Attract More Happiness using Law Of Attraction | Abraham Hicks

Another wonderful Abraham Hicks recording on how to attract more happiness into your life. For more information please check out http://www.abraham-hicks.com

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30 Days to Success | Steve Pavlina

A powerful personal growth tool is the 30-day trial. This is a concept I borrowed from the shareware industry, where you can download a trial version of a piece of software and try it out risk-free for 30 days before you’re required to buy the full version. It’s also a great way to develop new habits, and best of all, it’s brain-dead simple.

Let’s say you want to start a new habit like an exercise program or quit a bad habit like smoking. We all know that getting started and sticking with the new habit for a few weeks is the hard part. Once you’ve overcome inertia, it’s much easier to keep going.

Yet we often psyche ourselves out of getting started by mentally thinking about the change as something permanent — before we’ve even begun. It seems too overwhelming to think about making a big change and sticking with it every day for the rest of your life when you’re still habituated to doing the opposite. The more you think about the change as something permanent, the more you stay put.

But what if you thought about making the change only temporarily — say for 30 days — and then you’re free to go back to your old habits? That doesn’t seem so hard anymore. Exercise daily for just 30 days, then quit. Maintain a neatly organized desk for 30 days, then slack off. Read for an hour a day for 30 days, then go back to watching TV.

Could you do it? It still requires a bit of discipline and commitment, but not nearly so much as making a permanent change. Any perceived deprivation is only temporary. You can count down the days to freedom. And for at least 30 days, you’ll gain some benefit. It’s not so bad. You can handle it. It’s only one month out of your life.

Now if you actually complete a 30-day trial, what’s going to happen? First, you’ll go far enough to establish it as a habit, and it will be easier to maintain than it was to begin it. Secondly, you’ll break the addiction of your old habit during this time. Thirdly, you’ll have 30 days of success behind you, which will give you greater confidence that you can continue. And fourthly, you’ll gain 30 days worth of results, which will give you practical feedback on what you can expect if you continue, putting you in a better place to make informed long-term decisions.

Therefore, once you hit the end of the 30-day trial, your ability to make the habit permanent is vastly increased. But even if you aren’t ready to make it permanent, you can opt to extend your trial period to 60 or 90 days. The longer you go with the trial period, the easier it will be to lock in the new habit for life.

Another benefit of this approach is that you can use it to test new habits where you really aren’t sure if you’d even want to continue for life. Maybe you’d like to try a new diet, but you don’t know if you’d find it too restrictive. In that case, do a 30-day trial and then re-evaluate. 

There’s no shame in stopping if you know the new habit doesn’t suit you. It’s like trying a piece of shareware for 30 days and then uninstalling it if it doesn’t suit your needs. No harm, no foul.

Here are some examples from my own life where I used 30-day trials to establish new habits:

1) In the Summer of 1993, I wanted to try being vegetarian. I had no interest in making this a lifelong change, but I’d read a lot about the health benefits of vegetarianism, so I committed to it for 30 days just for the experience. I was already exercising regularly, seemed in decent health, and was not overweight (6’0″, 155 lbs), but my typical college diet included a lot of In-N-Out burgers. Going lacto-ovo vegetarian for 30 days was a lot easier than I expected — I can’t say it was hard at all, and I never felt deprived. Within a week I noticed an increase in my energy and concentration, and I felt more clear-headed. At the end of the 30 days, it was a no-brainer to stick with it. This change looked a lot harder than it really was.

