The year was 2001. I was asked to give a “toast” at my sister’s wedding; I reluctantly agreed to do so.

The wedding day came and the wedding ceremony seemed to go by in a flash. Before I knew it, I was the next person to speak. My arm pits began to sweat profusely. I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I began to think of the thousands of the things that could go wrong. My heart started to pump blood as if my life was in imminent danger. I thought: “Why am I so nervous!”

Have you ever felt this way? There was a time when I would literally “recoil” at the thought of speaking in front of an audience. I even had trouble saying my name in front of a small crowd. Now, however, after following the tips below, I have come to love speaking in public. I created this guide for people who “don’t” speak regularly, but who want to look “professional” when they are required to speak in public.

1. Read From Your Notes

It’s okay and it’s a whole lot better than fumbling around. Just remember to look-up often and make good eye contact. If you think about it, this is how the President of the United States conducts many speeches.

Reading your speech is like using “training wheels.” In other words, it’s very difficult to fall off a bike with “training wheels” and it will be very difficult to mess up a speech if you read it.

Note: Write your speech with clear headlines or bullets so it’s easy to follow. Also, write your speech on relatively small pieces of paper (or 3×5 cards), unless you have a “podium” to place the speech. Why? Because it may look awkward if you’re holding several full size sheets of paper in your hand while reading your speech.

2. Take Control

Ask an opening question or use humor to take control of the audience when you commence your speech. The first 15 seconds of your speech is crucial, if you can take control of the audience in the first 15 seconds, you’ll be fine after that.

You can safely do this by asking the audience a “fun” question. This puts “you” in-control and takes your mind away from being nervous. It also transfers some of the nervous energy from “you” to the audience; the audience is now awaiting “your” approval to see if they’ve answered the question correctly. [Note: Don’t make the question too difficult, or no one will respond.]

Use your nervous energy to excite the audience by “acting” like you’re excited, ride your “nerves” like a wave. Don’t let the nervous energy toss you into the water, think of your “nerves” as a good thing, something that will make your speech great. Nervousness is like electricity (its energy), and when it’s controlled it will allow you to give amazing speeches.

Once you get more advanced you can use “humor.” Humor not only relaxes the audience, but it also relaxes you. Don’t be afraid to open up with an appropriate clean “joke.” If no one laughs, just make it your last joke for that speech.

What else can you say?

You can complement the audience, ask them to raise their hand, or stand-up and stretch; get the audience involved and keep them involved through-out the “entire” speech. Remember: you have to take control of the room. If you involve your audience in your speech, they will enjoy what you have to say (as long as it’s not too long and boring). Give them 3-5 main keys, because it’s all most people can remember anyway.

3. Practice

Practicing, of course, is the obvious thing to do, so make sure you do it! Practice in a mirror so you know how you look. Practice with someone staring at you as to re-create an uncomfortable speaking situation.

If you’ve practiced enough, you should be able to quote a majority of your speech, this way you won’t have to read every single word of the speech.

Practice at least once in the same room you’ll be speaking in, if possible. This will be helpful, but is not necessary.

Practice, but don’t over prepare. In other words, don’t take yourself too seriously. Remember: you’ll be just fine, you’re just going to be reading some notes; it’s nothing to be nervous about.

Also, never apologize for being an amateur speaker, often when you’re nervous the audience won’t even notice. Don’t give the audience something to look for by saying, “I’m sorry, but I’m very, very nervous!”.

4. Dress for Success

You will feel better about yourself and you will perform at your best, if you look your best. A sharp and neat appearance breeds confidence; the audience will see that confidence and respond accordingly.

Note: It’s always better to be over-dressed compared to under-dressed when you’re speaking. Be sure to dress as good as you want your speech to be (although a “tuxedo” at family re-union “picnic” is probably overkill).

5. Speak Slowly and Clearly, and Make Eye Contact

If you speak slowly and clearly you’ll sound more profound and less nervous.

If you make eye contact you’ll further engage the audience, so be sure to do it.

