Image Courtesy of Jimheid/Flickr

I spent last weekend on retreat, taking 48 hours out of my life to get away to a secluded countryside retreat center where I could have a chance to rest, relax and reflect. This opportunity made me think about what types of time we have in our lives: all hours are not necessarily equal, and time management advice doesn’t always address this.

These are six key types of time which we need:

• Creative and productive
• Physically energetic and active
• Playful and entertaining
• Learning and developing
• Reflective and spiritual
• Restful and relaxing

Do you have a gut feeling for which sorts of time you tend to focus on – and which you might be neglecting?

Creative and Productive

This type of time is the sort which much advice focuses on. It’s the time in which you produce something: whether that’s a company report, a painting, a new musical score, or a clear inbox. Although this time is sometimes very personally fulfilling, the end result is generally a product to be shared with or consumed by others in some way.

Clearly, this sort of time is important, if we want to have any impact on the world. It’s also the type of time in which we earn money – by creating value for others that they pay us for – either through our paid employment or through self-employment.

However, being creative and productive requires energy. Many of us have a time of day in which we can most easily do this type of work: you probably have a sense of whether you’re a morning person or an evening person. Despite what time management programs and gurus might have you think, you simply cannot spend many hours of your day working at this level. That’s why all the other ways to spend your time are just as important…

Physically Energetic and Active

We know that exercise is vital for good health – both physical and mental. It often helps to re-energize us for the cerebral work of creating and producing: if you’re feeling sluggish during the work day, you may have noticed how restorative a walk or jog is to your energy levels.

Although we’re all aware of the benefits of being active, this is often one of the areas of time that gets pushed aside by the need to “get things done”. It’s also a type of time that needs integrating on a daily, or semi-daily basis: none of us would think it wise to do no exercise at all for three weeks, then spend a week running a daily marathon!

Playful and Entertaining

Although this area overlaps with “creative”, I’ve drawn a distinction because we all need time when we’re doing something fun that is not for other people: it’s purely for us. Entertainment often gets a bad rap from the time management experts – but it’s vital for us to have times of fun, excitement and enjoyment.

Contrary to what some would have you think, television is not evil and you don’t have to cut it out of your life in order to be more “productive”. The key to having restorative playful time is to deliberately choose to watch programs that you really enjoy.

Unlike exercise, you don’t necessarily need to schedule in play-time every day (though I think it’s a good idea). You might, for instance, choose to spend weekend afternoons doing something just for fun, perhaps watching a movie or playing board games with friends.

Learning and Developing

Many of us think that learning stops when we finish high school or college. Making a conscious effort to carry on learning new things and developing your skills, though, pays dividends in many ways: it can be very satisfying and rewarding in itself; it helps you progress in your career; it can open up new opportunities for you.

Learning doesn’t have to involve teaching: you don’t need to pay a lot of money to take qualifications. Books, good websites, and free lectures are all sources of learning – as are friends with particular skills.

In many cases, it won’t necessarily be appropriate or practical to try to fit a few minutes’ of learning into each day (though if you’re studying a foreign language, for instance, this might be the best method). How about marking out a weekend each month for the purposes of learning something new, or, if you’re self-employed, focusing one morning each week on developing new skills?

Reflective and Spiritual

Even if you would never describe yourself as “religious”, you still have a spiritual side – and many of us neglect to nurture this. It’s easy to carry on through the busyness of life without ever taking time to stop and reflect on some of the truly important things.

Reflective time might include thinking about your values (and how well your life fits with them); it could mean examining habits and patterns which are no longer working for you. On a spiritual level, you might join in some form of religious observance, whether public or private.

Meditation, prayer or simply learning to “be still” can be ways to clear the clutter of the day. In some cases, you may want to combine these with a focus on being in your body – perhaps gentle walking or exercise such as yoga.

If you can make a few minutes each day, or several times during the day, to take a mental step back from what you’re doing to focus on why you’re doing it, this can provide much-needed perspective. A longer time of reflection or spiritual observance – perhaps going away for a weekend, attending a quiet day, or going to a religious service if appropriate – can be extremely refreshing and thought-provoking.

Restful and Relaxing

Although this overlaps with the previous category to some extent, there are differences. Reflective and spiritual time often requires deep thought – on a level which we often avoid. This can be hard work, emotionally draining, or can lead to complete changes in our life.

Time to rest and relax, however, is when we simply give our minds a break! On a very basic level, rest time means getting enough sleep – something which many of us don’t do. It also means allowing ourselves time to simply let our minds wander. For some, that means gentle craft activity (knitting’s a popular one), for others, it might be flicking through magazines or surfing the internet without any particular aim in mind – simply taking time out for our thoughts to free-wheel.

A shower, a bubble bath, or even a massage are other ways to truly rest and relax. We need this time (most obviously in the form of sleep) on a daily basis: don’t try to rush through Monday – Friday and save all your “rest” time for the weekend.

What sorts of time are you good at getting into your life? We’re all different, and we all need a different balance of these six types – where do you think you need to redress the balance in your own life?

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Our lives are full of things we “should” do but for a range of reasons we don’t do them. Whatever it is – exercise, healthy eating, saving money – most of the time we choose to take the easier road, the road well traveled.

While I’m certainly not immune to this, there are plenty of things I don’t do that I know I should, I feel that understand the why is the first step to making real progress.

1. Being Comfortable (and Lack of a Burning Desire)

It all starts with how we feel about our life. How we feel greatly affects our motivations. Most people are in some form of comfort, but it’s a negative comfort. It’s a comfort where you’re not making progress towards your dreams but you’re not in that much pain either.

Don’t be in this space.

I’ve been comfortable. I live in a great area, there’s food on the table and I have shelter, and it’s this very reason that a bunch of my income dried up over the past couple of years. I’d been making great progress, which was motivating but then de-motivational forces (mainly school) and my own lethargy brought me into a false form of comfort. And now I have to work my way back to where I was.

The best motivators are pain and progress.

