Have you settled for less in your life, when you used to dream that something bigger, something grander, was possible? Not only possible, but you knew for certain it would happen, didn’t you?

Then something happened…

You got responsibilities.

You had to be practical.

But you don’t have to follow the herd anymore. You can make your heart and your mind work together. You simply have to realize that this so-called “collective wisdom” is really a collective assumption.

Any of these old sayings (sleep walking mantras) sound familiar?

• Get a real job.
• Welcome to adulthood!
• Grow up.
• Keep your head down.
• It’s called work for a reason!

These are all fine and dandy. They may have been more applicable in say, your grandfather’s time. Labor was expected for the larger part of sunlight and there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to follow your passions (unless you liked mining coal).

Technology has completely changed that. Social media, web 2.0 and blogging can help you establish yourself in any field with lightning speed. The amount of free information online is staggering, and it doubles every few years. There’s no longer any excuse.

So what’s stopping you?

I’ve asked hundreds of people what the biggest obstacle to living their dreams is. The number one response is always uncertainty and doubt. Not time, not money, but simply the inability to take a risk. It comes in a few different guises, but under the mask they are all the same.

Here are a few examples of uncertainty and doubt getting in the way of pursuing your dreams:

• Not knowing what will happen if you fail.
• Being afraid of going for what you want.
• Lack of belief in yourself.
• Fear of being wrong.
• And yes, sometimes even fear of success.

But the biggest deterrent, by far, is not knowing where to start. You might know what your dreams are, but you just don’t know how to get there. You don’t know how to make them a reality, instead of just a fantasy.

I’ll tell you a secret… No one knows how to make their desires real prior to taking the first step. Knowing comes from doing. Paths are made by walking.

So the trick to making your dreams happen, is not to have a perfect plan, but to stop caring about not knowing.

The number one secret to making your dreams a reality, is changing your auto-response.

Instead of letting “I don’t know” keep you from moving forward, change your auto-response response to “I’ll figure it out.”

We have a lot of auto-responses and ungrounded beliefs that hold us back from pursuing our dreams. In my new ebook, Reclaim Your Dreams, I reveal what these obstacles toward living your dreams are, and show you the solutions to moving past them.

As a special gift to Pick the Brain readers, until February 28tht, I’ll offer a discount of 25% off the list price. So instead of $24.95, you’ll get it for $18.70. That’s less than dinner for two, for something that could change your life forever. Click here and it’s yours.

Just enter the code PickTheBrain at checkout and you’ll get your discount to come alive. You could be totally excited about your life in a few moments.

Can you afford to let another year slip away without you doing what you love? If the answer is no, the only question left is…. Are you ready to Reclaim Your Dreams?

Got a Self Improvement Question? Click Here!

Well, they’re not just limiting. They ruin lives. They keep us from being authentic and living the way we really want to live.

There are many times where I’ve wanted to say something, tell someone how I really feel. But I hold back. Why? Because I’m afraid of how they’ll respond. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m weird. What’s worse, is they might have similar beliefs. That could make things even more uncomfortable. So I keep my mouth shut. I stay quiet and try to forget about whatever it was that I really wanted to say. Or I just say something expected, something safe. And I feel like a little bit of my soul is repressed.

A more specific example is with my music. I play drums, djembe to be specific. I’ve always wanted to be a musician, and I’ve always liked rhythm. (Just ask my wife how much I tap on things.) For the longest time, I thought I didn’t have any rhythm. I thought because I was a white boy, it would be really hard for me to play the drums (white boys supposedly can’t dance, so why should they have any rhythm?). Anyway, I had all these limiting beliefs about what it was I could and couldn’t do and it held me back. I would practice and practice but I would still fumble and be off-beat. It wasn’t until I let go of my limiting beliefs about whether or not I had rhythm, that I started to really improve my playing.

Hello?

Am I the only one that thinks that’s crazy?

There was nothing physically holding me back from being a good drummer. I practiced all the time (if you have two hands and knees to tap them on, you can practice drumming anywhere). I honed my skills. But I still wasn’t playing as well as I could until I started believing that I could be good.

