenfold.

Today I will share with you my personal system on how I get things done in hopes of spurring you along to developing your own process.   Remember, there is no one way to do this so pick and choose what you like and discard what doesn’t work for you.

Good Intentions

We all have them, well most of us anyway.  However, for many of us, our intentions never become anything more than a good thought.  They never take form because we never act on them.  This can become a real problem because it’s only the beginning of the equation to getting anything accomplished.  So first we must have a goal, an ideal, something we aspire to accomplish or get done.  Then we must plan.

Planning is Good

Planning really is good.  That ole cliché “those who fail to plan, plan to fail” is certainly true on many accounts.  The problem is we can spend so much time trying to perfect our planning that we never do anything else.  About a year ago I got on this productivity kick where I read anything and everything I could get my hands on about effective planning strategies.  I found that I would spend countless hours during the week just planning instead of doing.  I’m sure you can clearly see why this is a real issue.  Planning is supposed to serve you and your schedule, not be the bulk of your schedule.

As you might imagine I was planning to work with my clients, planning to write and edit articles and spend time on the fitness forums helping out.  The problem was that I spent way too much time during this process of preparation that I lost valuable time I could have been spending elsewhere.

Doing is Better

My mentor was not suggesting that I should never plan; he was simply stating I should spend minimal time doing so.  In the case of “planning is good, doing is better”, the whole point is to have your goal in mind and get to work immediately.  It doesn’t really matter if you are not completely clear or know exactly how you’re going to get there.  Of course you never want to jump into doing something blindly as it usually just leads to frustration but over thinking and too much planning will often keep you from ever acting in the first place.  It can literally put you in standstill.  That’s the way it was for me, at least.

The point is to have a goal and a plan but more importantly a lot of action put forth by you whether or not the details are completely ironed out just yet.

Here’s How I Do It

Each month on the first or the second I sit down for about 30 minutes and write out what I need or want to accomplish on a big white board.  I pick two to three tasks to focus on for the month.  I write down what I want, why I want it and a quick strategy on how to get there.  I write it on a white board so I can go back and edit if need be.  Nothing is set in stone; this is strictly a guideline.  An example might look like this:

Goal:  Publish 8 Fitness Articles at a rate of 2 per week.

Why: To connect with readers, gain more exposure, address common fitness questions and/or debunk myths/dogma.

Strategy: Get up an hour early on Monday and Thursday to write the articles, edit them when I get home and publish the next morning.

Once I have all of my monthly goals on the big white board, I hang it above my computer desk for me to see every day.

Then each night before I go to bed I spend 20-30 minutes relaxing and winding down, clearing my head and thinking about what I need to do the next day to accomplish my tasks.  Then I take 5 minutes to write down a to-do list on a small note pad and leave it right by my keyboard for me to see the following day.  Once I wake up, I sit down, have my breakfast and start checking off my list.  As the day goes on and I get more stuff done, I check more off the list.  If I am not able to get to a certain task, I put a circle by it and revisit it the next day – no sweat at all.

By doing it this way, the majority of my plans are set forth from the beginning of the month.  All I have to do is take a small step each day to reach the end result that is on the white board.  The only planning I have left is the small to-do list that I make the night before, which only takes five minutes or less.  No more wasted hours are spent on pointless planning but lots of time spent doing.

Author bio: JC is the author of JCDFitness – A No-BS Approach to Looking Great Naked.

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

Planning is Good, Doing is Better

Sitting alone in a quiet place can be a difficult experience.  Without distractions, we can feel bombarded by unpleasant thoughts and emotions.  All the ways we’re unhappy about ourselves and our lives come raging back into our awareness when there’s space for them to come up.

It’s no surprise, then, that our culture is hostile to silence.  Everywhere we go, it seems, we’re confronted with some kind of noise—whether it’s background music in stores and restaurants, cars and airplanes going by, or something else.  And when we’re alone, we often find ourselves habitually switching on the TV or radio to fill the emptiness.

Why Being With Silence Is Important

However, the ability to be with silence is critical to getting our work done efficiently and enjoyably.  My sense is that, for most of us, our work requires us to spend large amounts of time focusing on a single task in silence.  Although phone calls and e-mails come in occasionally, the bulk of our time is devoted to working on that computer program, presentation, or other creative project.

If we haven’t learned to tolerate quiet, we get jittery and distractible, and find ourselves putting off our work to avoid the experience.  As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, “unless one learns to tolerate and even enjoy being alone, it is very difficult to accomplish any task that requires undivided concentration.” But when emptiness no longer bothers us, we can hold our attention on our task with little effort.

I think this is one reason lots of us have trouble putting into practice the productivity tips we find in books, seminars and blog posts.  Many writers on time management advise us to unplug our phone and e-mail, and eliminate other sources of distraction, while we’re doing important tasks.  However, they don’t tell us what to do when we can’t deal with the quiet that results.