When you are in a situation that genuinely hurts you find a solution. It’s not a matter of making excuses, you just do it. And likewise, when you’re making progress the same thing happens, although from a much more positive standpoint. You feel great and the momentum-based achievement keeps you doing the things you should be doing.

But pain will just hurt and progress will be non-existent unless you are inspired or have a burning desire to make a positive change in your life. I have a burning desire to be known as a writer, and as thus I write, I write some more, and then I finish all that writing off with some more writing.

On the other hand I know I should go for more walks, eat more fruit and veggies, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Why don’t I do it? I’m not in a bad enough situation to motivate myself – I’m comfortable – and a although a good walk makes me feel great I rarely feel inspired to go on one.

It’s difficult to transform a “should” into a “must” (as Tony Robbins would put it), but there are a few approaches:

1. Wait till it gets so bad it hurts. This isn’t recommended because pain isn’t always the best motivator (there are exceptions remember) and it’s sort of silly to put yourself in a worse situation to get better.
2. Commit to doing it once. Give it a go. Just once. For ages I knew I should start writing a blog like this, but I put it off. Then I started it, and I loved it. Give it a go.
3. Understand the reason why. Understand why you should be doing something. Understand what you’re missing out on.

2. Distractions

Burning desires aren’t always obvious though. They get drowned out in a sea of distractions – trying to do or consume too much. Minimalism isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine, but at least understand and reaffirm the amazingness of having and doing less. And when I say “do less” I’m not talking about being idle, but cutting down on the quantity of activities you do, so each one can be done with deliberate focus.

Cut out everything in your life that doesn’t fulfill you, giving you room to get back to the basics and do the things that you know you should be doing.

3. Excuses

Excuses are the next hold up. For everyone reason you should do something there are 2 far fetched reasons, that you can easily convince yourself to be true, that you shouldn’t do it. And in my own experience the only effective and long lasting way to get rid of excuses is accountability.

Create a mastermind group or find a friend who has similar goals to remain accountable for your actions. Tynan has shared a twist on this system which is to give your accountability buddy the power to dare you to do something displeasing and vice versa.

4. Confusion

Although, excuses aren’t always just excuses, they may stem from confusion, and that’s a different problem entirely. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing and “being busy” is one of the most common, and easy to swallow ruses that few people will fault you on, even when it’s pure crap. And that’s dangerous.

To fight the overwhelm sit back with a pen and paper and write out a clear plan of what you should be doing. Break it down into numbers. If, for example, you know you should be running, write out how many minutes per day you should run, or how far, and how much of it is sprinting or jogging, or just walking.

Tasks appear monumental as a whole, but after breaking them down into bite-sized bits they amazingly fit quite well into your lifestyle even if the task itself hasn’t changed.

5. Misuse of Negativity

Tim Ferriss has discussed pessimism as a productivity system, but a constructive use of negativity goes beyond just productivity. According to The Law of Attraction focusing on negativity will bring that into your life. And to a certain extent I agree.

But negativity can be used constructively as long as you don’t dwell on it. The majority of the time you should focus on what inspires you and your burning desire, but whenever you feel particularly unmotivated, ask yourself “What will happen if I don’t do this?” See an unhealthy you if you don’t go for that run, or an unfulfilled you if you choose not to follow your passion.

6. Money Doesn’t Motivate

In the video below Dan Pink discusses how money is a weak motivator. Anything remotely creative or loosely defined task simply won’t be done better or faster if wads of cash are your driving force.

What does this mean?

Live for something greater than money. Money isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but you need to find a goal or purpose that goes beyond financial success to be persistent, or even to do something well.

7. Lack of Ambition

Everyone has ideas about ambition but, at least in my experience, setting goals that are ambitious are more likely to be acted upon. Going back to that running example, there are countless stories about non-runners who sign up for a marathon months in advanced, and then magically in that time they go from a couch potato to a competitive runner.

Us human folk adapt to the goals we set. When we set a small goal there’s a lack of excitement. Sure, I could set a goal to walk down the street and back, but that’s boring. Make it a 10km jog or 400m sprint though and suddenly it’s something to work towards. There’s a chance of failure so it becomes a gamble.

What is tricky though is setting goals that aren’t too beyond you while remaining ambitious. I’d love to beat Usain Bolt in a 100m dash, and it’d be an ambitious goal, but it’s just not going to happen. Consistent failure to attain an ambitious goal will eventually leave you unmotivated and back in your old routine. Be ambitious in the sense that there’s a chance of failure, but you feel confident of eventual achievement.

8. Uncertainty

And then there’s the last, and perhaps most deadly reason we don’t do things we should do: uncertainty.

If you’re uncertain something will lead to the result you want or expect it can be difficult to commit to it. There’s a constant stream of doubt fuelling excuses and less of a desire to persist (which is one of the secrets of success). To overcome uncertainty model yourself after other people who have achieved what you desire. Read autobiographies and story-driven accounts to understand their mindset, the process they took and the challenges they faced.

David Turnbull is a Guest Blogger For PickTheBrain and is the founder of DavidTurnbull.com.

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Image Courtesy of Vogue

Jill Gets Ambushed, Again

The knot condensed like a heavy weight in Jill’s stomach. Suddenly gasping for air, she recognized she had been here before. Yet again, just when she thought she had finally put it all together, something had sabotaged the fulfilling life that she dreamed about. “Not again,” she announced silently as she looked forlornly at her scales, “I can’t believe I’ve gained the weight back.” Jill could feel the power to change her life slipping through her fingers – it had not been the first time.

Taking responsibility for her life and changing it for the better was something Jill took seriously. She tried hard. She practiced positive thinking, the law of attraction, visualization, goal setting, yoga – and she prayed and meditated regularly for abundance. Yet after enthusiastic initial successes, something unseen seemed to pull her back into her “de-ja-vu all over again”.

“It’s not that I have a bad life”, Jill reminded herself, “It’s just that I know there is more. And it’s right outside of my grasp. What am I missing? Why do I keep repeating the same thing over and over again? How do I really claim my potential?”