2) In January 1997, I decided to try going from vegetarian to vegan. While lacto-ovo vegetarians can eat eggs and dairy, vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. I was developing an interest in going vegan for life, but I didn’t think I could do it. How could I give up veggie-cheese omelettes? The diet seemed too restrictive to me — even fanatically so. But I was intensely curious to know what it was actually like. So once again I did a 30-day trial. At the time I figured I’d make it through the trial, but I honestly didn’t expect to continue beyond that. Well, I lost seven pounds in the first week, mostly from going to the bathroom as all the accumulated dairy mucus was cleansed from my bowels. I felt lousy the first couple days but then my energy surged. I also felt more clear-headed than ever, as if a “fog of brain” had been lifted; it felt like my brain had gotten a CPU and a RAM upgrade. However, the biggest change I noticed was in my endurance. I was living in Marina del Rey at the time and used to run along the beach near the Santa Monica Pier, and I noticed I wasn’t as tired after my usual 3-mile runs, so I started increasing them to 5 miles, 10 miles, and then eventually a marathon a few years later. In Tae Kwon Do, the extra endurance really gave a boost to my sparring skills as well. The accumulated benefits were so great that the foods I was giving up just didn’t seem so appealing anymore. So once again it was a no-brainer to continue after the first 30 days, and I’m still vegan today. What I didn’t expect was that after so long on this diet, the old animal product foods I used to eat just don’t seem like food anymore, so there’s no feeling of deprivation.

3) Also in 1997, I decided I wanted to exercise every single day for a year. That was my 1997 New Year’s resolution. My criteria was that I would exercise aerobically at least 25 minutes every day, and I wouldn’t count Tae Kwon Do classes which I was taking 2-3 days per week. 
Coupled with my dietary changes, I wanted to push my fitness to a new level. I didn’t want to miss a single day, not even for sick days. But thinking about exercising 365 days in a row was daunting, so I mentally began with a 30-day trial. That wasn’t so bad. After a while every day that passed set a new record: 8 days in a row… 10 days… 15 days…. It became harder to quit. 
After 30 days in a row, how could I not do 31 and set a new personal record? And can you imagine giving up after 250 days? No way. After the initial month to establish the habit, the rest of the year took care of itself. I remember going to a seminar that year and getting home well after midnight. I had a cold and was really tired, yet I still went out running at 2am in the rain. Some people might call that foolish, but I was so determined to reach my goal that I wasn’t going to let fatigue or illness stop me. I succeeded and kept it up for the whole year without ever missing a day. In fact, I kept going for a few more weeks into 1998 before I finally opted to stop, which was a tough decision. I wanted to do this for one year, knowing it would become a powerful reference experience, and it certainly became such.

4) More diet stuff…. After being vegan for a number of years, I opted to try other variations of the vegan diet. I did 30-day trials both with the macrobiotic diet and with the raw foods diet. Those were interesting and gave me new insights, but I decided not to continue with either of them. I felt no different eating macrobiotically than I did otherwise. And in the case of the raw diet, while I did notice a significant energy boost, I found the diet too labor intensive — I was spending a lot of time preparing meals and shopping frequently. Sure you can just eat raw fruits and veggies, but to make interesting raw meals, there can be a lot of labor involved. If I had my own chef, I’d probably follow the raw diet though because I think the benefits would be worth it. I did a second trial of the raw diet for 45 days, but again my conclusion was the same. If I was ever diagnosed with a serious disease like cancer, I’d immediately switch to an all raw, living foods diet, since I believe it to be the absolute best diet for optimal health. I’ve never felt more energetic in my life than when I ate a raw diet. 
But I had a hard time making it practical for me. Even so, I managed to integrate some new macrobiotic foods and raw foods into my diet after these trials. There are two all-raw restaurants here in Vegas, and I’ve enjoyed eating at them because then someone else does all the labor. So these 30-day trials were still successful in that they produced new insights, although in both cases I intentionally declined to continue with the new habit. One of the reasons a full 30-day trial is so important with new diets is that the first week or two will often be spent detoxing and overcoming cravings, so it isn’t until the third or fourth week that you begin to get a clear picture. I feel that if you haven’t tried a diet for at least 30 days, you simply don’t understand it. Every diet feels different on the inside than it appears from the outside.

