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Free Audio Books

John Wesley — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:00:00 +0000

A couple months ago when I wrote about investing time wisely and the concept of multiple positives many readers commented, saying that an excellent way to educate yourself and spice up an otherwise boring workout is listening to audio books and podcasts while you hit the gym. It also works great for beating the boredom while you’re stuck in traffic during your daily commute.

To help you find the best audio content the web has to offer, I’ve compiled a list of resources for free audio books and podcasts on a wide range of interesting topics. Enjoy, and you if know of any good sites I’ve overlooked, please leave a link in the comments.

Free Audio Books

LibriVox, if you don’t know it already, is the king of free audio books. You can use the catalog to search through their library of nearly 1000 works, all part of the public domain. If you’re feeling generous, you can even contribute wiki-style by recording audio of your own.

AudioBooksForFree also has a big catalog to sort through, with an emphasis on classic works, but a decent amount of mystery, sci-fi, and thriller as well. The only catch here is that you’ll have to pay for quality: the lowest quality downloads are free but anything better than 8 Kbps costs $5-8.

If you’re looking specifically for classics, FreeClassicAudioBooks is a nice little resource. Although the library isn’t huge, there are a lot of big names. They also offer the convenience of downloading in an iPod-ready format.

Who knew that on top of all that print content, ProjectGutenberg also has a huge audio section? They’ve got everything from Aesop to Zola, including a decent number of works in French, German, and other languages.

LearnOutLoud has over 500 educational titles and offers a lot of video as well.

The bright side here is that you can probably get almost any older work in the public domain for free. If what you’re looking for is a bit more modern you’ll either have to shell out a few dollars or try to find a relevant podcast.

Free Podcasts

For iTunes users, the fastest and simplest way to find podcasts and load them directly to your iPod is through iTunes Store. Just click on the podcasts button in the store and you’ll be taken to a huge podcast directory. The trick is finding what you actually want.

If you’re looking for a particular subject, The Educational Podcast Network has a big list of subject specific podcasts that cover most academic topics.

If you could use a few personal recommendations, this thread on AskMetafilter points out a number of educational and entertaining podcasts. NPR has a nice collection of informative podcasts too.

Other good sources include the PodcastDirectory and Yahoo! Podcasts, which allows you to browse by popularity and user ratings.

For the tech savvy reader looking to catch up on the latest buzz, I’d also recommend checking out Digg’s podcast section.

Image by Dala*

10 All Natural Ways to Stop Feeling Depressed

John Wesley — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:45:50 +0000

Life is a drag.
What’s the point of anything?
I’ll never be happy.

Do any of these gloomy thoughts sound familiar? It’s likely they do. The occasional case of the blues is perfectly normal, but that doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. If you allow them to, negative thoughts can fester and lead to serious depression. That’s why it’s important to take action early to bust yourself out of a slump.

While these suggestions won’t eliminate your problems, they can help you break a negative thought pattern and stop feeling depressed. If you think you might have a serious mental health problem, don’t hesitate to see a medical professional.

1. Understand the emotional cycle – Life is an emotional roller coaster. Some days you feel like nothing can stop you. Other days you feel utterly hopeless. Most of the time you’re somewhere in between. Understanding the pattern of positive and negative emotions will help you put your feelings in perspective. Next time you feel down, just remember that it’s a natural emotion that will inevitably pass. Knowing that a feeling of depression is only temporary makes it less dreadful.

2. Spend time with positive people – Nothing affects the way you think and feel more than the people you interact with. Thoughts (both positive and negative) are contagious. If you are surrounded by negative people, it’s only natural that you’ll start to think and feel the same way. To improve your outlook on life, spend time with positive people. Search them out and try to understand the way they see the world. Chances are their happiness will rub off.

3. Reflect on past success – In the wake of a colossal failure, it’s easy to forget everything you’ve ever done right. Take a few minutes to remember your past accomplishments and build yourself up. What made you successful before? What are your strengths? Frequently, this exercise will build self confidence, help you figure out what went wrong, and generate ideas for success in the future.

4. Focus on gratitude – It’s human nature to measure ourselves against those ahead of us on the social ladder. Studies have shown that people care more about being richer than their friends than actually making more money. When you consider everything good in your life and compare it to the problems of less fortunate people, the issue that’s making you depressed won’t seem as serious.