These four questions were about to change Jill’s life.
1. What Am I Missing?
2. Why Do I Keep Repeating the Same Things Over and Over Again?
3. How Do I Train the Brain to Disrupt Old Limiting Patterns and Create New Empowering Ones?
4. How Do I Open the Door to Claiming My Potential?

Let’s examine the first three of these questions. Why not all four? Because until you skillfully address the first three questions, fulfilling your potential will remain an elusive dream. The first three questions deal with the influence your biology has over who you believe yourself to be. The answer to the last question becomes apparent when you learn how to better manage your body and mind.

What Am I Missing?
Your Biology and Brain Have Far More Influence Over the Course of Your Life Than You Imagine.

You may have been sleeping during high school or college biology – particularly neuro-biology. And not understanding what you missed will blind you to why you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

What Jill did not understand is the power of her biology and brain to create and maintain patterns. Without learning how to work with your biology, these patterns will overwhelm even your best intentions to change. As an example, think about Jill’s dieting. It is common for people to get highly motivated to lose weight. They set goals, visualize success, use positive self talk, affirm themselves, spend a lot of money, and reward themselves for weight loss. And they lose weight – initially. A piece of cake, right?

Yet, 95% of people regain the weight they lost. And seriously declared New Year’s Resolutions routinely are broken within 3 weeks. Why, you ask? This is that pesky neuro-biological pattern in action. Your brain and mind cannot be neatly separated. Without learning to manage your biology’s influence over your mind, your neuro-biology will pull you back into its historical hardwired pattern. Your mind emerges from your brain (biology) and the brain is interested in building perceptual maps that are organized around emotions and patterns.

It’s not that we are only our biology. However, once the brain builds successful short term patterns, they lock in and start replicating what we see as possible in our lives. And that causes us to be blind to any possibility outside of the familiar pattern in which the brain organized us.

In real life what does this look like? Let’s go back to Jill. Jill has struggled with her weight for a number of years. Every time she would finally get it back under control and was able to look into her mirror and see the “true” Jill emerging, she would sabotage her efforts. During these times of sabotage, she went on “auto-pilot” and did not “see” herself losing her discipline – and eating too much. Then she would wake up a couple of months later only to discover the weight had snuck back on her. What happened?

Why Do I Keep Repeating the Same Things Over and Over Again?
Getting Stuck in the Box of Your Comfort Zone

Jill just encountered the pattern-making machinery of her brain – which, by the way, no one had ever told her about. Until this time, she thought that losing weight was about discipline, exercise, and envisioning a healthier self. (No one had told her biology and her brain about her plan!) Evidence did not match experience though. No matter how advanced her “head game” became, somehow the weight was able to sneak back on her body.

The brain creates patterns to adapt us to successfully survive in whatever environment to which we are born. Once established though, these patterns go on automatic and become highly resistant to change – as Jill experienced as “de-ja-vu all over again”. And once established, you do not have a pattern. Rather, the pattern has you. And until you wake up to its power, the pattern creates your experiences in life. This is why you keep doing the same things over and over again. And this is why Jill kept losing and gaining her weight back.

In Jill’s case, she had learned to use food to “comfort” herself during adolescence. Like many teenagers she experienced periods of feeling isolated (which produces a sense of discomfort for the brain). The way she found to calm this discomfort was by eating, which produced a sense of comfort for her. The brain seized on this successful solution to the discomfort of feeling isolated and created a hardwired neruo-pathway of eating behavior to solve a primitive survival problem. Jill got stuck with the brain’s pattern of eating to comfort her feeling of discomfort. And the battle of weight began. The brain’s short term solution produced temporary comfort in exchange for a long term problem of weight gain. But the brain only cares to produce short term problem solutions and, if successful, these will become locked in as familiar pattern.

Your Brain, Mind, and Comfort Zone
Create the Prison of Your Donut.

This is what I call being stuck in the box (prison) of your comfort zone. The brain has created a comfort zone for a survivable life – not a life in which you thrive. And the box of your comfort zone is highly resistant to change. As an example, think of a huge donut, and you are in the hole of that donut.

The donut surrounds you. And you are stuck in the donut hole. It’s safe, familiar, and pretty sweet in that donut hole – even if it does close down the possibility of exploring the adventure you would like to take. You have a desire to leave the prison that the donut hole has become, but every time you climb out of the familiarity of the donut hole something begins pulling you back. As you approach the edges of your self knowledge (that’s the edges of the donut), you begin to experience the uncertainty of the unknown. You simply do not know what exists outside the cocoon of your donut.

Your brain is wired to keep you in familiar pattern – that’s the donut and donut hole. That is how your brain (with its bias for survival) has adapted you. There is an adventurer living within you that wants to expand beyond the self imposed comfort zone, but the brain’s survival motivation wants you back in the box of your comfort zone (that is the donut hole). Suddenly thinking, possessed by the force of the comfort zone, creates a story in your mind about how sweet the donut hole really is. And it may not be what you want for growth, but it is safe. A lot safer than the uncertainty that lies beyond the comfort zone called your donut.

This is exactly what is happening to our friend Jill. She is not aware of the influence of the patterns created by her brain, but that does not stop their influence. And until she wakes up to its influence, she will continue to be swept away by the unseen forces that seem to be shaping her fate. Waking up to the power of her biology to create a self fulfilling pattern changes everything. More about that later.

By the time your psychology shows up (that’s the mind), you experience this uncertainty and shrinking of the self as fear or self doubt. Why should your biology be subjected to uncertainty? (That is exactly what it is mandated to avoid.) So you stay stuck in a particular way of being in the world called your life. This scenario is played out countless times over a lifetime. And it will stay in place until you learn how to observe, disrupt, and create new pattern as a designer of your life.

How Do I Train the Brain to Disrupt Old Limiting Patterns and Create New Empowering Ones?

This is where Jill began to wake up to the influence her biology had exerted over her mind and her ability to maintain a healthy weight. First and foremost, she had to come to a new understanding of her biology. Body, mind, and our spiritual nature cannot be separated. Central to that new understanding is the assertion that neuro-biology has given us – that mind emerges from brain.