This 30-day method seems to work best for daily habits. I’ve had no luck using it when trying to start a habit that only occurs 3-4 days per week. However, it can work well if you apply it daily for the first 30 days and then cut back thereafter. This is what I’d do when starting a new exercise program, for example. Daily habits are much easier to establish.
Here are some other ideas for applying 30-day trials:

• Give up TV. Tape all your favorite shows and save them until the end of the trial. My whole family did this once, and it was very enlightening.
• Give up online forums, especially if you feel you’re becoming forum addicted. This will help break the addiction and give you a clearer sense of how participation actually benefits you (if at all). You can always catch up at the end of 30 days.
• Shower/bathe/shave every day. I know YOU don’t need this one, so please pass it along to someone who does.
• Meet someone new every day. Start up a conversation with a stranger.
• Go out every evening. Go somewhere different each time, and do something fun — this will be a memorable month.
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning up and organizing your home or office every day. That’s 15 hours total.
• List something new to sell on eBay every day. Purge some of that clutter.
• Ask someone new out on a date every day. Unless your success rate is below 3%, you’ll get at least one new date, maybe even meet your future spouse.
• If you’re already in a relationship, give your partner a massage every day. Or offer to alternate who gives the massage each day, so that’s 15 massages each.
• Give up cigarettes, soda, junk food, coffee, or other unhealthy addictions.
• Become an early riser.
• Write in your journal every day.
• Call a different family member, friend, or business contact every day.
• Make 25 sales calls every day to solicit new business. Professional speaker Mike Ferry did this five days a week for two years, even on days when he was giving seminars. He credits this habit with helping build his business to over $10 million in annual sales. If you make 1300 sales calls a year, you’re going to get some decent business no matter how bad your sales skills are. You can generalize this habit to any kind of marketing work, like building new links to your web site.
• Write a new blog entry every day.
• Read for an hour a day on a subject that interests you.
• Meditate every day.
• Learn a new vocabulary word every day.
• Go for a long walk every day.

Again, don’t think that you need to continue any of these habits beyond 30 days. Think of the benefits you’ll gain from those 30 days alone. You can re-assess after the trial period. You’re certain to grow just from the experience, even if it’s temporary.

The power of this approach lies in its simplicity. Even though doing a certain activity every single day may be less efficient than following a more complicated schedule — weight training is a good example because adequate rest is a key component — you’ll often be more likely to stick with the daily habit. When you commit to doing something every single day without exception, you can’t rationalize or justify missing a day, nor can you promise to make it up later by reshuffling your schedule.

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Best Advice Ever | Jim Rohn

(Starts at 15 seconds)

Jim Rohn (September 17, 1930 - December 5, 2009) was an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker. His rags to riches story played a large part in his work, which influenced others in the personal development industry.

"Always do more than you get paid for, to make an investment in your future."
"If it's raining you can't fix the roof.  If it isn't raining, it doesn't need to be fixed."
"Review your performance."
"Face all your fears: that's how you can conquer them."
"Exercise your willpower to change your direction."
"Pick a new destination and start going that way."
"Use your willpower to start the process."
"Admit your mistakes!" 
"Refine your goals."
"Believe in yourself. There isn't a skill you can't learn..."
"Ask for wisdom ... that creates answers."
"Don't wish it was easier: wish you were better."
"Invest your profits."
"Protect your family.  These are troublesome times."
"Conserve your time."
"Live with intensity.  Invest more of you in whatever you do."
"Put everything you've got into everything you do, and then ask for more vitality, more strength and more vigour."
"Find your place... if you've got a lousy job, do the best you can: that is your best way out."
"If you work on your gifts they will make room for you, they will make a place for you."
"Demand integrity from yourself."
"Welcome the disciplines... Disciplines create the reality."
"Fight for what's right!" 
"I fought a good fight... and I kept the faith!"

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Motivation - Change Your Life

Powerful motivational video (starts at 30 seconds)
"Progress = happiness." "Take full responsibility for your life."   "We can accept conditions as they exist, or we can take the responsibility to change them." "It's possible that you can live your dream!" "It's not over until I win!"

Music: Inception - Time and Logic - Inception

Speakers: Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Eric Thomas

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How Gratitude Can Change Your Life | Marelisa Fabrega

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

– Meister Eckhart

Gratitude means thankfulness, counting your blessings, noticing simple pleasures, and acknowledging everything that you receive. It means learning to live your life as if everything were a miracle, and being aware on a continuous basis of how much you’ve been given. Gratitude shifts your focus from what your life lacks to the abundance that is already present. In addition, behavioral and psychological research has shown the surprising life improvements that can stem from the practice of gratitude. Giving thanks makes people happier and more resilient, it strengthens relationships, it improves health, and it reduces stress.