The takeaway is this:

The majority of the time there is no physical limitation to your success. There is only mental limitation.

That mental limitation is not anything based on reality. You can choose to accept it, or leave it at anytime you wish.

If we’re going to beat the plague of limiting beliefs, we need some tools help us. Here are a few things that have helped me overcome these restrictive vampires:

1. Most limits are imaginary. Most limitations we have with ourselves aren’t real, they are simply imagined. If you realize this, it’s a lot easier to drop these beliefs. It’s hard to stick with something that you know is only an illusion.

2. Question authority. We have an unnatural habit of thinking that the norm is some unbreakable standard that we should never question. If you want to break out of the pattern of limiting beliefs, you have to question the authority that they came from. Who said you couldn’t do what you want to do? Why are you giving them the right to dictate your life?

3. Listen to your heart. The practical mind will usually weigh the likelihood of an occurrence based on the past. Forget what you’ve done in the past, listen to your heart. Learn to see with your heart, as well as your mind.

4. Temporary drop unwanted beliefs. You don’t have to do it permanently. I know giving up these beliefs can be scary at first, because we identify with them. We think if we lose this belief, a part of us too is lost. Well, I’ve got some news for you. You are not your beliefs. You are much more than that. And so what if you contradict yourself? In the words of Walt Whitman “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Drop your limiting beliefs for a while about what you think you are capable of. Drop limiting beliefs about what you think is even possible. You can always go back if you don’t like it. But have the courage to see for yourself. If you like what you find, maybe you’ll find it makes more sense to have liberating beliefs. Ones that lift you up and give you wings. Not ones that keep you tethered to the ground.

Jonathan is the author of Illuminated Mind. His articles include Living Freestyle; Life Without a Template and Liberate Your Life: Put Yourself on Auto-Response. You can subscribe to his here, or get more from him on twitter.

Anyway, we’re here to figure out how to follow a plan without inducing violent thoughts and suicidal tendencies.

So the purpose of a day plan is to get more done, right? It’s supposed to help you get things done, while reducing the stress of procrastination. You know that. But you can’t get past the feeling that following a plan is putting a noose around your neck and suffocating your spontaneity.

We know the purpose of the day plan, but how do we get past all those negative associations and dissenting feelings? It took me a long time to realize that a plan isn’t necessarily set in stone. It’s not a rigid quota of tasks that I must do. If I don’t complete them all, I’m not a failure. It’s a guideline to aim for, not a dictating oppressor. Misunderstanding this caused a lot of initial resistance for me.

When I plan my day, I inevitably don’t complete everything I wanted to. I end up feeling like I failed and start resenting the plan again. It’s the plan’s fault, damnit! “#$% conformity, #$%@ the plan!” I say.

Being the control freak I am, it’s hard for me to let go and realize that if I don’t finish everything, it’s okay. So I tell my planner I didn’t mean what I said and beg for forgiveness. It’s a love-hate relationship. I realize the point of planning is having more time to do the things you actually want to do. (This is the second biggest love-hate element of our relationship, I have a hard time harmonizing productivity and happiness.) So I schedule time for the little things I enjoy; like 30 minutes of blog reading I call “research.”

The problem is that I underestimate how much time it will take to get things done. I don’t take into account unavoidable interruptions and distractions. ADD is hard.

So what do I do when I end up spending more time than I anticipated on a particular project? Yeah, you guessed it. I take out my “fun time” and sacrifice it for the sake of productivity. What happens? I end up resenting my day plan even more. I curse her rigidness, but secretly worship her illustrious productivity allure. Damnit woman, why must you torture me like this!

As you can see, there are a few problems I and many other spontaneous-minded people face with trying to follow a plan. But does it have to be like this? Can’t we just work it out?

So here’s what I’ve learned. Hopefully this can help you follow a day plan without wanting to hurt someone:

1. It’s just a plan, seriously. Your plan isn’t meant to be an untouchable finality. It’s meant to help you, not control you. Realize that if you don’t finish everything on your list, it’s okay. It’s going to be all right. I promise.