Phasing Out Self-Distractions

How do we get accustomed to silence?  One useful exercise, I’ve found, is to start eliminating all the ways we create background noise in our lives outside work.  Some examples include:

Leave the car radio off. Driving can be a stressful experience, and many of us use the car radio to “take the edge off.” But if we learn to be with the “edgy,” unnerving feeling of driving in silence, dealing with the same feeling at work becomes easier.

Turn off the TV. When we get home at night, many of us habitually switch on the TV and “veg out,” desperate for something to take our attention off our work.  Instead, see if you can “veg out” in silence—try just sitting on your chair or couch with no stimulation.  Many people are surprised at how tough this can be, but getting used to it can have a big positive impact on your work.

Leave the iPod at home. Many of us push silence away by keeping our headphones on throughout the day.  While this drowns out our chattering minds, it also diverts some of our attention from what we’re doing, so the quality of what we produce suffers.

I recommend doing this exercise gradually, phasing out your self-distractions one by one.  For instance, on the first day of the week, you might try leaving the TV off; on the second day, you could drive to work without the car radio, and so on.  Going completely “cold turkey” from background noise in a single day can be overwhelming for some people.

As I said earlier, when you bring silence into your life, you may be confronted with intense thoughts and sensations.  The best way to handle these, in my experience, is to simply allow them to be.  Keep breathing, relax your body, and allow each thought and feeling to pass away, without resisting or running from it.

What you’ll discover, I suspect, is that the experiences you may have been drowning out with background noise actually aren’t so threatening.  Allowing your thoughts and feelings to be, just as they are, isn’t likely to hurt you.  And when your inner experience no longer seems so scary, you become able to concentrate on your work for longer periods of time, and maybe even start enjoying what you do.

Author bio: Chris Edgar is the author of Inner Productivity: A Mindful Path to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work, which uses insights from mindfulness practice and psychology to help readers develop focus and motivation in what they do.  You can find out more about the book and Chris’s work at www.InnerProductivity.com.

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

How Getting Used To Silence Can Help Your Productivity

In this day and age, it’s quite apparent that people are connecting everywhere. From the local pub to the cafe across the street, from the stands at the little league baseball field to one of the seemingly infinite number of online chat rooms, people are constantly connecting with each other.

Gone are the days of never talking to strangers. Gone are the days when people proclaimed that all chat rooms are dangerous. Gone are the days when your social circle was limited to your coworkers around the water cooler.

Thanks to our advances in communication, we can connect with whomever we want from wherever we want. If you so choose, you can have friends from all over the world while never stepping foot outside your front door (editor’s note: not recommended).

However, when connecting is such an easy thing to do, why is it that some people still find it hard (and almost scary) to take part in? Why do some people still hold “never talk to strangers” as their mantra?

I personally believe it is because of these three big reasons:

1. News and media

As a kid growing up, there wasn’t a day I watched TV that there wasn’t an announcement of something horrible. Titles similar to “BREAKING NEWS: KIDNAPPER ON THE LOOSE” or “INTERNET PREDATOR STRIKES AGAIN” would normally pop up across the screen. While it’s important to know what’s going on the world, these messages made it seem like the only way to avoid instances like this are to stop going out at night and stay out of every online community.

2. Overbearing Parents

Parents play a big part in our ability to connect with others, and overprotective ones tend to hinder that ability. Overbearing parents tend to keep their children close to them (partly due to the risk touched upon in the first point) and are always ready to retort their child’s plea for adventure with the remark, “You’re too young to understand.” In effect, this implants in their minds a certain misconception that you have to be a certain age before you can make your own decisions, even on things that require you to break out of your comfort zone.

3. Fear of rejection

Rejection is one of the main reasons people don’t just get out there and start connecting. They think if they let themselves become transparent (letting people see the ‘real’ them), they’ll be exiled and condemned as a weirdo. This leads people to falsely believe that the only people who could ever truly understand their ‘real’ selves are themselves.

How do we fix these problems and start connecting?

The solution to all of these problems is quite simple really: all you have to do is take fate into your own hands.

In each of the problems I’ve listed above, you’re giving the power of owning your fate into the control of someone else. In the first scenario, it’s the news and media, in the second, it’s your parents, and in the third, it’s to just about everybody else.

You have to take charge of your life: you have to connect. I doubt people who’ve lived the best lives stayed in the same place for too long or talked to the same people forever. They broadened their horizons and added a little diversity into the mix.

They risked rejection and put themselves out there.

You’re not a kid anymore. The outdated saying of ‘never talk to strangers’ doesn’t apply. Talk to the ones you resonate with, and pass by the ones you don’t.

It’s never too late to start connecting with others, but if you keep waiting until you’re 100% comfortable connecting, it just might be.

Author bio: John Anyasor is the founder of his personal development blog, HiLife2B. There he writes about personal development, college tips, and more.

* * *
Download my free e-book: A Year of Change

Why You Struggle to Connect With Others