5. Change of scenery – One of the best ways to change the way you feel is to change your environment. When you get in a slump, you start to associate your problems with everything around you. It can get to the point where your environment is a constant reminder of your problems. This can be a dangerous cycle. The solution is to change things. Change doesn’t have to be radical. Cleaning up, adding more lights, or including pleasant decorations can completely change the mood of a room.

6. Break your routine - Going through the same routine, day after day, can be monotonous and depressing. It often leads to getting caught in a rut. To get out of it you need to temporarily change your routine. If you can, take a day off from work. Do something you don’t normally have time for or something you’ve never tried. In the long run, taking a day off every now and then to get out of slump will make you happier and more productive.

7. Interact with animals and nature – It’s funny when you consider how humans put so much importance on their own tiny problems. Animals don’t think this way. A little bird doesn’t mope around because it isn’t an eagle or because another bird beat it to a tasty seed. Animals live in the present moment and they show love unconditionally. Observing and interacting with them will help you get over your problems.

8. Get moving – As Johnny Cash famously suggested, “Get a rhythm, when you get the blues.” Moving to a beat makes everyone feel better. The same is true for movement in general. Hitting the gym or going for a walk will help you shed the lethargy that comes with feeling depressed. The more enthusiastic your moments, the better you will start to feel.

9. Think about the big picture – As Carl Sagan made evident with the Pale Blue Dot, we’re insignificant creatures living in a vast universe on a tiny planet. In the long run, everything we do will probably be forgotten. Some might find this depressing, but it shouldn’t be. It means that all our problems are illusory. In a million years no one will remember what you did or didn’t do. What matters is the present moment and enjoying every second of life that we’re blessed with.

10. Do something to help yourself – Above all, the best way to stop feeling depressed is to take action. What is your biggest problem? How can you alleviate it? Once you decide to stop moping and start moving forward you won’t have time to feel depressed. Action will occupy your mind and give you something to look forward to. Once you get some results, you’ll build momentum and positive thinking will keep getting easier.

Eliminate your stress

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101 Online Self Improvement Resources

John Wesley — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:45:56 +0000

Recently readers have asked me to share my favorite self improvement resources. Most of these sites don’t revolve around classic self improvement topics, but they all contain valuable information you can use to improve your life. Here are 101 online self improvement resources, organized into 5 general categories.

It’s a rather long list, so if you don’t have much time I’d recommend bookmarking it with del.icio.us and coming back later. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

Self Improvement Resources

These resources specialize in helping you make the most of your time.

Personal Development

Sites in this category cover all topics traditionally related to personal growth and development.

Mentally Stimulating

These sites, focused mainly on art and science, never fail to make me think.

Business, Blogging, and Financial Success

Although many of these are targeted at my fellow bloggers and webmasters, some are relevant to everyone. They all aim to help you become a financial success.

Educational References and Reading

These sites contain massive amounts of information and are my favorite destinations (other than Google) for serious research or casual reading.

Ever wondered exactly how self confident you actually are? Click here and our FREE assessment will tell you in seconds.

How to Maximize Your Day Job While Creating a 4 Hour Work Week

John Wesley — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:46:58 +0000

Note: Rather than doing a straight review of The 4 Hour Work Week (I’m sure you’ve read a few already) I’ve compiled some suggestions for how to apply the information it contains.

When Tim Ferriss came out with the promise of the The 4-Hour work Week you probably scoffed, “Impossible! Who does this guy think he is, tearing down our cultural institutions and promoting delusions of world travel and perpetual semi-retirement!” This was natural. All new ideas are initially resisted. It’s hard to accept a concept that radically opposes everything you’ve been taught about money, employment, and the ideal lifestyle. The book prompted me reevaluate my direction, and from what I’ve read, it had the same effect on many others.

Now that we’ve had time to digest the ideas, the powerful logic behind The 4-Hour work Week is impossible to ignore. Who wouldn’t want to trade those monotonous days under neon lights in a beige windowless room for a backpacking trip through the Alps or a crash course in SCUBA diving? If it’s so easy to automate income and join the New Rich, why not me too?

Unfortunately, going from a steady office job to New Rich is easier said than done. Even when you understand the concepts of The 4-Hour work Week, there is still the practical business of developing an income stream, testing, automating, and scaling to the point where you can support your ideal lifestyle with room to spare. These changes don’t happen overnight, and for first time entrepreneurs, building a business from scratch is an intimidating task. Most of us have rent and other expenses that require a steady income stream. We can’t afford to walk away from our day jobs without anything to fall back on.

