Tackling Subconscious Fears

It is very tough to know what your fears really are.

Sometimes you can figure out logically why it is right for you to go out and earn £100 million or why it is right to have the most passionate relationship ever, but your life won't reflect what you know is logical.

You may find that you have set these goals and have lots of reasons why you want to achieve them, but you still find that you are not producing results that lead you in the direction of the goals.

The reason this happens is because you have beliefs that you are not consciously aware of that prevent you from acting towards these goals. For example, you may really want to be a multimillionaire, but you may feel that generating wealth involves lots of pain, because you might get rejected when you start new relationships with clients or you will have to work really really hard.

But how can you tackle limiting beliefs you are not even aware of?

I have developed two very powerful exercises for overcoming this challenge.

The first one is to take a bird's eye view over your entire life. Take a look at all your actions and decisions up until the present moment. Visualise the key moments in your life and see how your life has progressed. Once you reach the present moment, continue to visualise what will happen as you continue to take similar decisions and actions as you have done in the recent and maybe longer-term past. If you do this as honestly as you can, you can often get a strong idea of where your life is really heading. Sometimes it is easy to begin visualising yourself owning this massive company or helping lots of people, but when you look at the actions you are currently taking you might realise that some of the beliefs that cause you to make the decisions you do will seriously have to change.

Once you have done this exercise ask the following question.

What fears are holding me back from acting towards achieving my goals?

You will probably come up with a list of several fears.

Now take this list and work through each fear finding reasons why the fear is completely flawed or why the fear is not relevant. This may require some creativity but it is definitely worth it.

When doing this also try and visualise why the fears are flawed, because this will make it much more real for your brain.

It may be a good idea to try this exercise several times until you feel deep down that you are not afraid of pursuing your goals any more.

I think what is particularly powerful about these two exercises is that they tackle beliefs that you are not even consciously aware of. This also means that once they are changed you do not have to consciously pump yourself up to take the action you need to to achieve your goals, it should happen automatically because you mind will believe that taking action that will achieve your goals will be fun.

Creating a Business Idea

So you want to generate financial abundance for yourself and those around you. You plan to do this by going down the entrepreneurial route. There's only one problem - you don't have a business idea.

This is quite a big problem. How can you go out and get rich if you don't have an idea. If you don't have an idea, then you can't make a plan. If you can't make a plan then you can't act. If you can't act then you can't produce any results.

So what is the solution to this problem?

An idea.

All progress stops when you don't have an idea and everything can begin when you have an idea. There is no getting round this.

This means you need to employ every conceivable strategy possible to come up with your idea.

So what is it like to experience an idea? How do you know when you have really stumbled upon a great business idea?

Before you know if you have a great idea you have to be familiar with the industry. You might have a great idea, but someone out there may have already started working on it. Alternatively your idea may not be profitable at all.

So how do we overcome this problem?

If you have an industry which you prefer, then it might be a good idea to start studying that industry. Begin asking yourself questions like "what is missing from this industry?", "what would I really enjoy contributing to this industry?".

Once you start studying an industry you will likely begin finding things that are missing from that industry. You will probably begin to see places you can add value, or areas in which there are companies who have no competition and therefore produce poor products or services. These all represent opportunities.

Another great way of generating ideas is getting out of your current environment and experiencing loads of new things. For example, go travelling, go visit some friends far away, go away to some cottage out in the country somewhere for a week, etc. This will help you get a fresh perspective on how your idea is coming along.

Some important things to note...

Do not use your lack of an idea as an excuse for not generating value. Whatever it is you are doing at the moment to generate value, it is probably worth continuing to do so, unless it compromises you ability to generate your new idea.

Also, do not allow the fact that your "working on idea" to reduce your productivity. Just because you do not have an idea is no excuse for sleeping in until midday and then watching TV until 5 in the evening before you start doing anything. You have to make your actions congruent with that of producing a great idea. You also have to look after yourself in a way that when your idea comes along you are ready to give it 100%.