Note: If you have time, talk to a few folks in the audience before you begin your speech. This will calm you down and assist you when it’s time to make eye contact with individuals in the audience (you may even decide to call out someone’s name, if applicable and appropriate).

6. Be Yourself

Act like you’re talking to your friends; know that people want you to do well. Don’t fear how you’re going to look, you’ll be just fine!

What should you do about the nerves?

When your heart is beating seemingly “out-of-your-chest,” and they’re about to call your name to speak, decide to use that nervous energy to your advantage: Take all of that nervous energy and use it as excitement. The key is to “act” like you’re not scared. Fake-it until you make-it, go up there and say, “How’s everybody doing!” No one will even notice you’re nervous. Then ask an opening question, soon you’ll have the audience “eating out of your hands” and the nervousness will be gone. Now all you have to do is: be yourself, plant your feet, and use natural hand expressions…

7. Say That You Love “Public Speaking,” and Visualize Yourself Doing Well

Don’t say that you hate public speaking; say that you “love it” until you convince yourself that you do. Also, visualize yourself doing well, and see people congratulating you afterwards on a job well done. “If you can see it, then you can have it.”

In Closing

Follow these keys and you’ll do great. The nervousness that comes from thinking you will be perceived in a negative way will dissipate. You will recognize that FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) can’t stop you. You will be prepared, you will look great, you will be great!

You’ll have your notes; you’ll be poised and impressive, so let me be the first to congratulate you on a job well done!

FAQ: Should I use “Bullets” or “Write-Out” my entire speech? Use bullets if you’re familiar with the topic, write-out the speech if you’re not.

About the author: Mr. Self Development is an author who teaches a practical guide to success and wealth. Please visit him at Mr. Self Development.com. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, then you may want to subscribe to his feed, follow him on Twitter, or read one of his most popular articles, “How I Manifested a Seven Bedroom Home at 24.”

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7 Keys to Successful Public Speaking

One of the most widespread ideas in the world of personal development is SMART goal-setting – it seems to have seeped into every self-help, business development and corporate training program out there. Just in case you’ve somehow managed to avoid attending these workshops – or more likely slept through them – SMART is an acronym for a set of criteria that people are encouraged to use to get really clear on the outcome they’re aiming for when they’re setting goals, because this increase your success in achieving your goals. The SMART criteria are as follows:

• Make your goals Specific
• Make your goals Measurable
• Make your goals Achievable
• Make your goals Realistic
• Give your goals a Target Date

While the principal behind SMART goals is really powerful, only three of the criteria are useful for getting clear on your outcome. Criteria’s 3 and 4 (Achievable and Realistic) seem entirely redundant to me. The jury’s still out on what’s achievable and realistic. There are new stories of people pushing that boundary all the time. In my experience, most people don’t come near to using their full potential and don’t even try to set goals that push the boundaries of what’s realistic. More importantly, these criteria don’t cover some of the most important things to think about when you’re deciding what you want. In my experience, they get people tangled up in thinking about “how” they’ll get there, even before they’ve fully clarified what they want and where “there” is. This means that they settle for something that seems more achievable, rather than going after what they really want because they can’t yet see a way to get what they really want.

If you’ve ever found that you struggle with motivating yourself to stick with your goals, if you’ve ever wished you could relax and enjoy the process of working towards your goal more, if you’ve ever found that when you get your goal it doesn’t feel as good as you thought it would, or if you’ve ever found yourself sabotaging your own efforts to get your goals, then these are the puzzle pieces you’ve been missing:

Focus on Changes, Instead of Goals:

I don’t really like to use the word goals. When I ask people what their goals are, they tell me about things they want to HAVE and list things they want to DO. They usually leave out the most important key to both happiness and success… who they want to BE. From a success point of view, if you want to change what you’re HAVING and DOING, you’re going to need to change who you’re BEING. And from a happiness point of view, who you’re BEING is all that matters. Alot of the time goals become big “to do” lists and we end up abandoning ship once the goal is achieved, and ultimately end up boomeranging back to where we started – like when someone achieves their goal weight, ticks the box and then gradually lets all their old unhealthy habits return until their goal weight is a distant memory.

