Law of Attraction - Train Your Brain to Learn Faster (Psychology) | Brendon.com

Work out what you want your life to be about, what your mission is, what you are passionate about, and you will be motivated to become a master learner.  You have to work out the why for everything to fall into place.  

If you are going to stay on a learning habit, then you have to have a bigger vision for yourself!

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Making Personal Development Fun | Vlad Dolezal

Think back to when you were a child, building a lego house. (Or using a similar building set.)

You would set off to build a house… then halfway through decide to make it a horse ranch instead… then get distracted by another idea and end up with a space ship with a pack of horses on one wing and a swimming pool on the other.

That’s how personal development feels when you approach it in a fun way. You have a certain intention, but then you get distracted by something interesting, experiment with a few different tidbits, and end up with something completely different than you intended. Yet the result is even more awesome than your original plan, and you had great fun along the way!

Still, some people insist on approaching personal development like building a lego house according to set-in-stone instructions. They stress about getting every brick in the right place, then get annoyed when they don’t progress fast enough, then start procrastinating because the process is boring and doesn’t challenge their mind and then they end up dropping the project and complaining that building lego houses doesn’t work.

Personal development can be just as fun as building a lego house, if you approach it the right way.

If you think personal development should be hard, it will be

There’s a funny thing called selective perception. Put simply, you only notice things you are looking for.

So if you’re looking for hard complicated ways to improve yourself, when you find an easy solution, you drop it because “that can’t possibly be right”. Then you come up with the most weird and convoluted ways to make your self-improvement difficult, because that’s what you’re looking for.

Here’s the thing. Personal development done right is easy. It’s effortless. It’s fun!

Building your own character is just like building a character in a computer game, or like building a lego spaceship:

• you tack on a bunch of random stuff because you feel like it
• you keep experimenting and see what you like the best
• the process is just as much fun as the result
• there isn’t a final outcome – it’s an endless fun process, where you keep changing and tweaking things because you feel like it. The fun of a building set comes from building things, and the same is true with personal development.

I have tried all sorts of habit changes myself, like waking up early, meditating, being vegetarian, keeping a daily to-do list, or consciously changing my body language (that one was especially fun).

Some of them have stuck and some haven’t. But every single one of them was fun to try! (Yes, even waking up early).

How to Make Personal Development Fun

Here are a few ways to make personal development fun:

1. Forget about the outcome
2. Think of it as a fun experiment to see what happens
3. When you read/hear about cool ideas, TRY THEM
4. Do it with a friend (either offline or online)
5. Tell other people about your experiments (that’s one reason starting a blog is great)

Aaaand… yeah. If I ended right here, you would most likely go off nodding, thinking you learned something interesting but leaving your behavior unchanged.

I’m not a big fan of list posts for exactly that reason. That’s why I let this list occupy such a small part of this post.

Instead, I will give you one thorough example, to help you drive the concept deep into your subconscious. This will stimulate your subconscious mind’s creativity and get it thinking of how to make other personal development ideas fun.

An example of making personal development fun

You can approach any part of personal development as a game. I’m going to take open-mindedness as an example here:

…

Think of lying on a grass meadow on a warm summer day, with a friend, watching the clouds above.

“That one looks like a car,” you say pointing at a cloud.

“It looks like a dog to me…” your friend replies.

What is your reply? Do you jump up angrily and shout “NO, it’s definitely a car! You’re completely wrong!” and storm off?

Or do you say “Wait… hang on… oh yea! I can see what you mean. I’d actually say it’s a bit more of a tiger, but I can definitely see where you’re coming from with the dog.”

And then you can have more fun guessing all the other interpretations for that cloud. Maybe it can also be a motorcycle, or a pretzel…

And considering other people’s point of view is just like that. For a moment, you suspend all judgment, and see the world as they see it. And then you think of all other interpretations of the same situation, just to see what fun things you can come up with.

You can even find a friend who’s also interested in practicing open-mindedness and challenge each other with issues and ideas to be open-minded about.

One more thing. Notice how I never once mentioned how will open-mindedness be useful to you? That’s because focusing on the outcome will make it seem like a chore. Consider the outcome when choosing what habits to try, but once you get started, forget the outcome, and enjoy it like a game.

Personal development is fun. All you have to do is approach it in the right way.