I've thrown a lot of information out here, so I'll summarise my key points below
-If you want to make a big contribution or increase your wealth substantially you need an idea
-Become aware of what it will feel like when you have this idea. You may already have a good idea, but not realise it
-Explore an industry you like and find out what you might be able to add to this industry
-Get out of your current environment to get a new perspective on your situation
-Get some new experiences under your belt
-Keep generating value for people until you have your idea, unless doing so compromises you generating an idea
-Get your lifestyle to a position where you will be ready to implement your idea the second you think of it

Sources of Motivation - Create or Prevent Fulfilment

Recently I have spent a lot of time considering how I want to be motivated. I have also considered what the different types of motivation are and the potential impacts they would have on my life.

From my research and thinking I have come up with two extreme sources of motivation. The concepts themselves are not unique and original, but from what I have found, the way in which I bring them together is.

So, the two extreme sources of motivation are

1. Ensuring your own security / staying alive
2. Providing value for others

The key characteristics of these two sources of motivation are

Ensuring Your Own Security / Staying Alive
-Scarcity mentality
-Based on the belief that there are limited resources and value to go around
-Does not make a person feel great about themselves
-Discourages integrity
-Less likely to produce massive results and unlikely to unlock much of a person's true potential
-Inspired by fear
-Self-orientated
-It is hard to be proud of the results produced by a lifetime of living this way

Providing Value for Others
-Abundance mentality
-Based on the assumption that a person can easily meet their needs and therefore changes their focus to how they can provide value for others
-Can be massively inspiring and motivating
-Encourages integrity
-Very likely to produce massive results and unlock much more of a person's true potential
-Inspired by love
-Others-orientated
-A person can be incredibly proud of the results they have produced and how they have lived after a lifetime of living this way
-When taken far enough it easily takes care of what the other source of motivation seeks to achieve

The above are the two extreme sources of motivation a person may have in life. It is rare to find a person whose motivation comes purely from one source. Most people will have a combination of the two.

What can be taken from this is that as a person moves further to the source of their motivation being to provide value to others they generally improve the quality of their lives.

It can be the case that in the short-run the quality of their life suffers slightly. For example, if a person gives up an hourly wage to try and run a toy manufacturing company they will probably suffer financially in the short-run. However, if the way they add value to others is a passion of theirs (in this case manufacturing toys) then it is highly likely that in the long-run they will increase the quality of their life and help others more. It is also true that if they are doing what they are passionate about then they are very likely to feel much better about themselves and therefore in a way the quality of their life has improved anyway.

Moving between these two sources of motivation is not something that is likely to happen overnight. Western culture heavily conditions people to focus on ensuring their own security, such as through the "get a job culture", rather than how they can contribute to others.

It can also be quite scary to initially make the switch. The most common fear is "if I just focus on adding value to others, then how will I pay the bills and keep my house, etc." The problem with this fear of switching is that it arises specifically because that person is still living with the mindset of being motivated by ensuring their own security. Once they make the leap to the other source of motivation that fear will no longer be relevant. A person will not be able to be motivated by providing value for others while consistently maintaining that thought pattern of fear.

Once a person intellectually recognises the benefits of the being motivated by providing value for others they have to gather enough faith to make the leap from being motivated by security.

I am yet to discover a case where being motivated by security creates a better and more fulfilling life than one motivated by providing value for others. This is one of the key reasons why I believe this theory to be so powerful.

So have a look at your own goals. Why is it that you want those goals? Could the reasons for wanting your goals link with how quickly and efficiently you are acting to achieve them?

Benefits of Tolerating Risk

I have just had another epiphany.

I have just been reading a book written by someone who has become very wealthy, but did not do it in a way that focussed on providing value to other people. I find that by reading perspectives from different people who have become wealthy, it is easier to isolate the core beliefs that are necessary for generating wealth from those which are not. With this information I can more efficiently tackle changing my own beliefs.

So anyway.

I have found that an interesting characteristic the wealthy share is their tolerance to risk. Risk tolerance is very closely related to a person's ability to overcome their fears. As you fear failure less you will be willing to take on more risk. I am beginning to believe that the ability to take on risk (sensibly) is one of the key factors that will in the long term benefit someone financially.