2. Prioritize ruthlessly. While dreaming up your award winning plan — which will ensure your world domination — think about what’s really most important. If you could only accomplish 2 things today, what would they be? What about 1 thing? At the end of your day, what would make you the happiest knowing that you finished? Put that first in your day. Your day isn’t finished until you complete that 1 thing. Everything else is secondary and must be sacrificed at any cost.

3. Be realistic. I know you want to organize your entire stamp collection, clear out your inbox, and write your master thesis “How ergonomic staple removers will change your life”, but let’s be realistic. Rome wasn’t built in a day and your amazing new tape dispenser business won’t be either. The best way to ensure that you don’t end up hating your plan is to underestimate. If you think something will take an hour, give yourself an hour and a half. Remember, ADD is hard.

4. Don’t sacrifice your free-time. Don’t sacrifice that ten minutes you allotted to pick your nose and disengage from the cubicle machine. The purpose of your plan is to help you improve your life, not make it worse.

If you’re trying to liberate your life, you need a plan. But you don’t need to sacrifice your sanity. Remember: You work your plan, your plan doesn’t work you.

Jonathan is the author of Illuminated Mind – The less boring side of personal development. You can subscribe to his here, or get more from him on twitter.

When you first commit to the goal to run a marathon, buy your own home, or lose 50 pounds, you’re ecstatic. You can’t wait to get started on making your dreams a reality.

If your goals is to lose 50 pounds, you might throw away all the junk food in your house, download a diet plan online and get a personal trainer. But after a few weeks, or even days, your preliminary enthusiasm wears off and you start thinking about whether this is really worth it.

So after your short burst of enthusiasm, what does it take to ensure that you stay motivated?

What’s helped me is creating a goal support system, a sort of “goal prop” if you will. We can use these prop to help us stay focused and committed, before following the path to our goal has become a habit.

A goal prop can be anything that helps us stay focused on our goal. It helps us remember why we started when our discipline is waning and we’re not sure if it’s worth it anymore.

Here are some suggestions for a creating a prop, that will help you stay focused toward your long-term goals:

1. Create a mantra. This is probably the easiest thing to start out with and one of the most powerful motivators. It’s simple and unsophisticated. If your goal is to buy your own home, you can use the mantra “my own place” or “my dream home.” The mantra itself isn’t as important as the emotional connection it gives you to your goal.

2. Create a ritual. If your goal is to lose weight, it’s not easy to change all the previous unhealthy habits you might have. What is much easier is creating a ritual to reinforce your new lifestyle. This might every time when you wake up, or before you go to bed you look at pictures of the body you want, you review your diet plan and journal about why health is important to you and how you can’t wait to have a healthy lifestyle and body.

3. Make plans. This is one of the most powerful actions for me, but it’s not something I do daily. Make plans and day dream about what you’re going to do when you achieve your goal. When you finally buy your own home, what are you going to do? How are you going to design it? How are you going to use each room? When you lose 50 pounds, what are you going to do differently? Are you going to go to the beach more, play with your kids, start modeling? Whatever it is, regularly thinking about your plans for your life after you’ve achieved your goals is a powerful way to stay motivated. It allows you to renew that initial excitement you had when you first set out to achieve your goals.

4. Put yourself on auto-response. In this article, I talk about how the practical mind will often get in the way of our heart and our true desires. Sometimes we have to silence our mind in the face of the practical and seemingly ridiculous. We have to put ourselves on auto-response; instead of thinking “I don’t know” we change our auto-response to “I’ll figure it out.”

Staying motivated toward long term goals is not an easy thing to do. It takes discipline and passion to transform your previous mode of existence. This is especially true when you want to stop working toward someone else’s goals and want to work living your own purpose. It takes grit and perseverance to achieve long term goals like starting your own business, reaching enlightenment, or completely overhauling your previous way of living.

I’ve used all of these methods above as “props” to help me stay focused toward my goals. They’ve helped me stay on track when my I’m struggling staying disciplined and feel like giving up. Try one or any combination of these methods, I think you’ll find them worthwhile.