So the distinction I want to make is to start talking about changes instead of goals. The concept of making changes encourages us to include consideration for how we want to BE different. And changes tend to be more sustainable – when I ask you what changes you want to make, you’re likely to tell me about how you want things to be different for the rest of your life, as opposed to just reaching a short-term destination.

So how can you make successful and sustainable changes?

You need to make SMARTEST Changes. By asking yourself a few powerful questions at the outset, as you’re thinking through the changes you want to make, you’ll dramatically increase your success in making those changes. In fact, there are times when I’ve been able to help clients to get their changes in just 1 or 2 sessions, just by talking through the SMARTEST criteria together. So think of a change you want to make in your life, and let’s go through the SMARTEST Changes criteria together…

8 Secrets to Making SMARTEST Changes:

1. Shackles Off. The first thing you need to ask yourself is “How do I feel when I think of having that change in my life?” Are you excited about it? Do you feel good when you think of having that change? If you notice some anxiety or fear, check whether it’s confining fear (which tends to come with a feeling of disgust and even anger), or is it liberating fear (which has a sense of excitement with it). If this change is really important to you, there will be some fear. If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t care enough to feel afraid. But the sort of fear you get when you move towards what’s important to you feels liberating, like a prisoner imagining taking their shackles off, and it’s paired with a strong sense of excitement. If it doesn’t feel liberating, then perhaps you’re trying to make a change that you think you SHOULD do, rather than one that’s really important to you.

If you focus your energy on making changes that feel “shackles off” instead of forcing yourself to do what you think you “should,” you’ll be much more able to motivate yourself to stick with your changes and to enjoy the process of working on your changes – two big factors in getting you both success and happiness in the changes you’re making.

2. My Business. There are 3 types of business: my business, other people’s business and God’s business. One of the biggest reasons why people are unsuccessful in making the changes they set out to make is because they’re concentrating on trying to change stuff they don’t really have control over – a.k.a. other people’s business and/or God’s business.

Have you ever had somebody try to change you? Just like with anybody else, it probably just caused you to dig in your heals and become even more stubborn, didn’t it? It makes sense to focus on the changes where you have the greatest leverage – your business. The only thing we have 100% control over and 100% ability to change is our own thoughts, feelings and behavior. So ask yourself, “Is this change about my business?”

The paradox in all of this is that, when you focus on changing yourself, rather than trying to change other people or situations, you develop the mental, emotional and behavioral flexibility that will give you the greatest power to influence other people and situations. Makes sense, doesn’t it? As they say, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.” You’re much more likely to change your relationships and circumstances if you’re willing to try something different.

3. Aligned. If the changes you decide to work on are aligned with your true heart’s desires, and fit with the “eagle vision” of your overall life’s purpose and values, you’ll be much, much more successful at getting the changes you want… and you’ll have a sense of happiness and fulfillment as you work on them. When we’re doing what we love, we’re naturally motivated, feel energized and alive, and this translates into getting more done, and being able to stick with the changes we want when the going gets tough. When we’re working on changes that are out of alignment with our purpose, values and desires, we end up struggling with ourselves every step of the way, and often sabotage our own efforts. Ask yourself, “Is this change aligned with my life purpose and what’s really important to me in life?”

4. Resistance. Resistance is a sign that we’re growing physically, mentally or emotionally. If your “change” is really a change, it’ll take you outside of your comfort zone and you’ll feel some internal resistance. This is because the mind-body initially resists anything unfamiliar – because familiarity is easier and safer. But familiarity won’t enable you to grow, and to have, do and be more.

If you don’t feel any internal resistance at all, perhaps your change isn’t extending your comfort zone and giving you opportunity to grow. If your change doesn’t really stretch you, you probably won’t feel energized to make the change happen. But when you give yourself a challenging change to make, you trigger eustress, a positive form of stress that’s been proven to increase productivity and performance significantly. We perform much better when we’re stretching ourselves a bit. Ask yourself, “Is this change going to require me to grow?”