Second, she had to learn the skills of diaphragmatic breathing as part of mindfulness training. Fear, as an emotional state, cannot be maintained as a driver of thought while breathing diaphragmatically. Herbert Benson, MD proved that our emotional state was linked to the way we breathe. Fear requires a shallow breathing style (or holding of breath) to maintain itself or to accelerate its intensity. And fear determines our state of mind (the way we think). What Dr. Benson was able to demonstrate was that fear states could be disrupted by managing breathing style and by relaxing tension in the body. He coined the term “Relaxation Response” to describe this important skill.

Jill learned how to breathe her way through “bouts” of emotional and psychological discomfort. She realized that, when she felt isolation, she stopped breathing and held her breath. By consciously breathing deeply, she was able to learn how to override the build up of anxiety that triggered her comfort eating.

SafePlace Generation:
Distinguishing Biological Fear and Psychological Discomfort

But Jill did not stop with developing the skill of breathing as a tool to manage her inherent anxiety that lead to comfort eating.

Once you grasp that your biology is organized around fear as an evolutionary force, you can appreciate how important this breathing skill is to develop. The body, your biology, cannot tell the difference between biological fear (threat to life) and psychological discomfort (something you deal with and grow from). By learning to breathe diaphragmatically, you can disrupt the power of fear to compel you to avoid conflict. This calms the body.

But that’s never enough. Fear has to be distinguished between a real biological threat and psychological discomfort. Once biological fear is separated from psychological discomfort, you will need to learn how to take fear off-line – or calm the mind. This entails creating a sense of safety for the mind to focus on. In the Ignite Your Spark work that I teach, this is called SafePlace generation. Fundamentally it is creating a highly enriched soothing memory that can be called up in your mind. The trick is in training yourself so this state of mind will trigger simultaneously as fears and self doubt emerge in the mind.

This training requires that the body and mind calm down so that conflict can be observed from a calm state of mind rather than an agitated (whether by fear or anger) state of mind. Here, conflict shifts from an object of fear to be avoided to an object beyond the comfort zone. And a natural state of calm curiosity opens to explore possibility. Conflict is no longer interpreted as a threat; rather it can now be viewed as an opportunity of growth.

This is where Jill began to flourish. Taking the discomfort off line allowed her to stop avoiding the sense of isolation that lay at the root of her brain’s organization about isolation. She could approach the internal conflict within her in a state of calm, rather than in a state of anxiousness. This made all the difference in the world. Conflict was not the problem, she discovered, it was her approach to her internal struggle that had blocked her from a more fulfilling life.

Without conflict there is no growth. And conflict is inescapable. What matters is not the avoidance of conflict, but, rather, how we approach conflict. Think about it this way. Would you rather solve a problem in a fearful state of mind, or from a calm state of mind? That’s a no-brainer.

Very different worlds open up to us depending on our emotional states. As we become more competent in managing our emotional states of mind, the greater our capacity becomes to move beyond the box of our comfort zone. It is by managing the uncertainty (fear) that keeps us a prisoner in our comfort zone that we expand the possibility of who we can be.

How Do I Open the Door to Claiming My Potential?

As you can tell from the way Jill changed the way she worked with her discomfort, transformation begins by disrupting the brain’s familiar patterns by learning how to manage the biology of our mind. She learned how to self sooth rather than reach for comfort food. But there is more possible.

Like Jill had to learn in the example at the start of this article, the first step is to learn how to manage emotional states by skillful breathing. The next essential step for creating positive change is to calm the mind through self soothing, such as SafePlace generation. That calms the body and slows down the stream of thoughts going on in your mind. Then something powerful happens. You discover that there is an internal dialogue going on in your mind to which you can become an observer.

And that internal dialogue, masquerading as thoughts in your mind, is the key to understanding self and to personal transformation. By tuning into your internal dialogue, you will discover that there is a lot going on underneath the hood of your mind. Behind your thoughts are powerful forces. It is these internal conversations within the self that determine what you see as possible in your life and what you act on.

These conversations of the internal dialogue will be explored in the future. At this moment what I hope you have learned is the importance of breathing to calm the body and generating safety as a way of taking fear off-line. It is at this moment that an entirely new way of understanding the unseen forces that create our lives becomes possible.

It is not enough to manage the body and mind. Once these skills are developed, possibility for a much more fulfilling life opens. Now Jill is ready to open the door to deeper transformation. She has learned to face her fears and push through them. Now her job is to challenge the very assumptions that have locked her into a world that has constricted the possibility of who she can be.

How about you? What happens when you are able to move beyond the box of your comfort zone and explore your deeper potential? It’s an exciting journey. My hope is that you are now motivated to learn how to manage your body and mind so that you can move beyond the limitations that your brain (and its organization of the emerging mind) has placed upon you. It is a courageous voyage of discovery.

Rande Howell is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain. He writes about Igniting the Spark of Your Potential and Creating a Lasting Transformation at www.randehowell.com

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If you’re ever going to achieve your ideal weight, you’re going to have to develop a diet plan that you can do “forever.” Of course, people often get excited when they first start a new diet plan, but this excitement often wanes within a few weeks.

They say “success leaves clues;” people who consistently follow their diet plan have several things in common. I’ve written this article as a way to identify the signs of a good diet plan.

If these signs are not present in your current diet, you may want to make some adjustments to your plan.

Here are the 5 Signs That Your Diet Plan Will Last:

1. You Love Your Diet Plan – Want to know if your new healthy diet plan will last? Ask yourself, “Do I love this plan?” If you’re excited about your daily food choices and how much you get to eat, you probably will remain on your diet for a long time.

However, if you have to force yourself to eat the foods associated with your diet, your plan will probably fail explicably. It’s almost impossible to consistently do something you despise. Why? Because the “raging current” of your desires will always pull you in their direction. The secret is to either change your desires, or find a plan that reasonably supports your desires

2. Your Environment Supports Your Diet – It’s easy for me remain on a raw food diet during the day, because my wife is on the same diet. When we go to the grocery store, we buy plenty of raw foods, there’s always an abundance of choices. I live in an environment that supports my diet plan. I even have friends who are on the same diet, being with these friends give me additional support.