Although we can’t join the New Rich today, a 4 hour work week is attainable. The beauty of the idea is that automated income can be developed on the side. If you plan on keeping your job, you don’t even have to do that much. A 4 hour work week is easier said than done, but following these simple recommendations will put you on the path to reaching your goal.

1. Develop Time Management Skills

The ability to process information quickly and effectively is the cornerstone of the 4 hour work week. Unfortunately, the typical office job trains you to do exactly the opposite. Everyone needs to look busy for 8 hours a day, so there isn’t any motivation to work efficiently. Simple tasks tend to drag on for hours and distractions are a welcome break from the monotony.

To join the New Rich you’ll need to break out of this mindset and master time management. A great place to start is batching. Instead of letting email be a constant interruption, close Outlook (trust me, it can be done) and only open it at specific times during the day. You’ll find plowing through 20-30 emails at once is exponentially faster than answering one at a time. The concept of batching can be applied to any group of similar tasks. Your biggest problem will be figuring out how to use all the spare time.

2. Investigate Niche Markets

By far, the biggest obstacle to a four hour work week is creating an automatable moneymaker, or as Tim calls it, finding the Muse. No one can tell you exactly how to do this because every person and every opportunity is unique. For someone with no entrepreneurial experience it seems impossible.

Fortunately, the book provides a framework for finding a niche market, testing it for profitability, and launching your product. If you’re interested in doing this, you need to read the book. The process is far too detailed to explain here, but the first step is brainstorming a niche.

To create a profitable business, you’ll need to solve an existing problem and reach people who need that problem solved. The best place to start is targeting people similar to yourself because you’re able understand their needs. What type of specialized knowledge do you possess? What social groups do you belong to? What past problems have you overcome? Turning these questions into a successful business won’t be easy, but the sooner you start investigating niche markets the more likely you’ll find a golden opportunity.

3. Build a Cash Reserve

Although launching a small business doesn’t require millions of dollars, it is a significant investment. Market testing, product development, manufacturing, and advertising all cost money. You can rack up thousands of dollars in credit card debt (like Tim did), but building up a cash reserve to draw from is a safer alternative.

What this comes down to is prioritizing your expenses. Would you rather eat out a few times a week, or cook at home and invest the money you save in creating your ideal lifestyle? When you think about it this way the choice is easy. Those fancy restaurants, expensive gadgets, and other superfluous luxuries quickly lose their appeal.

4. Become a Superstar Employee

You’re probably thinking, “How does this make sense? I thought the idea was to ditch the day job?” Oddly enough, becoming a better employee can help achieve this objective. If you don’t plan to leave your job this is the most important step. You need to make yourself as valuable as possible to your employer so that when you attempt to negotiate a remote work arrangement, giving you what you want will be more appealing than losing you to a competitor.

This is also important for aspiring entrepreneurs. Even if you don’t want to be an employee forever, sulking around the office won’t get you anywhere. I’m not suggesting you start putting in 14 hour days, but why not make the best of the situation? Becoming a great employee will help you develop excellent work habits, make connections you can leverage down the road, and allow you to learn what works and what doesn’t work when running a business.

5. Make use of your spare time

Above all, this is the most important point. A 4 hour work week isn’t going to build itself. Creating your ideal lifestyle will require an enormous effort with many failures along the way. There’s a reason most people work 40 hour weeks – sticking with the status quo is easy. You don’t have to do anything except show up and do a good enough job not to get fired.

What it comes down to is desire. How bad you want the life of your dreams? Are you willing to sacrifice every moment of your spare time in the present in order to liberate yourself in the future? This appears to be an easy choice, but implementing it is difficult. You’ll need to delay gratification for months, maybe years, until your hard work comes to fruition.

By writing The 4-Hour work Week, Tim has given us the blueprint to the ideal lifestyle. The rest falls on our shoulders. Can you put off enjoying your life until retirement? This is a choice everyone makes whether they are conscious of it or not. Now that you know working 40+ hours a week into your 60′s isn’t the only alternative, what are you going to do about it?

Slow Carb Diet: Week 1 Update

John Wesley — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:00:46 +0000

Note: This post is part of the Fitness Experiment series. If you’re new here you should read this post for the background.