5. Towards. Because we like what’s familiar, we unconsciously gravitate towards bringing what’s familiar into our lives. This is the reason why we often recreate past patterns – because they keep us in familiar territory. And because we like familiarity so much, we’re often only motivated to change our lives when we experience discomfort or pain. So the trigger for deciding to change is usually a recognition of something we don’t want.

But whatever you’re focusing on is what you’re getting familiar with. So when you’re thinking about a change you want to make, if you’re focusing on what you don’t want, that’s what you’re getting familiar with – and that’s what you’ll unconsciously and automatically seek to repeat. In order to get familiar with the changes you want, so that you’ll unconsciously and automatically gravitate towards those outcomes, you need to focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. If you’ve phrased your outcome as wanting to get away from something you don’t want, ask yourself “What do I want instead?”

6. Ecological. Ecology is the idea that, as individuals, we all participate in a variety of environments or systems, and we can’t not impact on our environment. Everything we do has a ripple effect, impacting on other people, our relationships with them, and our environment. Everything is connected.

One of the biggest challenges you’ll experience, as you go about starting to make changes, is that other people will often resist your changes – because, remember: we like familiarity. If you anticipate how your changes might impact other people, you’ll be more equipped to deal with potential resistance from them. Also, if you consider how the changes you’re wanting to make will impact on the various areas of your life and the various roles you play, you’ll be able to weed out potential sources of internal conflict, guilt and self-sabotage.

Ask yourself a few questions, in order to consider the ecology of making the changes you want to make: “What will the impact be on other areas of my life, if I’m successful in making these changes in this area of my life? What impact will it have on other people who are important to me, if I make these changes? What impact will it have on my broader community/ the world? Are there any potential negative consequences that I would want to avoid? What positive payback have I been getting out of my current behaviour? How can I preserve this positive payback in the changes I’m wanting to make?”

7. Specific. The more specific you are in describing the changes you want to make, the more familiar you’ll be with having the outcomes you desire, and the faster you’ll bring those new outcomes into your experience. Often we’re quite vague in describing the changes we want to make – especially if we’re talking about changes in who we’re BEING.

You can get more specific, and familiar with your outcome, by asking yourself, “How will I know when I’ve successfully made that change?” When you answer this question, you give yourself a really clear, tangible idea of what your desired result will be like. Another really powerful way to get familiar with having the results you want (and therefore accelerate getting those results in reality) is to mentally project yourself into the future, to the time when you’ve already made your changes, and to ask yourself, “What do I see around me? What do I hear? What physical sensations do I have in my body? What am I saying to myself? What emotions am I feeling?”

8. Time Frame. The last thing to do is to give yourself a time frame for making the changes you want to make. Giving yourself a time frame will help you to prioritize taking action. We tend to pay more attention to the tasks that we perceive to be urgent and if you have no specific time frame for making your change, you’ll probably just keep putting it off for “oneday.” Parkinson’s Law says that our work will expand to fit the time allotted to it. If you don’t give yourself a deadline or limit to the time available to make the change, you’ll take the rest of your life.

Set a time frame to motivate yourself to take daily action to work on your changes, and to be as efficient as possible. Ask yourself, “What would be a reasonable time frame to give myself for making this change?” and then diarize two specific dates: the first date should be a mid-review date and the second date is your ultimate deadline or final review date. Don’t get too rigid about your time frame. Your time frame is only there to create the illusion of urgency so that you’ll prioritize it and make your changes as efficiently as possible. If you don’t make your change within your time frame, be willing to give yourself an additional time frame, rather than using the time frame to tell yourself you’re a failure and make yourself feel like giving up. You can only fail if you’re unwilling to shift your deadline. Given enough time, you can learn to have, do or be anything.