Research Shows Gratitude Heightens Quality of Life

Two psychologists, Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis, wrote an article about an experiment they conducted on gratitude and its impact on well-being. The study split several hundred people into three different groups and all of the participants were asked to keep daily diaries. The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day without being told specifically to write about either good or bad things; the second group was told to record their unpleasant experiences; and the last group was instructed to make a daily list of things for which they were grateful. The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy. In addition, those in the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, were more likely to help others, exercised more regularly, and made greater progress toward achieving personal goals.

Dr. Emmons – who has been studying gratitude for almost ten years and is considered by many to be the world’s leading authority on gratitude – is author of the book, “Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier”. The information in this book is based on research involving thousands of people conducted by a number of different researchers around the world. One of the things these studies show is that practicing gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. This is significant, among other things, because just as there’s a certain weight that feels natural to your body and which your body strives to maintain, your basic level of happiness is set at a predetermined point. If something bad happens to you during the day, your happiness can drop momentarily, but then it returns to its natural set-point. Likewise, if something positive happens to you, your level of happiness rises, and then it returns once again to your “happiness set-point”. A practice of gratitude raises your “happiness set-point” so you can remain at a higher level of happiness regardless of outside circumstances.

In addition, Dr. Emmons’ research shows that those who practice gratitude tend to be more creative, bounce back more quickly from adversity, have a stronger immune system, and have stronger social relationships than those who don’t practice gratitude. He further points out that “To say we feel grateful is not to say that everything in our lives is necessarily great. It just means we are aware of our blessings.”

Notice and Appreciate Each Day’s Gifts

People tend to take for granted the good that is already present in their lives. There’s a gratitude exercise that instructs that you should imagine losing some of the things that you take for granted, such as your home, your ability to see or hear, your ability to walk, or anything that currently gives you comfort. Then imagine getting each of these things back, one by one, and consider how grateful you would be for each and every one. In addition, you need to start finding joy in the small things instead of holding out for big achievements—such as getting the promotion, having a comfortable nest egg saved up, getting married, having the baby, and so on–before allowing yourself to feel gratitude and joy.

Another way to use giving thanks to appreciate life more fully is to use gratitude to help you put things in their proper perspective. When things don’t go your way, remember that every difficulty carries within it the seeds of an equal or greater benefit. In the face of adversity ask yourself: “What’s good about this?”, “What can I learn from this?”, and “How can I benefit from this?”

There are Many Ways to Practice Gratitude

A common method to develop the practice of gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal, a concept that was made famous by Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book “Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude". This exercise basically consists of writing down every day a list of three to ten things for which you are grateful; you can do this first thing in the morning or before going to bed at night. Another exercise you can try is to write a gratitude letter to a person who has exerted a positive influence in your life but whom you have not properly thanked. Some experts suggest that you set up a meeting with this person and read the letter to them face to face.

Last year millions of people took the challenge proposed by Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister, to go 21 days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. To help condition the participants to stop complaining, they each wore a purple No-Complaint wristband. Several authors in the self-improvement genre have suggested that people do something similar to help condition themselves to be constantly aware of the things in life that they’re grateful for.

A variation of the wristband concept is to create a gratitude charm bracelet, with either one meaningful charm or different charms representing the things you’re most grateful for. For example, you could have a charm shaped like a heart to symbolize your significant other, figurines to represent different family members, an apple to represent health, a dollar sign to symbolize abundance, a charm that represents your current profession or a future career, and maybe a charm that makes you laugh to represent humor and joy.

Conclusion

Once you become oriented toward looking for things to be grateful for, you will find that you begin to appreciate simple pleasures and things that you previously took for granted. Gratitude should not be just a reaction to getting what you want, but an all-the-time gratitude, the kind where you notice the little things and where you constantly look for the good even in unpleasant situations. Today, start bringing gratitude to your experiences, instead of waiting for a positive experience in order to feel grateful; in this way, you’ll be on your way toward becoming a master of gratitude.