Another interesting thing I have picked up is how tolerance to risk can be applied to other areas, besides finance.

One of these areas is in your social life.

By enjoying risk you will enjoy expressing your true self more in social interactions. You will be more likely to crack jokes amongst people you do not know and you will be more likely to get involved more. This is because both of these things involve risk. Looking back on it now, it is often those friends of mine who are most comfortable with risk who are also the most fearless socially.

Now by being socially fearless they do not necessarily achieve the same outcome that I want to. For example, some socially fearless people I know treat people very harshly and do not feel regret (as far as I can tell). The outcomes they produce that I do like are ones such as being able to enjoy themselves a lot around people they do not know. They are also able to crack more jokes and it takes them much less time to form friendships.

To conclude...

1. Recognise the benefits that an increased tolerance to risk will give you financially and in other areas of your life
2. Find some ways in which you can improve your tolerance to risk
3. Apply it!

Create Systems to Make Life Easy

Life should be easy.

One of the things I focus on is to create systems so that I do not need to consciously remind myself to do things or be a certain way. In many ways this is the equivalent of creating long-term permanent change.

I'll explain.

How you act now is how you are naturally. If you find playing computer games fun and have everything set up so you can easily play them then that is part of who you are and will be unless you change it.

Creating a life system is changing your beliefs and environment so that you naturally do things differently and you do not have to think really hard to do them. For example, if you want to earn a living from blogging, then it will be easier for you if you have beliefs that mean you really love blogging. It will also help you if you have all the facilities available to you.

What I try to do is create changes that make results happen for me naturally. For example, when I wanted to get fitter I tried to change my beliefs permanently so that I enjoyed getting fitter and ensured that I had all the equipment and plans for doing so. More specifically, now I have all the running equipment I could want and I focus on the things I enjoy about running. As a result I run almost daily and really enjoy it.

This is one of my examples of creating a "system for living".

What I am trying to get at is that achieving goals should not involve forcing yourself to get up every morning and pressuring yourself to do things every day (not to be confused with not having any pressure to follow through). The ideal way of achieving goals is to have a system that means you don't need to think consciously about it in order to do it. This will allow you to fully embrace the moment or as some people describe being in the "zone" or the "flow state" while still achieving your goals.

Purpose and Passion ... and Why I Have Been Away

Where have I been?

Tomorrow it will 2 months since my last blog post. What have I been up to?

To say it in as short as possible, I have had a rather large change of lifestyle. I have started studying for a degree at university.

The reason I have not been posting is a combination of reasons. One is that I have been up trying lots of different things out. Another is that I almost forgot about blogging for a while when I was so caught up in the first few weeks just making sure I was registered for everything. Another part of me forgot the joy I receive from blogging and began viewing it as something I "needed" to do, but would never do just for the fun of it.

So why did I start blogging again?

I consider myself at one of the biggest turning points of my life at the moment. I am currently building the foundation for my future career. I have some vague goals set and plan to make them more specific. My biggest hurdle at the moment is finding my true purpose. My key focus at the moment is to find my purpose.

While journalling about what my purpose could be I also explored what some of my passions were. One of these I reminded myself was sharing my beliefs and developments with others, which reignited my passion for blogging again.

So here I am.

So what information can I provide that might be useful for you?

Here are my speculations as it stands.

To achieve fulfilment you must experience a life of overcoming challenge, contribution, love, growth and enjoying how you do it.

Carrying out these different factors come from doing different things.

-Overcoming challenge, growth and contribution comes from setting and achieving goals
-Love comes from aligning with your purpose and developing your beliefs
-Enjoying how you do it comes from completing your goals using an approach that you enjoy

Setting and achieving goals lies very much at the route of this. The key to setting and achieving goals is motivation. This means we need a reason to achieve our goals. There must be a fundamental reason from which all our goals develop. I believe this is comes from our purpose. You can tell when people have this because of the extraordinary things they achieve, such as Tony Robbins. My current aim is to discover a purpose that is so in line with who I am that all my goals seem obvious. My challenge after that is to find the most passionate and enjoyable ways of achieving these goals.