Your next small step

By now, using the SMARTEST criteria, your description of the changes you want to make will have evolved significantly, and you’ll be much clearer about what you really want. You’ll find that your next steps in making your change a reality are already becoming clear to you. So to start bringing your changes into your reality, brainstorm all the steps that might be required to make your changes, including the questions you’ll need to research answers to, and then ask yourself, “What’s my next step to making my changes a reality?” Then go out and do it, and you’ll find that you’ll get your changes in no time at all – and you’ll relish the process of getting them.

About the author: through projects like the The Bottom-line Bookclub, Cath is helping people to be more agile and to learn and change more easily and elegantly… so they can thrive in these fast-paced, high-information, high-change times. Cath blogs at Mine Your Resources and you can connect with her on Twitter.

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Want to Change? Stop Setting Goals.

A percussionist has a way of creating music out of a couple twigs and an iron pot. A dancer can turn an empty room into a mosaic of movement. Why not use your own inherent creative capacities to be the artist of your own life?

We often feel trapped; unable to change directions while on the roads we travel.

But just as a writer can overcome creative blocks when staring at a blank sheet of paper, we can all overcome the blocks that prevent us from seeing creative possibilities for our lives.

I was an electrical engineer for over a decade before I decided to make my own creative career changes — going back to graduate school and becoming a published author.

It was a process consisting of a lot of sweat, doubt, and frustration. As it turns out, lots of people go through the same process.

As I chronicle in my book, The Power of Thinking Differently, the creative process is similar across disciplines—from art, business, to scientific advancement.

It is also the same for those of us wanting to make creative changes in how we make a living and how we live our lives in general.

The following ten steps to creative career changes are adapted from both the research for my book and my personal experience. Though I’ll emphasize “career” changes, the steps can be applied to any life changes you may wish to make.

I hope it provides you with a useful map to wherever it is you are meant to go.

1. List Your Reasons for Change

Begin by taking an inventory of the negative stuff. What is it about your life that you would like to change? What about it makes you unhappy?

Be as specific as possible. Write a list consisting of short declarative statements that get to the point.

It’s often easier to first figure out why we want creative change, and what we are changing from, before deciding which direction to go.

2.  List Your Passions and Skills

Over time, some of us stopped making life decisions based on what makes us happy. Instead, decisions were based upon the expectations of others. We ended up living our lives based on somebody else’s story of what a good life looks like, rather than following our own internal compass.

The result is your list from step #1.

Now it’s time to reclaim your life.

Start by listing what activities, hobbies, or aspects of your current job give you joy. What gets you excited just thinking about it?

You can take a look at your own personal history to get more ideas. Sketch out your autobiography to get a sense of your life’s highlights. When you were a child, you often did things because you loved doing them. What are some examples of this?

You can also take an inventory of all the things you were, or are, naturally good at.

At the end of this step you’ll have a collage of potential aspects of your new career.

3. Explore Crazy Career Ideas

This is the stage of the creative process where businesses brainstorm, where sketch artists doodle, and where scientists experiment and hypothesize. It is also the stage where you give yourself freedom to dream up crazy career possibilities.

Wanna be a writer? What kind — for a magazine, for a newspaper, a book, for film, or a blog?

Love traveling? How about being a tour guide, or working for an airline to get free flights?

Or how about combining traveling and writing and becoming a travel author?

Relax, have fun, and simply play around with nutty ideas. Mixing and matching, making connections between alien concepts, is how creative ideas come about.

It is also the key to turning what you love into how you live.

Write down as many ideas as possible. Try to connect as many of your interests and passions and skills as you can to form interesting ways of making money. The more obscure the better. You won’t have any competition in the market place.

The key to this part of the process is to get as many ideas as possible without judging their feasibility. Your ridiculous idea about selling crotchless briefs may lead you to your life’s work in humorous clothing design.

4. Prioritize & Choose

At this point you should have a list of great ideas that you’ll want to pursue.

Now you need to filter. Now you need to look at the ones you’re most passionate about and start to judge them for their feasibility.