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My Favorite Questions for Making Tough Decisions | Steve Pavlina

Sometime you’ll encounter tough decisions that can leave you wallowing in indecision, such as whether to change jobs or careers, end a relationship, move to a new city, or pursue a new lifestyle direction. There are many processes you can use to make intelligent decisions, but all of them have shortcomings when you’re dealing with imperfect information. Sometimes all it takes to gain sufficient clarity though is to ask the right questions. A good question can shift your perspective about your decision and make the wise path obvious.

When I face tough decisions, here are some of my favorite questions to ask:

Will this help me grow?

Since growth is one of my highest personal values, I favor decisions where I can expect to learn and growth. If I see little or no growth on a particular path, I’ll tend to lean against it.
This heuristic gives me a bias to embrace the new, as opposed to repeating something I’ve already done. It’s one reason I usually don’t repeat workshops. Even though it’s more work, I favor doing new workshops because a new workshop pushes me to learn and grow a lot more than repeating a past workshop does.

Asking this question helped me join Toastmasters in 2004, and I remained a member until 2010. I felt a bit anxious about getting involved with the group since I didn’t think it would be a comfortable experience to practice public speaking. But I went to my first meeting and joined a club because I figured that it would be a growth experience, and it certainly was. When the growth aspect faded and the experience became overly familiar, I quit Toastmasters and shifted my attention elsewhere.

There are many situations where fear and hesitation might hold me back, and then my mind wanders towards justification. I can’t because I’m too busy. The timing isn’t right. I’m not feeling my best. Yes… but will it be a growth experience? If a decision will help me grow, then I’m inclined to lean into it.

Sometimes my answer to this question takes the form of a grudging dammit, yes. Part of me doesn’t want it to be a yes, especially when the decision involves facing a fear, a lack of skill, or a lot of extra work, but it’s a good step to at least admit that if I move forward and say yes, I know it will be a growth experience.

Would my best self do this?

Asking this question gave me clarity when I was trying to decide whether or not to uncopyright all my blog posts back in 2010. I had created a tremendous body of intellectual property, and I owned it 100%. But I often wondered what would happen if I let go of that ownership and donated it to the public domain. It seemed like a huge leap, and there was no good way to predict the outcome.

When I asked if my best self would do this, the answer was clear. If uncopyrighting my work would help more people than keeping it copyrighted, my best self would pull the trigger and do it.

My best self is brave, generous, and creative. He could handle the consequences of giving so much away and letting the world run with it. He trusts that it would work out. He knows he can always create more. He doesn’t want to depend on ownership of intellectual property for his sense of security. For him it’s enough to feel secure in who he is. Even if things didn’t turn out so well, he could handle that too. He’s strong enough to deal with the consequences.
Asking this question removed enough doubt to make it so. Would my best self do this? Of course he would.

This still wasn’t an easy decision, but at least I knew that if I could do it, it would bring me further into alignment with my best self. If I held back, I’d be keeping myself out of alignment with him.

Do I want the memory?

Every decision ultimately becomes a memory, and the sum of your decisions will eventually become a string of memories. So which memories do you want?

Do you want the memories of maintaining your current social media habits for the next 10 years? (It’s extremely rare to find someone who can honestly answer yes to this.)

Do you want the memories of keeping your current job for another year? What about your current relationship situation?

Do you want the memories of taking that trip, or would you rather have the memories of not taking it?

This is a really powerful question, and some people have gained immediate clarity the first time they’ve asked it.

Of all the social media interactions and online commentary you’ve posted over the past decade, what do you remember? I remember very little of it. It’s all just a blur. My mind seems to value those memories so little that it didn’t store them in any meaningful detail.

This question helped me lean into lots of delightful travel experiences. Every year I travel to places that I’ve never been before, and one reason is that I love acquiring the memories that come from travel.

When you look back upon the past year, what do you remember? Do you like those memories? Could you have created better memories?