It’s also important that we keep our goals in context. We should remember that the point of achieving our goal one, two or three years from now is to improve our life. But we’re still living in the present. If we live only for our goals, we’ll likely resent the present, and start resenting our goals as well.

Keeping perspective is one of the hardest things to do. We just need to remember that productivity and achievement are a means to an end, not the end themselves. Time – not money, possessions or status – is our most precious commodity.

Jonathan is the author of Illuminated Mind – The less boring side of personal development. His articles include Living Freestyle; Life Without a Template and Liberate Your Life: Put Yourself on Auto-Response. You can subscribe to his here, or get more from him on twitter.

Image by Scott Ableman.

The amount of time we spend seeking happiness in the future is mind boggling. We spend exorbitant volumes of time doing things that will supposedly make us happy at some future date.

• We educate ourselves to attain a better career.
• We work long hours to have more money.
• We exercise our minds and bodies for greater strength and intelligence.

We improve for the sake of improving that somewhere, at some distant point down the beaten road we’ll find happiness.

All the while we’re chasing happiness, we don’t realize the fatal, vicious circle we place ourselves in. We’ve habituated ourselves into placing our happiness in the future. We’ve conditioned ourselves into allowing happiness after some level of achievement, that never comes.

We fail to realize a fatal flaw in our logic: what matters most is how you feel. Now.

We don’t completely neglect this simple fact though. We know what is most important is our feelings. Yet we often get so caught up in improving our lives, attaining goals and climbing mountains, that we forget we can be happy now. Not tomorrow. Not after we’ve completed everything on our to-do lists. Not after we’ve achieved all of our life-long dreams. Not after we’ve cleaned the house, organized the garage and clipped our toenails. Right now.

The only problem with this is the inner mechanics of our mind goes completely against contentment. Our mind is constantly telling us two things at once. Have you ever noticed that the same voice in your mind that told you to do something, is the same voice that later reprimands you for doing it?

Your mind naturally judges and compares everything. The ability of our mind to compare and contrast is essential to our success, but it has one fundamental flaw. It’s intrinsically conflicted. It’s constantly at odds with itself. How can we possibly expect to be happy if we’re in a perpetual battle for our minds?

The answer is, we can’t.

What’s worse, true happiness and contentment runs contrary to our biological wiring. We are wired to be distressed. Our mind identifies with our body and says, “oh no, you can’t be happy, you have to think about survival.” The mind fears that if we get too content, we’ll get become lazy and careless. We’re rewarded with a short burst of happiness when we achieve a goal, or find some type of security. In essence, the mind is not concerned with happiness. The mind is not interested in contentment. The mind is interested in its persistence. The mind is interested in staying alive and keeping itself going.

All this seems overwhelming, doesn’t it? I agree.

So what’s the solution?

We have to learn how to be happy in the present. We have to learn how to be impeccable with our word; to go with ourselves, not against.

Most importantly, we need to learn how to stop thinking all the time. We have to learn how to… shut up.

Jonathan is the author of the blog Illuminated Mind. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include Living Freestyle; Life Without a Template and The Cult of Productivity. You can subscribe to his blog here.

Image by ePi Longo.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We all know that true motivation stems from being passionate about what you’re doing. But there will still be times when your motivation will wax and wane. If there is one way to “hack” your success, remaining consistently motivated would have the biggest impact. A highly motivated person is likely to take action consistently. Without action, there are no results. Duh.

Some days we will inevitably feel more inspired than others. Especially when we’re not getting the results we want, or things are taking longer than we expected.

Here are some reasons our motivation tends to fluctuate:

• We’ve started to do what we love for a living (our passion has become work). We associate all the negative connotations we previously had with dispassionate work.
• We feel since we’re doing what we love as work, it’s become a must, rather than a want.
• The pressure of needing to produce has stifled our creativity. We start to avoid doing what we love.
• We’ve lost sight of the reasons we started our goals in the first place. We’ve become our own taskmasters and have lost touch with our original inspiration.