However, if everyone I knew ate snacks and fried foods all day, everyday, it would be very difficult for me to stay on track. Not impossible, but difficult.

The key here is to find friends, family members, or associates who support your diet so you can create an environment where your diet plan can flourish. You don’t need everyone you know on the plan, but support is always beneficial.

3. Your Diet Produces Daily Rewards – If you’re not receiving daily or at least weekly benefits from your diet, why would you continue? Every morning when I eat my “kiwis or apples” and drink my “green tea,” it puts a smile on my face.

Additionally, when I weigh myself every morning, I can see results and the benefits of my diet. Benefits give you the motivation you need to succeed. These benefits may come in the form of additional energy, mental clarity, weight maintenance, weight loss or weight gain.

Your diet plan must consistently provide you with benefits.

4. Your Plan Includes a Workout Routine – A daily, or almost daily workout routine is a constant reminder, to keep your diet going and it also helps you to see the benefits at a faster rate, thus allowing you additional motivation to continue your diet program.

5. Your Diet Includes Personal Goals – Last, but never least, is setting goals. Your diet plan needs to be centered around your goals. Goals give you something to aim for, and they also serve to motivate you into action.

A goal of maintaining your weight in the range of 163-164 pounds (as an example), gives you reason to continue your diet plan. You know that if you venture off to far from your plan, you won’t make your daily goal. This constant reminder of having a goal will help to keep you on track.

In Closing

Now you know the secret to developing a consistent diet plan. If your current diet doesn’t include the traits above you may want to make some changes. Do your research and find a permanent (doctor approved) diet plan that will work for you. Just having a written plan of what you can and cannot eat will go a long way in keeping you on track. Thank you for reading.

If you have any additional comments please include them in the comments section below.

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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I’ll bet you’ve got a number of started or almost-started projects that you’d love to do. Perhaps you dream of starting your own business, writing a novel, learning a foreign language, or taking a qualification. Or maybe you want to get the attic cleared out, organise your files, or repaint the hallway. It could even be that you know you need to take the time to exercise, meditate or journal … but you never get around to it.

The problem is, your life is already full, and you end up busy with all the day-to-day things, unable to find time for what you really want to do. Here are some ways to make the time that you need:

Use Your First Hour

How often have you told yourself that you’ll get to your big project or your novel or your spring cleaning once everything else is done?

And how often have you reached the end of the day, and had no energy? How often has something unexpected cropped up that steals away the time you were going to spend working towards your goal?

An easy solution is to take the first hour of your day and use it for what really matters to you. Everything else can wait for just one hour.

Use Your Diary

If you never seem to have a free day to clear the garage, or a weekend to get that small business launched, then pick up your diary. Look ahead a few weeks, and find a day or a couple of days that you can block out to work on something important to you.

Treat this time just as seriously as if you were going on vacation or to a seminar. If you’re asked to make social or voluntary commitments during it, explain that you’re busy.

You’ll find that your existing work and other activities flow around the time that you’ve blocked out, leaving you with the space to finally make progress on your project.

Use Your Friends

Sometimes, freeing up an hour of your day, or a couple of days in a month, just isn’t easy. Perhaps you have childcare responsibilities, a demanding job, or a lot of different commitments.

This is when friends and family can come in handy. Don’t be afraid to ask for the support that you need: many people will be genuinely glad to do you a favor. Ask a friend to babysit your kids while you write your business plan; let your spouse or housemate cook dinner while you head to the gym; get advice from a friend on how to move forwards with your plans.

Friends can also be a great source of encouragement. You could ask a friend to keep you accountable by checking up on your progress, whether that’s through a weekly phonecall or a quick daily check-in on Twitter. Sometimes, it’s easier to stay motivated when you know that someone else is cheering you on.

Use Your Willpower

Finally, in order to make time for the things which really matter to you, you’ll need to use your willpower.

You might hope that because you’re working on a project that’s important – whether it’s your novel or your small business or something self-nurturing – that you’ll always feel motivated. Chances are, though, that there’ll be times when you’re tired, or when you have to work through something difficult or dull in order to get to the next steps.

At those times, you’ll want to answer your emails, or watch television, or sleep in.

This is when using your willpower matters. Don’t say that you “have no willpower” – we all do. The more you exercise some self-discipline, the easier it becomes; plus, there are ways to increase your willpower. Sometimes, you’ll need to force yourself to make time for your project even when you don’t feel like it – because you know that making steady progress is going to be a great feeling.

How do you make time for the things you really want to do? What important projects have you stalled on? How can you get going again?

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In my last piece I outlined the place that the sale of fear is taking in our life. I noted the role fear plays in creating illness. I highlighted the major role of particularly guilty industries: the pharmaceutical companies, politicians, insurance companies and the news and advertising media, to name just five. These are entities that go out of their way to create a culture of fear to sell their products.

Because it is not a one-way street, however, this is not the whole story. Here in FEAR II, I outline the role we play in putting our self at the mercy of fear and dread and the personal responsibility we must own to manage these feelings. If you are interested, I explain this in greater detail, with clinical examples, in my book.

The first difficult and complex reality is that fear and dread are a very large and significant part of being human. These feelings and others, like a sense of doom, are essential elements of the human experience. Repeat this to yourself: “If I want to be fully human then I accept that fear and dread are a part of what I am.” Only by accepting this can you utilize your essential inner energy and at the same time ward off salesmen selling you more fear. You already have a plentiful supply.

The second reality is inherently more difficult to acknowledge. This is because most of us spend so much time trying to rid ourselves of fear or trying to avoid fear all together. In doing this we are denying the reality that it is quite normal to feel profoundly scared every day. If you have no sense of this you are likely cutting yourself off from your feelings and the vital energy and creativity that goes with them.

The third part, the hardest, is to realize how much it is in your interest to look into your own doom enclosed as you are as a physical entity. Close your eyes and stare into the abyss, the dark, the nothingness, the end, the loneliness, the abandonment, the sense of fading away, the terror that is in you. It is here, often to your shock, that you will find the light and source of energy that shines most brightly.