When I think about the past year, I remember eating lots of yummy meals at this small restaurant called Verde Vegan in Acapulco. I remember walking around the streets of London in the rain. I remember going to the top of a volcano, visiting a coffee plantation, and seeing several waterfalls in a rainforest in Costa Rica. I remember sipping espresso on a cobblestone sidewalk in Italy, walking around Villa Borghese park, staring up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and taking silly photos at the Mouth of Truth. I remember lots of fun times while spending 30 days at Disneyland. I remember seeing many plays at the Fringe Festival in Winnipeg and eating samosas with tamarind sauce. I remember sharing laughs and insights at last year’s workshops and going out to dinner with the attendees afterwards. And I remember doing all of these things with my girlfriend.

Most of my best memories are not about working at my desk. They come from having interesting experiences. Is it the same for you?

I’ve taken action on a lot of stretch ideas – and sometimes just plain silly ones – after asking myself if I wanted the memory. One of the silliest was last year’s decision to spend 30 days in a row going to Disneyland. That’s a lot of time to spend on such an experience, and I certainly could have used that time in other ways, but I realized if that I did it, I’d end up with some wonderful memories, plus the overall memory of taking action on a stretch experience.

I rarely regret taking action in a new direction.Usually I regret holding back. I think that’s true of most people. We tend to regret the opportunities we missed as opposed to those we pursued, even if we didn’t get the results we hoped for. We regret not trying even more than trying and failing. Failing is okay. Not trying just sucks.

You could ask yourself which path you’re more likely to regret, but regret is just one type of memory. So when you ask this memory question, it already covers potential regret.

How will this sculpt my character as a man?

I’m sharing this question the way I ask it, so feel free to modify it to fit your gender, or use a gender-neutral substitute like, How will this sculpt my character as a human being?

This was an especially powerful question to ask when I was in my 20s, and I was thinking about what kind of man I wanted to become. This question stemmed from a realization I had while sitting in jail for a few days when I was 19 years old. I saw myself becoming someone much darker than I wanted to be, and that realization woke me up. I realized that in order to change the man I was becoming, I had to start making different decisions.

The decisions you make ultimately define your character and personality. Making a decision is like chiseling out the sculpture of who you’re becoming. Most decisions only chisel out small details. Some decisions define significant aspects of the final piece. The decisions I made while sitting in jail were some of my life’s biggest.

If you’d visited my website between 2004 and 2008, you would have seen a lot of ads. At the peak I was earning $12-13K per month in passive income from having advertising on the site. In late 2008 though, I removed all the ads, which immediately shut off that income.
One reason I made this choice is that I saw it as a character decision. I didn’t feel congruent with distracting my readers with third-party advertising when they came to my website to read about personal growth. I faced a choice, and each option would sculpt my character differently.

The first option was to continue enjoying the easy passive income from advertising for many more years. By today it would probably have been about a million dollars extra if I’d kept having advertising. This would also mean many years of sculpting myself into a man who accepts a misalignment with his values in order to make money, which would only make it more likely that I’d continue making similar decisions down the road.

The second option was to remove the ads and look for more aligned ways to earn income. This would mean pursuing a path of greater congruence, even if it might be less profitable. It would also be a harder path to take because the advertising income was very easy to maintain. This path would definitely be more work.

I chose the second path because I believed it would sculpt my character in a more positive direction. It would be more difficult in the short term, but I liked the idea of shedding misaligned income sources in order to do the harder work of creating aligned sources. The year after I made this decision, I created and delivered my first three-day workshop. Fast forward to today, and now I’ve done 16 of them. While the workshops weren’t as lucrative as 
I expect the ads would have been, they’ve paid off in many other ways that I value much more than money. For instance, I met my girlfriend Rachelle at that first workshop, and a key strength of our relationship has been our values alignment, such as the fact that we’re both long-term vegans. And we love traveling and having fun lifestyle adventures together as well.

If you accept a misalignment in your life, you’ll attract more of the same. If you go for congruence, you’ll also attract more of the same. So think carefully about how each decision will sculpt your character.

I’m glad that I made the decision to remove those ads in 2008. Getting that incongruence out of the way helped me feel much closer and more connected with my readers. Since then I have met – and hugged – hundreds of them in person. The ads didn’t feel heart-aligned, so by getting those out of the way, I removed a barrier that might have otherwise weakened this relationship.