Einstein wrote lots of papers that nobody ever found useful, and Picasso had books of sketches that were never turned into masterpieces. But both were able to use their wild explorations to arrive at some inspired works.

You can do the same. Pick an idea that you’re most interested in and focus on it in the steps to follow.

5. Clear the Path by Realizing Your Assumptions

For many of us, we fail to fulfill our creative changes because we feel we can’t. We feel that our circumstances make it impossible to change.

Now it’s time to really stare that assumption in the face.

Take a look at where you are in your life (#1) and compare it to where you want to go (#4). What obstacles stand in your way? Write down everything you think is preventing you from pursuing your crazy career ideas.

Our mind has a tendency to exaggerate our obstacles and fears. The door we’ve never opened before can seem scary simply because it leads to something unknown.

Going through the process of realizing what those obstacles actually are may reveal to you that the emperor has no clothes.  The shadow in the wall of your bedroom may just be your bedpost, and not the boogieman.

Hopefully you’ll begin to see that there’s a lot less in your way than you first thought.

6. Challenge Your Assumptions.

Also embedded within each obstacle you listed is an assumption about how the world works. By writing down a list of your obstacles, what you are really describing are your assumptions–the dominant stories you tell yourself about life.

Through our culture we’ve learned certain rules about how to make money, about how to find love, and about what careers are possible. But just as an artist breaks the rules of what good art should be in order to come up with something truly creative, we too need to challenge our assumptions in order to live more creatively.

The earth was thought to be flat until somebody had the audacity to challenge that assumption. Similarly, movies were silent until somebody asked, “does it have to be that way?”

7. Organize A Game Plan

Hopefully after going through steps #5 and #6 you have a pretty good idea of what real challenges stand in your way.

With this knowledge it’s time to strategize and organize your creative career change.

• Write out an end goal.
• List the actions steps you think you’ll need to take to get there.
• Then write out a schedule to keep yourself accountable for completing your tasks.

8. Recruit Help

Too often when I was making my own creative changes, I felt as if I had to do everything by myself. It was my life, so I felt that my journey was supposed to be a solitary one.

Not true.

My friends each have certain skills and attributes that were helpful in making my career change. Fortunately, a few of them were more than willing to lend a hand.

• You could have somebody help you fulfill some of your action items.
• You could also have somebody act as your project manager, making sure you are following through with your tasks on time.
• Or you can simply ask somebody to be an encouraging voice every once and a while.

Corporations organize teams to get stuff done. Why don’t you organize your own team to help you make your vision of a new career a reality?

9. Execute Your Plan

The creative process is often filled with failure and setbacks.

It’s a very recursive process: one experiment leads to failure, which then leads to re-evaluation, and then leads to a more promising direction. There are no foolproof paths for your career.

Just realize that failure is just feedback. It’s a data point to help clarify your end coordinates.

Also, be aware that any movement is better than no movement. You can’t sail to your final destination until you first begin to leave the shore.

So, feel good about even the smallest steps realizing that most people never even leave their islands.

10. Keep Your Motivation Fueled

In a survey of creative people, the biggest contributing factor to their creativity was intrinsic motivation — how much they enjoyed what it is they were working on.

Throughout your creative process, find ways to keep your motivation fired up and burning.

Sometimes this means spending time remembering how much you disliked your previous career – hence your list from step #1. Pain can be more powerful than pleasure. So recalling this pain may be just the fuel you’ll need to keep you going.

Second, try to have fun with your journey to a new career. The more stressed and worried you are about your new adventure, the less enjoyable it will be. Also, stress hampers your ability to see more creative choices and creative insights that may help you along the way.

Making career changes can be very scary and may even seem like an impossibility. However, with courage, creativity, and a continued remembering of why you want to change, a new career is within your grasp.

*Note: I’ve done my best to keep these steps as general as possible. Please feel free to comment below and ask me specific questions for clarification. I’d love to hear from you.