When, shaking with fear, you accept your fear the next step is to look it in the eye. Allowing your self this experience several times a day will ease your being at the mercy of your lower consciousness feelings. Doing this is only useful, of course, if you otherwise get on with what you WON’T and what you WILL do each day while accepting this experience as only one important part of feeling alive as you live. This practice frees you from being manipulated by the authoritarian voices in your own head or the voices outside who would encourage you to not feel, to look away, to seek safety and security, or conversely to attack, seek revenge, or retaliate against yourself or others.

Remember, finally, this decision, is a choice: to LOVE and BE WELL, or act out on your feelings as if you are a separate, isolated, strange specter alone with your ghoulish thoughts and fears. This you will recognize is the essence of all vampire, monster, horror and slasher books and films. This is commonly known as evil.

To know it, our fears and our dread, so we may contain it within ourselves, is to not inflict it on others, but instead to put it into the world in art or symbols of art, narratives or images. This allows us to then take it back inside our self in a more refined and less terrifying version. Here we may know our feelings and our self with comfort again.

This all, of course, depends on our having had a necessary amount of affectionate holding by parents or parent substitutes. If you have not had this amount of holding a therapist may be able to help you develop a sense of safety inside yourself. If you did have security as a child and you follow the practice outlined you will see that you think you are afraid of the forest, the dark and nothingness but you are really afraid of ‘nothing’. And, of course how can ‘nothing’ be fearful, except in the sense Augustine and Nietzsche said evil is ‘no-thing’.

As words are also not things, the words you choose will determine the thoughts that lead to your actions; this in turn will lead to consequences in terms of your peace of mind and your overall health and creativity.

If you choose to LOVE and BE WELL, then each day, morning and night, take a moment, close your eyes, let yourself relax, breath in and out, then say:

I WON’T deny my fears.

I WON’T let others project fear into me.

I WILL accept my doubts and fears.

I WILL extend love to the world.

I AM light and energy and LOVE in the midst of all darkness.

Dr. Clark Falconer is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain. He is a practicing Psychiatrist from Vancouver, Canada and the author of the new, critically acclaimed book The Three Word Truth About Love And Being Well. To receive daily tips on the power of words follow Clark on Twitter.

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If you are like me, no one ever sat you down and instructed you on how to choose a life partner.  Yet, this is one of the most critical decisions we will ever make in life – with potentially huge repercussions for a less-than-ideal choice.  A long-term relationship can be one of the most joyous and fulfilling experiences life has to offer.  Although you may not have learned it from your mother, here is what you need to know to choose the life partner who is right for you.

Consider qualities that are important to you

First, become familiar with the qualities that you desire in a partner.  It doesn’t matter what they are – what matters is that you are consciously aware of what is important to you.  Take some time to reflect, write a list if it helps you, and keep at it until you are clear about what you want.  Two qualities you might seriously consider are honesty and openness/flexibility.  You need to be able to trust your partner to be straight up with you – about money, preferences, things they are doing, people they are spending time with.  In addition, you will want to choose someone who is open to examining themselves, willing to take responsibility for their own behavior, and able to move with the ebbs and flows of life.

Remember these qualities when you are dating

Now that you have developed a list, have the wisdom to use it.  We all know how easily we are sidetracked by sexual attraction, the blush of a new romance, relationship melodrama.  If what you want is a partner for life, forget romance and be logical and realistic.  As you are getting to know your potential partner, take some time to sit by yourself and determine if he or she possesses the qualities you desire.  If so, happily continue dating.  If not, find the strength within yourself to stay aligned with what you really want, say a kind goodbye, and move on.  Abandon hope that things will change in the future.  Base your decision on what you are certain of, which is what you know to be true now.

Discuss the big issues

I find myself in disbelief when I hear of newly married couples discovering monumental differences on some of the most essential life choices.  Spare yourself this challenge by initiating open discussions about children (if, when, how many), child-rearing, money, work, religion, where to live, and relationships with extended family.  The purpose of these discussions is to uncover any fundamental differences between you so you can decide if you want to continue the relationship.  Do the research thoroughly, but also realize that priorities and preferences have a way of changing over time.  This is why openness and flexibility are important.  Learn all you can about your potential mate, and have the courage to walk away if the fit is not right for you.

Find a good friend

Sharing your life with the right partner is a joy.  The intensity of the initial attraction will subside, so make sure that the friendship is strong.  Do you have common interests?  Is your conversation enjoyable and stimulating?  Would you choose to spend a free day with this person?  If your answer is “yes” to these questions, you have in place an important element that can make your relationship stand the test of time.

Find a lover

You really want the sexual part of your relationship to work, as stumbling in this area can cause great conflict and dissatisfaction.  Appetites will change – often once children arrive or hormones begin to dwindle.  Start off with sexual compatibility, and you are building a strong foundation now and for the future.

Don’t think that love, or sexual attraction, is enough

How often have you heard, “But I love him?”  A long-term relationship involves so much more than love.  A successful relationship requires communication and problem-solving skills, the ability to manage your own emotions, patience, selflessness.  You end up dealing with child-rearing, balance between work and home life, crises that inevitably arise.  Love and sexual attraction are beautiful expressions, but they are not enough for choosing a life partner.

Determine if you can solve problems together

Notice how you disagree, and how you recover from disagreements.  If you or your partner defend your own positions, you will have difficulty coming to a resolution.  The need to be right limits good communication.  Look for, and be, someone who speaks respectfully and is open to other points of view.

Decide if you can accept your potential partner’s idiosyncrasies

We all have them.  Ways of being, things we do, that are our personalities and quirks.  Take the blinders off, and see with your eyes wide open to determine if the person you are considering is someone you can actually live with on a daily basis.  Reflect on their energy level, preference for time alone, desire for social interaction, ways of handling stress, and level of cleanliness.  Don’t be caught by the trap of hoping they will change, and don’t fool yourself into believing that something that bothers you now won’t continue to fester over time.  People do change, but there is no guarantee.  Contemplate within yourself to see if you can accept your potential mate as is.