I could name many more instances where this character question has helped me make tricky decisions. This question nudges me to face more fears, to pursue new experiences, and to delve deeper into personal growth explorations than I otherwise would. I don’t always get it right, but I get it right more often when I ask this question.

Could I reverse or undo this decision?

Last week I decided to get a new home office chair to replace my really old beat up one. As I began browsing online, I thought that maybe I should get a really nice one this time instead of just another cheap sub-$100 chair from Office Depot, especially since one of my health goals for this year is to work on improving my posture. After doing some research, I narrowed the decision down to two choices: the Herman Miller Embody and the Steelcase Gesture. I’ve never owned a chair that had a name before.

Both chairs costs more than $1000. Both have radically different designs. I couldn’t find any stores in Vegas that actually carry them, so I couldn’t try them out first. Online reviews were helpful, but I could find really detailed, in-depth reviews that ranked either chair above the other. And wherever one chair got lots of four- and five-star reviews, I could always find other people rating it one and two stars. It seemed to come down to a matter of personal preference.

Instead of wallowing in indecision or not getting a chair at all, I went with the one I expected to like best – the Steelcase Gesture – even though I had to order it sight unseen and hope for the best when it arrives. What helped was knowing that the decision is reversible. If I don’t like it, I can pack it back up and return it. Or worst case I can always sell it. I might waste some time and money if I made a bad decision, but the long-term consequence is minimal, and the damage is largely reversible.

Some decisions are permanent, and you can’t simply undo them. If you quit your job or leave your relationship, you may not be able to go back if you later change your mind. But for many decisions, there’s a built-in undo. You can often return items you purchased. You can move back to your old city. You can buy back similar possessions to replace those you gave away. You can switch back to your old diet and exercise routines.

If a decision is reversible and/or the negative consequences of a mistake are low, then I’ll tend to lean towards the new experience. At the very least, I might learn something from it.

Can I test this decision?

If you can’t undo a decision, maybe you can test it somehow. Could you dip your toes into each path to gain more clarity about the options? Could you collect some real world experience before you have to commit?

This mindset was especially helpful in 2009 when trying to figure out whether Erin and I should stay together. By entering a polyamorous phase for several months, it was possible to test the waters by exploring other connections without ending the marriage. That provided tremendous clarity that the grass would indeed be greener on the other side. It still wasn’t an easy decision, but it became easier by testing.

Some long-term couples go through a trial separation first in order to test what their lives might be like if they were to separate and divorce. A good book for structuring such an arrangement is Should I Stay or Go? : How Controlled Separation Can Save Your Marriage. That book takes a pretty formal approach, which Erin and I didn’t really follow, but the general idea of testing the waters first is certainly helpful in these types of situations.

Testing a decision can help you tip one way or the other, so you don’t remain endlessly stuck in ambivalence, where you’re constantly waffling about which direction to go.

* * *

Try asking some or all of these questions the next time you face a tricky decision. I think you’ll find them useful tools for increasing clarity and making better choices. When I’ve shared some of these questions with other people, their number one favorite is usually the memory one, so that may be a good one to start with.

Please let me know what you think below.

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Human Change Management | Gilda Bonanno

Keynote speaker Gilda Bonanno describes how to successfully manage change so you can continue to learn and grow www.gildabonanno.com.  Understanding the change process can significantly improve your ability to get through it to the new beginning in your life.  
"Am I living with power and passion?"  
"Yes I am, because today is the day I choose to live a more productive life.  Today is the day I make conscious choices.   Today is the day I prioritise based on what I truly believe is important in my life.   Today is the day I choose to live a more inspired life.   Today is the day I realise (that) this is not a dress rehearsal: this is my real life!" 
"Time is the coin of your life.  Only you can determine how it will be spent."  Carl Sandberg
How will you spend the remainder of your 28,000 days.
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Creating Self Worth | Abraham Hicks

Great audio recording from Abraham on how to interpret fear and create self worth.  
Please let me know what you think below.  
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You Cannot Always Change Situations, but You Can Change Your Attitude | Remez Sasson

I am sure that there are certain situations and circumstances in your life that you would like to change. Often, it is quite simple to make changes, but we let laziness, procrastination or fear to stand in our way.