If we don’t exercise, our muscles will atrophy. In the same way, if we don’t regularly replenish the source of our inspiration, it too will begin to fade. The cure for this common ailment is to regularly regroup and remember why we started in the first place. We need a place we can refer back to, to cultivate our inspiration.

I’d like to propose to you a new way of seeing inspiration. Instead of just passively waiting to be inspired, we need to actively cultivate it. Cultivating inspiration is like making regular deposits in a savings account (or a mutual fund, or 401k). The more deposits you make, the more your money will grow and gain interest.

In the same way we use a savings account to ensure our financial success, we can use an inspiration bank to remain highly motivated and ensure our personal success. I’d like to suggest to you the idea of creating an “inspiration bank” (please bear with me, I know the idea may seem a bit hokey; but trust me, it works). The place you regularly cultivate inspiration can be whatever works best for you. Try to think of a place where you can regularly make deposits toward your dreams.

We all think in different ways. Some of us are kinesthetic, some of us are visual or auditory learners. However you think, choose the best idea for you.

Here are some suggestions:

• Create a folder on your desktop where you can place inspirational photos, articles, quotes and empowering thoughts.
• Start a journal to write inspiring ideas that resonate with you.
• Make a vision board. Post quotes, pictures and goals that make you feel alive.
• Create a Goal Movie. This is one of my favorite techniques because it blends nearly all senses (except taste and touch). You can see your goals, hear them and read them as well. This technique is highly effective because it activates the most centers of your brain.

When I think of a bank the first thought that comes to mind for me is security. I know it’s a safe, trusted place where I can keep my money. If I have a good savings plan, I can make regular deposits and watch it grow over time. The principle is the same with an inspiration bank, only better.

While we can control how much money we make, there’s often more of a long-term investment to making money. Inspiration, however, is free for the taking at any given time. Inspiration doesn’t have to be something we sit around and wait for. We can develop a highly inspired life by actively seeking inspiration right now.

I use this technique to help me improve in the areas of my life that are most important to me. Right now, one of my biggest goals is to become a better writer and conveyor of ideas. I like to read authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and E.B. White to find inspiration. Reading them helps me remember the reason I started writing in the first place; to pursue a creative act that entertains and offers value to others.

I’ve made a folder on my computer that has photos and words that inspire me. Anytime I’m feeling stuck or uninspired, I can look back to it to remember why I started; why I do this day after day. It helps me remember there’s a reason for this that’s bigger than myself. Not only that, but that others have come before me and struggled as well. I’m not in this alone.

Knowing that I’m a part of something bigger than myself, helps to not become too attached with my successes or failures. I know that the work is what’s most important, not whether I produce something amazing, or just okay.

Most importantly, actively pursuing inspiration reminds that the power is in my hands. There are a lot of things you can’t control in life, but how inspired you are isn’t one of them. Inspiration = motivation = action = results.

If nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm, doesn’t it make sense to actively seek to be an enthusiastic person? That’s not something we have to sit around and wait for.

Jonathan is the author of the blog Illuminated Mind. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include Living Freestyle; Life Without a Template and The Cult of Productivity. You can subscribe to his blog here.

Image by Celeste.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to stay focused and remain productive. We all know that doing what you love reverse engineers productivity. If you love what you do, you’ll obviously be more compelled to do it, rather than trying to place a productivity system on top of undesirable work.

But sometimes even that’s not enough. It’s easy to get sucked into the minutiae of life and lose focus. It’s easy to spend the majority of your time feeling productive, when most of what you’re doing won’t make a difference a week, a day or an hour from now. Some examples of this productivity illusion include:

• Spending inordinate amounts of time checking and responding to email.
• Organizing your desk for 3 hours a day.
• Detailing, updating, and maintaining calendars and to-do lists more than you actually work.
• Reading books, articles and blogs to learn and find inspiration, but not actually spending any time doing anything.