…

Now stay with me, this is important. You might be tempted to skip the last few paragraphs.

Maybe you’re thinking of commenting, or retweeting this post.

Don’t. Not yet. Before you do anything else, I want you to use the information here.

Because while comments and retweets are nice, they’re not the real thing. The real thing is helping you improve your life.

So in a moment, when I say the word “now”, I want you to stop reading and start thinking. Think about your personal development, and how you could make it more fun. Then think of some specific actions you can take in the next 24 hours to make it more fun.

When you’re done, then you can go do something else. And if you come up with an interesting way of making personal development fun, please share it in the comments! 

Okay, ready? Three, two, one…

This blog post ends now.

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Contribution: Key to A Happy Life | Tony Robbins

When you think of your life, do you think about what’s missing? Or do you think about what you have?

If you always think about what you don’t have, you will tend to hold on to everything that you do have, because you feel that you have so little and thus not much to give. But listen to Tony as he explains how giving in times of extreme discomfort, when you feel “lack” and not abundance, can be the most valuable.

"The secret to living is giving."

Let me know what you think!

How to Make Personal Growth More Fun (and Easier) | Henrik Edberg

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”

Dale Carnegie

When you read this blog, other blogs and books on personal development it’s easy to get drawn into an atmosphere of this being really serious business.

And for someone who needs help it can be. If you are really out of shape or have a huge debt or haven’t had date in ages or just don’t know what to do with your life then it’s no fun.

However, as usual, I want emphasize what works here. And through my own experience these last few years I have discovered that taking this as deadly serious business makes things harder than they need to be.

So today I’d like to suggest a bunch of ways to make personal growth and achieving what you want more fun.

Think of it more as light and breezy fun rather than going to war.

No, you are not going to war. Thinking that you are can help you to ramp up enthusiasm and aggressiveness in the beginning. It seems to help you.

So you make any personal development goal – or just anything you want out of life – in to this epic struggle. Perhaps just in your mind or also by reading more and more about a topic.

The more you think and read about a topic the more complicated it seems in your mind and is also becomes “heavier”. What may have been pretty straightforward in real life becomes this huge struggle, where you are Rocky Balboa taking slow painstaking steps uphill against horrific odds. Yep, it’s a real inspiring thing as you struggle as the heroic underdog.

It’s also a great way to make things so much harder for yourself. It’s you putting up imaginary obstacles in your own mind that aren’t even there in reality. The Rocky way of thinking about these things is very seductive. But life becomes so much lighter and easier when you just let that stuff go.

It’s a bit counter-intuitive and it took me quite some time to understand this. You think that an overly serious attitude may seem like the right attitude to help you achieve your goal.

But a more relaxed and fun attitude where you tell yourself that what you are doing isn’t really that complicated, epic – millions of people have probably done what you want to do in last 1000 years or so – or super serious is often more effective to get the result you desire.

Of course, sometimes things will suck but I think that if you can approach things this way you’ll get more enjoyment on your path to your goal and you won’t put up extra obstacles on that path.

You can bring awareness to what you are thinking while on the daily walk on that path by asking yourself questions like “Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?” or ”Am I taking this a bit too seriously?”.

Find out what you have fun doing.

If you don’t like jogging don’t do it. Not everyone has be a runner to get exercise. Be curious and explore different options, perhaps soccer or table tennis is a better option for you? 
Finding what works and feels good for you makes it a lot easier to stick to the plan and be consistent each week rather than feeling like you have drag yourself to the gym again.

Detach from the outcome.

This is one of my favorite tips for making it easier to take action and to do so consistently. It makes the doing more enjoyable and there is less inner resistance or projections into the future that can screw things up.

I first got this tip from the ancient Sanskrit Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. It says:
“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”

This tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.

Basically, I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the possible results), well, that is not up for me to decide about or try to control. I let it go.

Now, I apply this when I do something. I can get motivated by future results before the doing the activity. But when I start doing any those activities I detach and change how I think. I just focus on showing up and doing. This may sound a bit weird or hard but after a while it gets easier and easier to do that shift in your mind and to not start projecting into the future while you are doing.

You can apply this to:

• Working out. By focusing on just showing up and doing the workout you won’t get discouraged when you haven’t lost x pounds after a week. You become more patient and more emotionally stable when you don’t think about losing that weight all the time. If you just show up and work out – and control what you eat – the pounds will come off.