It’s been one week since I started the slow carb diet and Tim Ferriss’ workout routine. I’ve never put myself on a restricted diet so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The Slow Carb Diet

After exchanging emails with Tim I’ve modified my goals a bit. Initially I wanted to gain weight and cut fat. These are opposing goals so I had to choose one or the other. I’ve decided to go with fat burning, at least for the first few weeks.

I made this choice for a couple reasons. 1) Gaining weight would require eating a ton of food. I’ve never gone on a diet before, so I figure maintaining my regular food consumption should be easier than cooking 4 huge meals a day. 2) The fat burning diet includes an “eat whatever you want” day. The spike in carbs keeps your body from adjusting to the reduced calorie intake and gives you a chance to satisfy your cravings. The opportunity to indulge myself is very appealing and should help me stick to the diet the rest of the week.

So far the transition has been relatively easy. I’ve actually been eating more than before. I’ve gone from two meals a day to three. Cutting out white carbs makes me hungrier, but I’ve actually noticed a small rise in energy.

The biggest change in my meals has been cutting out rice/pasta/macaroni and substituting black or pinto beans. I like beans a lot so I haven’t minded. Aside from that, the hardest part is avoiding sugar and the random free food that presents itself. It takes a bit of will power, but the diet is definitely sustainable.

The Workout

The workout routine is more intense than I expected. 4-7 sets doesn’t sound like much, but using the 5-5 cadence and going to absolute failure makes a huge difference. For example, when I used to do bench press I always let gravity do the work on the way down. With the 5-5 cadence, the way down is so slow that it requires a lot of effort to keep the bar in the air.

Going to absolute failure has also made my workouts more intense. I’m slightly worried that the stress could be a problem. Towards the end of my first workout, during the last rep of a shoulder press set, the back of my neck got really tight and I felt a bit light headed. I stopped, cooled down for a bit, and did one more set before finishing. Today, the same thing happened during my first set of dips and I decided to postpone the workout until tomorrow. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Has anyone experience anything similar? Hopefully this won’t keep happening, but I’m not going to push it.

Besides the workouts the only other exercise I’ve taken is pickup basketball. I’ve felt normal (though out of shape) energy levels while playing and the extra cardiovascular activity compliments the fat burning plan.

Results

After only one week there isn’t much to speak of but I’m very optimistic. I’d let you know about any weight change but there isn’t a scale in my apartment. I expect the results are minimal, probably 1-3 pounds. I definitely feel a bit leaner, especially around the abdomen, and my muscles have become more firm and toned. I’m looking forward to seeing the results develop in the coming weeks.

If anyone else is trying the diet or workout routine, please let us know how it’s going in the comments or on your own blog. Brion already posted his results to comment thread of the first post (at the bottom) and they seem similar to mine. Having more results to compare should help us all to optimize our programs.

5 More Ways to Increase Your Intelligence

John Wesley — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 21:42:12 +0000

In the feedback on my original post, 5 Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Intelligence, two of the most common comments were:

1. 5 ways aren’t nearly enough

2. Nothing works for everyone

I whole heartedly agree with both of these statements.

One reader even went as far as posting his/her own 5 Ways in the Reddit comment thread. I thought they were so good that I wanted to share with everyone else. Here they are:

1. Cultivate friendships with people who think differently. I enjoy talking to people who really challenge my conception of the world. Artists (I’m not one), medical staff (I’m not one), construction workers (I’m not one) and so on.

2. Get outside your own culture through travel, social gatherings, … Travel is great (but the hit on the environment is large, so…. do a few long trips rather than many short ones perhaps?) especially if you immerse locally. Going to Cuba and staying in a western hotel is not travel. Going backpacking in Nepal is. Doing voluntravel (going somewhere to help, e.g. Medicins Sans Frontiers) is ideal. But in any event the challenge to your sense of normalcy is fabulous. I spent a month in western China with my kids. Watching them take in the local environment and adapt was a real eye opener to how stuck-in-my-own-ways I’d become.

3. Learn that it is okay to turn off your cell phone and email. Reflective thought and deep reading take time. Oh excuse me, just got an email, be right back. Nope, that doesn’t work. Its okay to be unreachable for hours a day. I aim to answer email for an hour at the end of the day, at most. For many hours I’m unreachable except by family. Since I started that my time for thinking and reading has risen dramatically.