The Minutiae Vacuum

One of the most effective ways I’ve found to manage my time is to think about your work in terms of impact. By splitting your time up in between A, B and C tasks, it’s easier to get a handle on what is most important and how much time you’re spending spinning your wheels. A tasks are things that have a long term impact, 6 months to a year or more. B tasks are things that are important, but don’t have as much of a long term impact. They might range between 1-6 months. Finally, C level tasks are things that need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, but don’t have much of an impact outside of that time frame. So here’s the break down:

A – 50% or more of your day.
B – 30% of the day.
C – 20% of the day.

Now that we have a framework of where our time is spent most critically, the question is, how do we remain focused on the high-level, long term impact tasks? How do we keep ourselves out of the seemingly urgent, but unimportant vacuum?

Vision Maintenance

The answer I’ve found to best remain focused on the important is vision maintenance. By spending time daily reflecting and meditating on what is most important to you, you can remain centered on meaningful and crucial work.

Daily vision maintenance can come in many forms:

• Meditating on your values, goals and aspirations.
• Sitting with a fresh cup of coffee or tea thinking about how you want to plan your day.
• Spending time thinking about your intentions, what you want and what it will take to get there.
• Journaling about how you feel about your current situation, what successes you’ve made, what you can learn from and what you can do differently to improve.
• Running, walking or exercise thinking about where you want to be in your life.

My favorite thing to do is meditate on my values and goals early in the morning. From time to time I also greatly benefit from writing an journal entry on my private blogger account. This is usually when I’m feeling considerably stuck in a certain area, or I feel like my life is not congruent with my values. I also get some of my best ideas while walking, so I try to keep a pad of paper and pen handy in my pocket.

I know this type of re-aligning and re-focusing myself internally is essential to staying on track and keeping focused on what’s important. But despite knowing this, I have a tendency to get caught up in the unimportant and the urgent. I’ll often rationalize to myself that spending my time doing things that will produce immediate tangible results is more important than taking the time to re-focus and evaluate. I think this is the biggest mental block we face in making the time to do vision maintenance. We think that doing something that produces results immediately trumps doing something that doesn’t manifest anything instantaneously.

In reality, this is the furthest thing from the truth. When I take the time to meditate and review my goals, to journals and reflect I’m twice as productive than when I’m simply reacting to whatever I feel is most productive at the time.

My Dream Sanctuary

So in closing, I’d just like to share with you a photo of the place I like to meditate. I like to walk up the to Colorado Street Bridge and just clear my mind. There is an amazing view stretching out for about 20 miles covered in trees and growing things. Sometimes I’ll come up here when I’m looking for inspiration or when I’m stuck on the evolution of a particular idea. It helps me clear my mind and re-focus on what really matters: living.

Having a place where you meditate or reflect on your goals and dreams can really help you stay focused. It’s kind of a like a dream sanctuary.

Do you have trouble staying focused on what really matters? Do you find that it’s difficult to maintain your vision, or justify spending the time doing vision and reflection type work? Let’s start a discussion, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Jonathan is the author of the blog Illuminated Mind. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include Living Freestyle; Life Without a Template and The Cult of Productivity. You can subscribe to his blog here.

Image by DerrickT.

I started lifting some free weights that my dad had lying around the garage. That helped a little, but I was still self-conscious of my stomach. Keep in mind I wasn’t overweight. I was a lean kid. I wanted a chiseled stomach though, so every day at the pool I would constantly flex my stomach. When I flexed, it looked like I had more definition than I actually did, but who could tell right? So I flexed constantly. I flexed when I walked, I flexed in the pool, I flexed when I was laying down. I started doing it so much, I even flexed when my shirt was on. It just became a habit.

What I didn’t realize at the time was all this flexing had led to greater definition. Now even when I didn’t flex, you could see an outline of my abs. This may not seem like much, but for me it this was exciting.

As my obsessive flexing continued, more and more of the six pack under all those layers of skin started to come through.