Author bio: Javy Wong Galindo, M Eng., is a self-proclaimed creative thinking dimwit who has a penchant for over exaggeration. This former electrical engineer and performing artist is the author of The Power of Thinking Differently: An imaginative guide to creativity, change, and the discovery of new ideas. Laid off from his job as an electrical engineer in 2007, Galindo turned a setback into an opportunity, going back to graduate school to partake in a two-year journey to explore the science and psychology of creative thinking. When he’s not speaking on creativity, Javy can be found singing at a club, performing bad comedy improv, writing an unfunny comedy sketch, running poorly on an uphill trail, or attempting to catch flies with chopsticks.

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10 Steps to Creative Career Changes

I was (ok I’ll admit it, still am) a quite disorganized guy. In addition, I have a reputation for outstanding achievements at different competitions in the domains of physics, sociology, languages, chemistry, and so on. Due to this quite bizarre combination I was known as the slothful genius of the school. Now, regarding being a sloth – I admit my bad ways and do my best to improve. Regarding being a genius – oh boy, I don’t like to call myself one. Oscar Wilde, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi – they are the geniuses. I might earn the title one day, but that’s far from now.

Being a “slothful genius” I was confronted with comments such as “Boy, you are wasting your opportunity!”, “Boy, you are capable of so much, why don’t you make use of what you have?” and “You can’t even imagine how it feels not to understand a math problem, use your brain, don’t be so lazy!” (by the way, the last comment is tommyrot). Except for some really good friends, most of the people who said these things said them because they were happy that I wasn’t doing my best.

Some People Might Not Welcome Your Change

Then I decided I needed to change. I set aside time for schoolwork in the afternoon, I organized my wake-up routine so I would never be late for the first class and decided to shave more regularly. Looks tell more then you’d believe.

There were some people who observed that I was finally following a path that would seed better results, and that made me a lot happier. They started to treat me in a more respectful manner, teachers as well as classmates.

However, the majority of people initially wouldn’t admit that I was making changes. They had gotten so used to my old behavior, they didn’t even observe that I was trying to get better organized. This might happen to you, too, and it might happen for different reasons. In my experience, people are more happy to know you behind them, than to know you in front of them.

Don’t be afraid. This does not mean that if you improve, people will stay away from you. First of all, real friends stay with you and do a high five. Then, after just a very short while, everyone else gets used to the fact that people – including you – do change. If you stay nice and friendly, this issue will vanish.

Accept Your Flaws, But Don’t Be Proud Of Them

You should always be aware of your flaws, how you can change them, and why you are going to change them. It took me awhile to do this, and it’s ok if it doesn’t happen overnight to you either – that isn’t how it’s supposed to be, anyway. Being aware of your flaws and mistakes also involves accepting them. I’ve come to know that one of the best helpers to accepting your flaws is to joke about them, make fun of yourself.

There are periods your life when you don’t even realize a given flaw, or don’t consider it a flaw yet. For example, I spent a lot of time believing that being rude is equal to showing power, only to find out that being rude is nothing but a sign of insecurity. Then, the time will come when you eventually realize that what you considered cool or correct before is no longer in alignment with your values.

Constant Effort and my Chest Workout

In addition to my earlier advice, I suggest you commit to the following rule: be persistent.

I recently joined an athletics group, where we do some weight workouts twice a week. After my first training, I spent half of the evening in front of the mirror admiring my “new” chest muscles. Luckily I did so, because the next day I couldn’t find but the slightest trace of them. The swollen muscles were just the “promise”, they were the illusion of what I could achieve if I worked a little.

It happens the same way in every area of life. You work a little, you see some results. Then, if you work a little more, you see some more results. If you work a lot, you see a whole lot of results. However, if you work just a little, then give up, then even those little results are probably going to fade away, like my swollen chest.

Don’t worry though, if little effort shows no results, it simply means you have a bit more work to do.

Author bio: This guest post was written by Zoli Cserei of www.simplywilldo.com. He writes about simplicity, productivity and making every day a fabulous part of your life. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/zcserei

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A Story of Change: The Slothful Genius

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.

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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.

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Feeling Down? 39 Ways to Boost Your Mood