4. Do less better. There’s always another project that we rush to, never finishing the one we were doing. Sorry, great works of science and art take great dedication, polish, and repolish! Sure, we’re not all Darwin or Monet, but we should ASPIRE to be. Just say no to some projects. Focus on a few (make your family a project… for extra points!).

5. In all things seek balance. I agree that exercise is good. So is reading. So is relaxation – and if a bit of TV is what works, great. I for one watch old romantic comedy movies when I’m brain dead (well, okay, when I’m especially brain dead). I also enjoy blending my activities – go for a long walk that ends up at a coffee shop where I read a paper or book and stare out the window.

These 5 things are a great compliment to the original article, but there are still many more the haven’t been mentioned. I’d love to hear what works best for you.

What are your favorite ways to make the most of your intelligence? Share them in the comments.

5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Intelligence

John Wesley — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:03:14 +0000

Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate.

Here are 5 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter.

1. Minimize Television Watching – This is a hard sell. People love vegetating in front of the television, myself included more often than I’d like. The problem is watching television doesn’t use your mental capacity OR allow it to recharge. It’s like having the energy sapped out of a muscle without the health benefits of exercise.

Don’t you feel drained after a couple hours of TV? Your eyes are sore and tired from being focused on the light box for so long. You don’t even have the energy to read a book.

When you feel like relaxing, try reading a book instead. If you’re too tired, listen to some music. When you’re with your friends or family, leave the tube off and have a conversation. All of these things use your mind more than television and allow you to relax.

2. Exercise – I used to think that I’d learn more by not exercising and using the time to read a book instead. But I realized that time spent exercising always leads to greater learning because it improves productivity during the time afterwards. Using your body clears your head and creates a wave of energy. Afterwards, you feel invigorated and can concentrate more easily.

3. Read Challenging Books – Many people like to read popular suspense fiction, but generally these books aren’t mentally stimulating. If you want to improve your thinking and writing ability you should read books that make you focus. Reading a classic novel can change your view of the world and will make you think in more precise, elegant English. Don’t be afraid to look up a word if you don’t know it, and don’t be afraid of dense passages. Take your time, re-read when necessary, and you’ll soon grow accustomed to the author’s style.

Once you get used to reading challenging books, I think you’ll find that you aren’t tempted to go back to page-turners. The challenge of learning new ideas is far more exciting than any tacky suspense-thriller.

4. Early to Bed, Early to Rise – Nothing makes it harder to concentrate than sleep deprivation. You’ll be most rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don’t sleep more than 8 hours. If you stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you’ll wake up lethargic and have trouble focusing. In my experience the early morning hours are the most tranquil and productive. Waking up early gives you more productive hours and maximizes your mental acuity all day.

If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but a short nap will refresh you.

5. Take Time to Reflect – Often our lives get so hectic that we become overwhelmed without even realizing it. It becomes difficult to concentrate because nagging thoughts keep interrupting. Spending some time alone in reflection gives you a chance organize your thoughts and prioritize your responsibilities. Afterwards, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important and what isn’t. The unimportant stuff won’t bother you anymore and your mind will feel less encumbered.

I’m not saying you need to sit on the floor cross-legged and chant ‘ommm’. Anything that allows a bit of prolonged solitude will do. One of my personal favorites is taking a solitary walk. Someone famous said, “All the best ideas occur while walking.” I think he was on to something. Experiment to find the activity that works best for you.

Conclusion – I hope you aren’t disappointed that none of the techniques I’ve proposed are revolutionary. But simple, unexciting answers are often the most valid. The challenge is having the will to adhere to them. If you succeed in following these 5 tips, you’ll be rewarded with increased mental acuity and retention of knowledge.

If you’re still hungry for more, check out the follow up post: 5 More Ways to Make the Most of Your Intelligence.

Overcoming a Loss of Motivation

John Wesley — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:47:03 +0000

How many times have you started a new activity (such as a personal project or exercise routine) with a burst of enthusiasm, only to see that initial momentum evaporate? This often leads to depression and causes us to give up prematurely. I’ve experienced this letdown dozens of times myself. But fortunately, with a bit of thought and reflection you can turn this negative emotion around.