I’m not suggesting you go around flexing your stomach all day long, but just think about all the time you’re not doing anything where you could take advantage of this:

• Standing in line at the grocery store
• Waiting for coffee at Starbucks
• At the crosswalk before the light turns green
• Watching television
• On the bus, on a train, on a plane (in a boat, with a goat. no, not really)
• While you’re showering

Flexing and isometric exercise is proven to improve muscle definition. Now I’m not saying this is the fastest way to develop a six pack, it should be seen as an addition to your normal core workout. Obviously body fat percentage plays a big role as well. If you’re 50 pounds overweight, it doesn’t matter how much you flex, your abs aren’t going to show until you drop some weight. But if your body fat is at a healthy level you’ll see results within a few weeks.

When you flex your stomach, try to focus on the lower abdominals. Your obliques and lower abdominals are usually the hardest part of the stomach muscles to gain definition in. When you flex, try focusing as much on those sections of your muscles as much as possible. Don’t worry about the top and middle abs, you’ll naturally flex them anyway. It also helps when doing crunches, leg raises or butterflies to focus on the obliques and lower abs. Try to flex them as much as possible on each rep. Not only will you gain definition, but you’ll also be recruiting more muscle fibers. This improves your core strength and mind-body connection. Essentially, the more lesser-used muscles you can consciously control, the stronger you’ll be and the greater definition you’ll have.

Flexing any muscle on your body improves the mind-body connection and improves muscle memory. The more you flex, the more your body will think that’s the way you should naturally look.

Jonathan is the author of the blog Illuminated Mind. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include 5 Signs You’ve Married Your Problems (and how to divorce them) and The Cult of Productivity. You can subscribe to his blog here.

So if we know what makes us feel alive, why do we resist it? Why do we avoid doing what we love to do?

I think there’s a number of reasons that can help us explain this elusive phenomenon. Hopefully in discovering the blocks toward pursuing what is dearest to us, we can overcome them.

So why do we resist?

1. The inability to accept imperfections. Do you think that Mona Lisa was Da Vinci’s first painting? We think, if it’s not perfect, why bother? But when we pursue the creative act, it’s crucial that we suspend judgment. After all, you can always cull the fluff and ridiculous later.

What to do instead? Resist your temptation to have everything figured out before you start. Failure is fundamental to the creative process. If you don’t fail, you’ll never improve. Suspend your judgment and remember that whatever you don’t like, you can always take out or re-do.

2. Not respecting the gestation of improvement. Say you have a passion for dancing. The only problem is, you’d make a blind man cry. Remember that mastery of any art or skill takes time. No one starts out being a natural Michael Jackson. And anyway, look what fame did to him. Are you sure you want that?

What’s a poor Napoleon Dynamite to do? Respect the fact that mastering any skill takes time. Instead of thinking about all the things that aren’t right, think about what you can do now to improve.

3. Not accepting your creative identity. All great artists, poets, musicians and creators, excelled by accepting their artistic identity. The truth is, we are all artists. We’re creating the story of our life in each moment. We’re not just humans living, we’re artists shaping a story. Accepting your identity as an artist is accepting your creative nature.

So how can we gain the confidence to accept out creative identity? The biggest block toward your acceptance of your creative nature is probably due to self-judgment. How can you possibly accept that you are a writer when you haven’t hit the bestseller list? While external affirmations are important, the approval of your heart is equally important. If you feel in your heart that you are born to be an athlete, but don’t have Magic Johnson’s skills, that’s okay. What matters is that you feel deeply in your heart that is what you want. It makes you come alive.

4. We’ve turned our passion into work. Anytime you feel that you must do something, you lose inspiration. You lose your sense of excitement. In our society and in general, we have a clearly separate work and play. “Work hard, play hard!” is a common motto people tell others to make them feel a little better about their drudgery. We don’t have to dread work, it’s a choice. That’s the problem when our passion has also become our work. We tend to think it’s our passion has become something we must do. There’s no fun in that.

What can we do to re-ignite our passion? We need to get our heart back in it. Spend 15 minutes just visualizing what you want to create. Think about how it makes you feel. How does it make your body feel? What excites you about it? Think about all the reasons you wanted to do it in the first place. If you feel the urge to start working on it, hold yourself back until the 15 minutes are over.