You might be surprised to hear that many of the changes you would like to make are within you reach, and often, within your immediate reach.

For example, you might always complain that you have no time to read. If reading is so important to you, what’s so difficult to arrange your day so that you can find the time? You can always get up half an hour earlier in the morning, or give up half an hour of watching TV in favor of reading a book.

Do you want to learn a foreign language, swim twice a week or arrange your wardrobe? These are simple to accomplish goals, but you might always seek excuses why you don’t have the time for them. You simply do not give them any priority, and prefer to stick to your comfort zone.

Sometimes, we might encounter situations and circumstances that we are unable change. What should we deal with such situations?

If you cannot change a situation, accept it, and learn to live with it. Sure, this requires a certain degree of self-discipline and inner strength.

You might complain, resent the situation and the people involved and be unhappy. This would not help change the situation, and you will be creating suffering and unhappiness for you.

You cannot always change a situation or circumstances, but you can change your attitude toward it.

Changing external situations and circumstances might not always be possible, but changing your attitude is possible.

Read this sentence several times and try to remember it. You cannot always change situations and circumstances, but you can certainly learn to change your attitude. Instead of feeling resentful, frustrated and unhappy, you can learn to be calm, accept the situation, and not fight with it. You can try to look at the situation dispassionately, and try to find out what you can learn from it.

• Are there people you cannot get along with at work?
• Do you have neighbors you do not like?
• Is your boss too demanding?

Will you leave your job or go live somewhere else because of that?

Often, by accepting the situation, it will stop bothering you, or a solution might come along.
Various situations and circumstances could be lessons you need to learn, and after learning and acknowledging the lessons, the situations and circumstances will start to change.

If you accept what you cannot change and learn to live with it, it will stop to be an issue and stop to bother it.

When you accept what you cannot change, you save yourself a lot of energy and time, and can devote your time to better things than thinking about the situation you cannot change.
When you accept what you cannot change, sometimes, even without any effort on your part, as if miraculously, things start to change and improve.

Some people might misinterpret what I said and think that accepting situations means giving up. Others might regard acceptance as an excuse for laziness and doing nothing. This is far from the truth. Acceptance of situations that you cannot change is wisdom and not passivity, and has nothing with giving up and should not be an excuse for passivity.

You cannot change the past, and regretting and feeling bad about it is not going to change it. However, you can learn to stop dwelling on the past and move on.

If you don’t like one of your colleagues at work and you do not get along with him, anger and resentment would not help. However, you can try to be friendly and stop being resentful.

Suppose it is raining outside, but you need to go to work, go the grocery or meet friends. You cannot stop the train and you cannot fight the rain. Would you give up and stay at home, or wear a raincoat and go outside despite rain?

If it is very hot outside and you need to go somewhere, will anger and unhappiness change the weather? You can let thoughts about the weather to cause you suffering and unhappiness, and you can accept it and live with it.

When you change your attitude toward people, situations or circumstances they stop bothering you and they stop causing you suffering.

When you change your attitude, you start to feel better, you become happier, recognize opportunities to make changes, and on many occasions, the situations or circumstances you could not change, begin to change. By changing your attitude, situations and circumstances would start to change, as if by magic.

Are there any tools that can help you change your attitude? Yes, there are a few, such as repeating affirmations, practicing visualization and developing inner peace.

Let me know what you think below!

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Mark Twain’s Top 9 Tips for Living a Kick-Ass Life | Henrik Edberg

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer.

Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him.

1. Approve of yourself.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behaviour and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your limitations may just be in your mind.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.

3. Lighten up and have some fun.

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more light-hearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement. Have a look at Lighten Up! for more on this topic.

4. Let go of anger.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release yourself from entitlement.

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If you’re taking a different path, prepare for reactions.

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks. They might just go: “OK”.

7. Keep your focus steadily on what you want.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t focus so much on making yourself feel good.

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. But as I wrote yesterday, one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do what you want to do.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life.

Please let me know what you think in the comments below! 

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