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If you have been following this series on the health benefits of meditation, then hopefully you have given meditation a go by now, and as you meditate and relax, you may well have asked yourself ‘What is actually happening here?’

What is happening is this – The Relaxation Response is kicking in, thanks to your Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is the opposite of your Sympathetic Nervous System.

When you meditate, or rest effectively, the Parasympathetic Nervous System takes over and gets to work reversing the ‘flight or fight’ stress response, counteracting its effects, relaxing the mind and taking your body on a healing journey back to a balanced state of homeostasis.

This is the Relaxation Response. It is proven scientific fact.

This is the single most tangible thing that beginning a regular practice of meditation can do for you and your health. Meditation can be of great help if you are a person who has trouble switching off the mind and unwinding. Even if you are a fairly chilled-out person, you will still benefit from the deeper levels of relaxation, and the healing that this will encourage.
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Have you ever entered a chatroom and found yourself sharing things (that you could never discuss face to face) with a bunch of strangers? Have you ever poured your soul out on your blog, writing about your deepest fears, most powerful dreams, or secret shames? Have you ever stayed up long into the night, chatting to people online – without even knowing their real names, ages, genders or anything about them?

You’re in good company; most other internet users have done the same. Online space acts as a disinhibitor; like alcohol, it encourages us to be more sociable and less wary than we would be normally.

“Cyberspace is a disinhibitor. … People from many cultures find that online they are more open, more chatty, less reticent than they are face-to-face or even on the telephone.” - Kate Fox, Watching the English (book), pg 226

If you’re a shy, reserved person, but find yourself opening up to the world online, this explains why. It can be a huge delight – but also a danger. Here’s how to make sure you avoid the problems that can arise from the lack of inhibitions you feel online – and how to make the most of it instead.
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There’s a lot of talk about what you should do to become successful, but I would argue that it’s more about who you are that makes the biggest impact.  It’s the decisions we make on a daily basis, the habits we naturally form in our lives that determine the level of success we can achieve.  Who we are determines how we react to life, even when we’re not consciously in the act of ‘being successful’.

So here are 10 traits that I’ve seen as essential for obtaining lasting success in any endeavor.

1. An Independent Nature

If we rely too much on those around us for assistance and/or support we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment in the future.  This is not to say that we shouldn’t look to others for help when the time is right, but crafting our pursuits in such a way that requires the intervention of another is like handing over the keys and getting in the back seat.  Our friends and colleagues may help open the doors of opportunity, but it is our own responsibility to take the wheel.
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Image courtesy of Sir Mervs

The only reason people ever really do anything is due to motivation.  It may be our work, our hobbies, our relationships or even our chores, but one way or another, there is motivation that drives us to do the things we do.  This article is about finding out where this motivation comes from and how to develop it internally.

Two types of Motivation

There are only two types of motivation. You can label them whatever you like, but one type is positive and one type is negative.  I’ve learned to consider them to be even more basic than that: pain and pleasure.   EVERYTHING we do, think and believe has some kind of foundation in pain and pleasure. 

Each person has, of course, a completely different view of what pain and pleasure is. But the same factors exist to steer and motivate us based on what we think we can get out of it.  Most of these associations with pain and pleasure are buried in our subconscious minds and, unfortunately, most people never realize this. Instead, they go through life on autopilot.

Despite this, you can easily learn to shift the associated pains and pleasures in your favor and put more attention to the ones you want to change.  So, how you do that is important to explore…
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