Know your dealbreakers

Only you can know your bottom line.  You deserve to be with someone who is truly interested in making your relationship thrive.  If you are mistreated or disrespected in any way, think twice before moving forward.  Take very seriously problems such as addiction, large debt, uncontrollable emotions, or severe mental illness.  You can have tremendous compassion for people with these issues, but the likelihood of being in a satisfying relationship with them is negligible.

Be an amazing partner

While you are looking, use your time wisely.  Reflect within yourself to become aware of the difficulties you might contribute to a relationship.  Are you too clingy or afraid of getting close?  Are you overly passive or controlling?  Do you need to get your own life on track in some important way?  Are you attracting, and choosing, people who aren’t right for you?  Do you have annoying habits?  Are you a grownup, able to make your relationship with a partner a priority over your immediate family?  Be happy in your own life, and you will effortlessly bring happiness to others.

In choosing your partner, I’m inviting you to use your head as well as your heart.  When you do, you are opening yourself to the possibility for the deepest intimacy and celebration of life.  Allow your heart to expand in every direction, and enjoy the journey!

What have you learned about choosing a life partner?  I’d love to hear your reactions and experiences.

Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain. She 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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If you have plans on becoming great, you’ll want to read this brief article.

They say success leaves clues; this implies, “if we look at people who are great, we’d find a common denominator, a golden thread tying them all together.”

Here’s what I think we’d find:

We’d find people who discovered their talent and then showcased that talent to the world in a ”new” and creative way.

Most of the people we’d find wouldn’t be doing anything “new.”  They would be doing something that’s been done before, in a “new” and unique way.

There’s nothing new under the sun

Take Thomas Edison the inventor of the everyday light bulb as an example; many scientist of his day knew that a heated piece of carbon filament would produce a light.  However, the light would only last for a brief moment.

…So what did Edison do?

Did Edison come up with a new idea?  No; Edison improved upon an existing idea through creativity and concentration, by finding a carbon filament that would burn for over 1500 hours if enclosed in an oxygen free case.  It wasn’t a new idea, but his improvement on an existing idea made him great, while most people don’t even remember who invented the first electric light bulb.  It was Humphry Davy back in 1800, in case you were wondering.

William Faulkner said, “The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said.”

Becoming Great

To become great we must focus our attention on developing our unique and dominant gifts.

The full unhindered expression of our creativity is what can make all of us great.

What do you do best?

“The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.” – Malcolm S. Forbes

Do you love to sing, fix broken things, talk to people, or sell?  Whatever it is, you must focus your attention on doing it to the best of your ability.  Give that dominant talent your focus, and allow it to develop through training.  Given enough time, and enough focus, we will consider you great.

Remember: There’s always room at the top for those who are dedicated to greatness, so whatever you do, do it well or not at all.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Life is too short for you not to be great

I’m often criticized for telling people to go after their dreams.  My critics would say, “Get your head out of the clouds; face the realities.”  BUT, I believe life is too short to only give 50 percent.  You only get one bite at the apple, you only live once, why not live it to the fullest, why not play it to the hilt, why not die empty, with no regrets.

In the words of Paris Hilton, “Life is too short to blend in.”  It really is, you were born an original, don’t die a copy.

You can do it

Just like a seed, you have everything you need on the inside of you to succeed.  You just need to put yourself in the right environment so you can grow and become all that you were destined to become.  See you at the top!

“Life is too short to be small.” – Benjamin Disraeli

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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Is there an ‘essential key’ to personal development? One without which the ‘unlocking’ of your potential might be difficult if not impossible?

If we define personal development as growth involving the mind and the body, then ‘yes’ – I think there is.

Without this ‘key’ personal growth is slow, and sluggish. Without learning how to tap into this essential human ‘tool’, change will be sporadic or imposed from the outside.

And I believe the really important part is this: without developing this function of consciousness, all deep change will be difficult.

It does not matter what courses you buy, which ‘gurus’ you listen to, how many self-growth seminars you take. Because this is one thing you cannot do without.

The ability to self-observe, what some people call self-awareness.

Self-awareness meaning the ability to become aware of what is going on in:

* Your mind’s eye (the cinema screen of your mind)

* Your inner ear (verbal self-talk, sounds, talk from other ‘parts’ of you)

* Your feelings (meaning tactile and visceral feelings inside and outside of your body)

* Your emotions (feelings that you have labelled as ‘emotions’)

* Intuition- literally ‘inner-knowing’

If you are not aware of what is going on inside YOU – what your perceptions are reporting to you on the inside, you lack access to vital information. It’s like sitting in a sport’s car without a key to the engine or being locked in first gear.

You can’t change what you’re not aware of.

According to Shelly Rose Charvet in Words that Change Minds x% of the population predominantly think using their visual system. But a common complaint for people learning technologies like Neuro-Linguistic Programming is: “I don’t see pictures”.

Actually, they do, they are just not aware of them.

But since so much of that field’s techniques use the questions: “Imagine that…” or “Remember a time when…” it is useful to understand some ways of accessing that information.

The most powerful way I have found (and I’ve been using it since at least 2001) is Image Streaming by Win Wenger.

This is a process of describing out-loud anything you are aware of in your mind, and numerous methods for kick-starting a ‘stream’ of images in your awareness.

I’ve found that people who ‘can’t see images’ report ‘break-throughs’ to ‘seeing’ in only a few minutes, thereby automatically increasing their access to their perceptions and self-insight (literally in-sight!)

My metaphor for using this technique is like clearing out a partially blocked drain.

At one end is the unconscious that wants to push answers and ideas through to the consciousness. But this conduit is blocked by rust (lack of use!) Image streaming allows you to receive more information from your incredibly powerful God-given unconscious mind.

Another way – if you already see blurry or indistinct images – is to use the snapshot method.

Quite simply, look at something like a rose or a car and ‘snapshot it’, close your eyes and describe as much of what you see in your minds eye as you can. Use only sensory words: I see…red, I hear birds warbling..I feel soft wool”. Then open your eyes and compare what you saw inside with what you see outside. This has the effect of sharpening your visual memory as well.