The key to harnessing your emotions is understanding them. The natural pattern of human emotion is peaks and valleys. When we start a new project we’re filled with tremendous optimism. All we can think about is the expected benefits, and since we haven’t started yet, we aren’t aware of the difficulties involved. This natural high causes a surge of mental and physical activity. The peak is a great thing because the energy boost gets projects off the ground. If you’re a creative type like me, you know that this period is euphoric. You feel like nothing can stop you.

The downside of this surge of energy is that it inevitably ends. Exerting large amounts of energy wears you down, and after the initial optimism wears off we feel extremely tired. However high you started off, you fall down just as low. This causes a loss of confidence. The combination of fatigue, scant results, and an awareness of impending adversity makes us want to give up. From personal experience I’ve learned a few ways to hold strong against negativity.

Be Prepared for a Letdown

Emotions, by nature, lose their power when we understand them. Prove this to yourself. Next time you get angry, take a moment to reflect on the reason behind the emotion. When I step back and reflect, it’s easy to see that my anger is caused by insecurity/selfishness/jealousy etc. After I understand the cause my anger fades away.

The same technique applies to a loss of motivation. Instead of giving into negativity, step back and analyze. Look at the causes. Are you tired, burned out, disappointed by the results? Are these feelings justified, or are they a by product of a low point in the emotional spectrum?

To illustrate these ideas, I’ll use my most recent project as an example, the creation of this site. When I launched Pick the Brain it took an enormous amount of effort. I was completely new to blogging, web design, and traffic building so there was a steep learning curve. Writing new posts, setting up the site, and trying to build traffic took up nearly all my free time. After about three weeks I was completely burned out. I got depressed and started to question if the site was worth the effort. I wasn’t seeing any returns and I started to find enormous faults in my writing and the purpose of the site. There were moments when I was resigned to failure.

One reason I was able to overcome this loss of motivation is that I prepared myself for a letdown. Beforehand, I researched blogging and learned that it generally takes 9-12 months before a site begins to see significant traffic. Knowing that my lack of success was perfectly normal helped me get over it. The same is true for other endeavors. If you know losing 20 pounds in a month is unrealistic, you’ll be able to accept losing only 5 more easily.

I also knew my own emotions and was prepared for the initial emotional peak to pass. When I was first inspired to launch a website, my expectations were through the roof. Dreams of AdSense revenue danced in my head and I pictured throngs of loyal readers as if they already existed. But because I understand my emotional pattern, I realized this optimism would give way to depression. In the back of my mind, I foresaw the impending motivational battle, and when it came I was ready.

Reevaluate Your Strategy and Motivation

The passing of the emotional peak is a blessing in disguise because it allows us to reevaluate our plans from a fresh perspective. At first we are blinded by our own optimism. When we lose our motivation we can see gaping holes our in plan. We can either get down on ourselves and give up, or we can use this negative emotion to discover our faults and correct them. After I pulled myself out of the motivational cellar, I went back to all the negatives thoughts I’d had and applied them to improving the site. Having a pessimistic attitude opened my eyes. It made me realistic about my abilities and expectations. Emotional valleys bring us back to reality. Without them we’d be raving lunatics with unlimited self-confidence.

Use a loss of motivation as an opportunity to reconsider what your motivation really is. One reason I lost motivation is that I became too concerned with the financial aspect of blogging and lost sight of the real reason I started: sharing my passion for self improvement and the pursuit of happiness. When I realigned my motivation with my passion, the lack of results didn’t matter. My motivation returned because I realized connecting with people through my writing is an end in itself. Even if this site never makes I dime, sharing my ideas and experiences to help other people is worth the effort.

In truth, sometimes giving up is the right decision. If you started doing something for the wrong reasons you’ll likely lose your motivation. This is a good thing. It allows us to see what really motivates us. In these cases, the best choice is to move on to a new endeavor. Don’t fight self doubt, use it for your benefit.

Conclusion

Dealing with emotional highs and lows is an experience common to all people. We generally accept our emotions as beyond our control. They are powerful and mysterious and appear quite irrational. But if we contemplate our emotions, if we explore the inner workings of our minds, we find that like all things, emotions obey the law of cause and effect. Armed with this knowledge, we can continue to allow our emotions to dominate our lives, or we can use them to our benefit.

Don’t be surprised by a loss of motivation and don’t be disappointed by it. Understand it as natural effect of the human mind, and utilize this knowledge of self to make your emotions work for you.

Eliminate your stress

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