This a great tool for realigning yourself and remember the reason you started in the first place. Sometimes our mind tends to overpower the heart. It’s our logical faculty after all right? Using this exercise helps us re-align ourselves.

Lost in Space

The truth is, we’re often the most productive when what we’re doing has absolutely no purpose. We come alive when we’ve lost track of time, doing what we love.

Perhaps its not our weakness, but our greatness that we fear the most.

Jonathan is the author of the blog JonathanMead.com. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include 5 Signs You’ve Married Your Problems (and how to divorce them) and The Cult of Productivity. You can subscribe to his blog here.

Image by Helmet13.

I’ve learned that if you don’t have any great teachers in your life, that doesn’t mean you should sit around and wait for one to find you. You need to be willing to seek them out. Fortunately, you have an endless number of great teachers to choose from. That is, if you accept that many of these great teachers will be dead.

Many of the greatest thinkers made a habit of documenting their discoveries. So while they are no longer alive, their words are still here, and in them their wisdom.

But before seeking out a great teacher, you first need to…

Identify your problem

What do you need to work on? If you really want to improve, you’ll need to accept criticism. Ask experts in your field for their opinion. Tell them you want their honest opinion, no holds barred. If you don’t know an expert, ask someone you know that’s reasonably intelligent. Don’t be defensive. If they’re giving you honest advice, even if it’s negative, that’s because they care. Recognize that and accept their critique as a gift.

Now that’s you’ve identified your problem, it’s time to seek out your mentor. Do some research, the initial time spent on this will pay off in the long run. It’s better to ask for the best person someone knows on a specific subject, then to blindly fumble for books at your local Barnes and Noble.

If you don’t know someone that can personally recommend an author for you, look at a book review site. Go to your local library and ask your librarian what the most popular books are on your subject. They can often see which books are checked out most frequently. Check out Amazon and find out what books are getting rave reviews and which ones people are making people scream bloody murder.

Now you’ve identified your problem, the question is…

How do you spot a great teacher?

One of the greatest teachers I’ve encountered is Alan Watts. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Watts, he was a prolific translator of Eastern Religion and philosophy. He adapted many Eastern wisdom traditions into a frame of reference Westerners could understand. I found Alan Watts when I was looking for a mentor that could elucidate and explain to me the meaning behind Buddhist and Taoist teachings. Alan Watts died in 1968, but many of his lectures and words were recorded (either on the page or in audio) and are still popular to this day. It was more than 35 years after his death that I discovered his work. I learned a great deal from him because I resonated with him deeply, it was as if we were in the same room.

What made Alan Watts such a great teacher for me is that he could translate seemingly paradoxical and perplexing ideas into concrete examples. The question is, are their common traits of great teachers that can help us spot them? Here are a few I’ve found:

Innovation drives them. They are willing to change their process to become better communicators. They are not afraid of criticism and use it to their advantage. They don’t get defensive.

They meet you on your level. Great teachers know that meeting their students on the same level makes them more accessible. You’re more likely to learn better from someone whom you can consider your equal rather than a mysterious deity.

Passion is their fuel for teaching. A passion and deep desire to constantly learn more about their subject drives them. They are able to leverage their passion in a way that inspires and motivates you. Their enthusiasm is contagious.

They’re concrete. They move abstract ideas into concrete examples.

They overcome the knowledge gap. A great teacher knows that their well of knowledge is likely much deeper than that of their pupils. They are able to overcome this knowledge gap by building on existing schemas.

Remember, be true to yourself. Just because someone has 20+ years of experience on you in your field, doesn’t mean their word is untouchable. What worked for them may not work for you. But at least now you should have some clarity on where you need to improve and how to go about it. The best way to learn is to find someone who’s done exactly what you’re trying to do.

Who knows, a library card could be worth a thousand teachers….

Jonathan is the author of the blog JonathanMead.com. He writes about finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of living. His articles include Positivity Demystified and 33 of Life’s Most Powerful Lessons.