Benefits

Why would you put so much effort into becoming aware of your perceptions?

Well, if you like ancient advice the school of Socrates had ‘know thyself’ over the door. And if you have habits you want to change then you often need to find what’s making them tick.

The famous therapist Fritz Perls said “Awareness per se is curative”.

Think about it – have you ever realised something you didn’t know you thought, and exclaimed : “that’s stupid! I can’t believe I thought that” – and it was gone. That’s what he meant! The realisation can be the catalyst for the change!

An added bonus, however, is (and I saved the best for last) image streaming offers an increase in measurable intelligence.

Creator Win Wenger had tests of image streamers conducted by Charles P. Reinart at South West State University and the results found that there was nearly ½ point of measurable IQ increase for every hour of use and an average of 9 point increase after 20.5 hours of use (http://www.vth.biz/kb/html.php?category=10#category-10

- CTRL+F and search for ‘Reinert’).

Now, most of us know that nowadays intelligence is not considered to just be linguistic and mathematical abilities – Howard Gardner writes about Multiple Intelligences such as visio-spatial, musical and kinaesthetic.

But Image streaming can help with all of these.

I’ve personally used it to solve problems, get insights, create new techniques and improve as a coach.

In fact, Win Wenger has produced a kit with Paul Scheele of PhotoReading fame called The Genius Code: It has all the directions you need to tap into your ever-flowing unconscious yet brilliant Image Stream.

You can get it at by clicking here and searching for ‘Genius Code’.

If you are starting at the beginning I understand it can be frustrating to have to build little by little each day. But before long you will make a quantum leap and your self-awareness will show you things you never knew about yourself and your potential.

Douglas Cartwright is a meta-coach whose speciality is helping professionals who procrastinate get unstuck and start taking more action. Visit www.livingwords.net and get two free e-books and a presentation on coaching along with a bonus ebook on overcoming procrastination.

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]]> http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/personal-development-an-essential-key/feed/ 11 http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-get-out-of-bed-when-you-really-don%e2%80%99t-feel-like-it/ http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-get-out-of-bed-when-you-really-don%e2%80%99t-feel-like-it/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:41:43 +0000 Ali Hale http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/?p=1150

We’ve all been there: the alarm goes off, we’re feeling groggy, reach out and slap it to snooze. Five minutes later, the same things happens. We switch the alarm off again. The thought of getting out of bed seems like way too much effort. We know that, once we get up, we have to launch into the day – that to-do list we made last night, those  chores that need doing…

If you have to get yourself up to get to work by 8am, you’ll manage it. But if you work for yourself, if you’re a student, or if it’s the weekend, it can be a lot tougher.

Why do we end up talking ourselves into staying in bed … even when, if we think about it rationally, we’d much rather be getting on with something than going through the alarm-snooze-alarm-snooze cycle of supremely low-quality sleep?

Note: I’m not talking about depression here. If you think you might be depressed, please consult your doctor and get professional help and advice.

What’s Your Motivation?

First off, why are you getting out of bed? Why don’t you just spend the whole day lying around, snoozing, eating toast (and getting crumbs in the sheets)?

If you’re the type of person who can spring out of bed at dawn, just because it’s a beautiful day, gosh darn it, and you’re out to change the world, etc., then congratulations. You’re probably one of those weirdos that doesn’t drink coffee in the morning either.

(Michael Harrison, 10 Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning, Wired.com)

I’ll bet you’ve got something important that you want to do: some reason that’ll get you excited enough to want to get out of bed. Find something that’s meaningful to you and make that your reason to get up in the morning.

It might be having time to exercise. It might be spending the first hour of your day writing your novel. It might be your chance to work on your small business before the workday. It might be the child-free time you get to put your thoughts straight.

Starting off your day with your hardest task (also known as “eating that frog”) can be counter-productive if it discourages you from getting out of bed! So, for a change, plan something that’s fun and energizing for the start of your day. It could be as simple as a tasty breakfast, or your favorite soap in the shower.

Don’t Think Too Much

There’s definitely a danger in thinking too much when you’re feeling groggy. It’s very easy to start running through your to-do list (“I must phone Jack … and clear my inbox … and clean the kitchen …”) and frankly, you can end up feeling exhausted just thinking about all those tasks.

I like Steve Pavlina’s method of not thinking about getting up: just get out of bed and start moving – your mind will catch up with you!

If you find yourself running through everything you need to do in the day, stop. Focus on that first half hour or hour of your day – the one thing you really want to get out of bed for. Then throw off the covers and move those legs!

Practical Tips

Sometimes, a deep-seated reluctance to get out of bed isn’t just due to a lack of motivation. You can help yourself by implementing a few very practical ideas:

Go to Bed Earlier

I know this sounds ridiculously obvious, but if you go to bed late and try to get up at 6am, you’re going to struggle. If you’re prone to getting distracted by watching TV, writing blog posts or hanging out on Twitter, set an alarm to tell you when to go to bed. You could also ask a spouse or housemate to remind you at, say, 10.30pm if you’re not already heading to bed.

Make sure you’re getting good quality sleep, too.

Put Your Alarm Across the Room

As a teen, I realized I can reach out, switch off an alarm, and go straight back to sleep. Since then, I’ve always positioned my alarm clock across the room, so that I have to get out of bed to switch it off. So long as you stay out of bed once you’re up, you’re there!

Have Your Clothes Ready

One of my dozy excuses for not getting out of bed is often “I can’t decide what I’m going to wear.” (Given that the answer is usually “jeans and a t-shirt”, I’m not quite sure why this causes such early-morning angst. It may be a throwback to my teen years…) If you make a similarly crap excuse, there’s a pretty simple solution: put out your clothes the night before.

(If you’re inclined towards morning exercising, set your gym kit ready too.)

So … are you one of those lucky folks who can wake up feeling well-rested and enthusiastic before the alarm? Or do you have mornings where you tell yourself “just five more minutes” for two hours? What tips – or cautionary tales – do you have for morning sluggards?

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