• Blogging. If you don’t have to worry about what people may think about your next post then it becomes a lot easier to calmly write what you want instead of getting stuck in some kind of writer’s block.

• Social interactions. If you detach from an outcome such as someone liking you at a party or on a date then you’ll be less nervous. You won’t try to impress people. You will be more like how you are with your closest friends, relaxed and easy going. Just being yourself is an often cited and sometimes criticized piece of advice. By detaching from outcomes – while still of course using your common sense – it will be a lot easier to just be the best version of yourself.

Focus on the positive things from the past.

It’s easy to fall back into the common habit of focusing on your past failures. Doing so can make you feel like giving up. Or like this is a war. Or like getting out of your comfort zone is just one big hassle.

So I suggest changing your focus. Remember when things went well.

Awash your mind with positive memories.

Realise it can be fun to get out of your comfort zone despite what your mind and feelings might be telling you before you get started. Think back to the previous times when you have broken out of your rut. Focus on the positive memories, when you got out there, when you took a chance. And you’ll recall that it wasn’t so bad, it was actually fun and exciting and something new to you.

A lot of the time we automatically play back our negative experiences – or negative interpretations of events – in our minds before we are about to do something. And we forget about the positive memories and our previous, positive achievements. Avoid that trap. Let the fun and good memories flow through your mind instead and let things become easier.

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Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.
"Grit is passion and perseverance for very long term goals."
"Growth mindset: The belief that the ability to learn is not fixed: that it can change with your effort...When kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they are much more likely to persevere when they fail, because they don't believe that failure is a permanent condition."
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Emotional Intelligence - EQ | Travis Bradberry

As the bestselling coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, I'm often asked to break down what emotional intelligence is and why it's so important. Here goes...

Emotional Intelligence Is the Other Kind of Smart.

When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies.

• Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.

• Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior.

Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behavior, and motives in order to improve the quality of your relationships.

• Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.

• Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.

Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different.

Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior that is distinct from your intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. 

Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.
Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the stable “style” that defines each of us. Personality is the result of hard-wired preferences, such as the inclination toward introversion or extroversion. However, like IQ, personality can’t be used to predict emotional intelligence. Also like IQ, personality is stable over a lifetime and doesn’t change. IQ, emotional intelligence, and personality each cover unique ground and help to explain what makes a person tick.

Emotional Intelligence Is Linked to Performance.

How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short answer is: a lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. TalentSmart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs.

Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you say and do each day. Emotional intelligence is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence.

Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we’ve found that 90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim. Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more money—an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence. The link between emotional intelligence and earnings is so direct that every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary. These findings hold true for people in all industries, at all levels, in every region of the world. We haven’t yet been able to find a job in which performance and pay aren’t tied closely to emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed.

The communication between your emotional and rational “brains” is the physical source of emotional intelligence. The pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain, at the spinal cord. Your primary senses enter here and must travel to the front of your brain before you can think rationally about your experience. However, first they travel through the limbic system, the place where emotions are generated. So, we have an emotional reaction to events before our rational mind is able to engage. Emotional intelligence requires effective communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain.

“Plasticity” is the term neurologists use to describe the brain’s ability to change. Your brain grows new connections as you learn new skills. The change is gradual, as your brain cells develop new connections to speed the efficiency of new skills acquired.

Using strategies to increase your emotional intelligence allows the billions of microscopic neurons lining the road between the rational and emotional centers of your brain to branch off small “arms” (much like a tree) to reach out to the other cells. A single cell can grow 15,000 connections with its neighbors. This chain reaction of growth ensures it’s easier to kick this new behavior into action in the future. Once you train your brain by repeatedly using new emotional intelligence strategies, emotionally intelligent behaviors become habits.

Please let me know what you think below.

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Will Smith shares his secrets of success

Will shares what motivates him in various interviews, all brought together in this clip.  What comes across most is his incredible work ethic!
You don't set out to build a wall, you say "I'm gonna lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.  You do that every day, and soon you have  a wall!"

"He who says he can, and he who says he can't are both usually right."
"Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity."
"If we dream something, if we picture something, if we commit ourselves to it that that is a physical thrust towards realisation that we can put into the Universe.."
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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