Then I speculate, I will be fulfilled.

Commit to Someone Else for a Change

Have you committed to someone to make the change you really want to make?

If you look back at some of the greater things you have achieved in the past you will probably noticed that they were for one of two reasons.

1. You were so incredibly passionate about it so that you didn't need any encouragement in following through on a daily basis.
2. You somehow felt as though you had made a commitment to someone else to achieve your goal and would feel as though you were letting them down if you did not follow through every day and achieve it.

Being passionate about something is an amazing way to achieve a goal you want. Sometimes, however, you may find yourself passionate about a goal, but not so passionate about how you can get there.

This is an instance where it is great to make a commitment to someone else to follow through everyday.

Say for example you want to massively improve your fitness. In order to do so you will have to start doing some form of exercise on almost a daily basis. Now you may be incredibly passionate about transforming your fitness, but hate getting up early in the morning to go for runs.

The solution to this challenging situation is to make the commitment to someone to go on those runs everyday. For example, make the commitment to your family or partner so that you can have more energy when you are with them.

Making a commitment like this works, because deep down you know that going for a run everyday is good for you, but you just don't like the actual process of running.

Another way of looking at making a commitment is that it tips the balance of your pleasure and pain associations in your favour. Before making the commitment you associate more pain to going on a run than pleasure, so you would probably not follow through with the goal you set yourself. However, after making the commitment you associate more pain to not following through, because by not going you will be letting other people down.

One of the great things about making a commitment to someone is that the pressure gets you started on achieving your goals. After a few weeks or months of following through with your goals it starts to become second nature to do it and you no longer need the commitment. As you become more familiar with the process you will probably begin finding ways of enjoying it too.

Overcoming Fear of Failure

Once you realise that almost anything you want in life is achievable the biggest obstacle you will have to overcome is the fear of failure.

So what is the best way to take on the niggle in the back of your head saying "what if I fail?"

The easiest way I believe to overcome this fear is to look at the situation differently. Once you understand intellectually why facing potential failure is a good thing, it becomes easier to address the more specific fears you have about failure.

I believe the cost of not facing potential failure in some areas of your life is greater than experiencing the actual failure itself.

Take for example the fear of starting your own business and going bankrupt as a result. This is a pretty common fear that keeps most people as employees for all their lives. But what if your worst fears actually came true?

I could not think of many more character building things than overcoming bankruptcy. Furthermore there would be so much to learn about yourself as well as finances by living through the process. Think of some of the great people who have faced bankruptcy and come back, most notably Donald Trump. The people that come back often go on to live lives that are much better than they ever were before. Although bankruptcy destroys all your financial assets it grows your greatest personal asset which is who you are as a person.

I'm not trying to glorify bankruptcy, I am trying to emphasize that our greatest fears are not as bad as they seem. Very often it is worth taking on something where we fear failure, because the real reward comes in who you become as a person by taking on the challenge, not necessarily just the end result.

To summarize all this: You have a choice. You can take on the challenge of achieving what you want most in life, e.g. financial independence, the perfect relationship for you, great health, etc. or you can play it safe and not achieve those things, but not risk losing what you already have. The cost of not taking on the challenge is not only that you will never live to experience the things you truly deserve in life, but you become less of a person, because you will live a life that has been bound by fear.

When you remember that in life all you really have is who you are as a person the choice becomes somewhat easier to make.

Deciding Whether to Listen to Criticism

How do we know whether someone's criticism is helpful or not? When is it in our best interest to listen to someone's criticism?

When receiving criticism always remember the following fact - sharing someone's beliefs comes at the cost of producing the same results as them.

A really common form of criticism in society is the criticism of status. If you obtain status in any area of life, be it through sports, health, finances, contribution, etc. then there will always be some form of criticism.

More often than not, this criticism will come from someone who is producing results that are not as good as yours (often resulting in lower status) or is threatened by the results you are producing.

When you receive a criticism like this you can either carry on whatever it is you are doing or you can do what those who are criticizing you say you should do. However, as was said earlier, if you do what others of lower status say you should do then you will eventually produce the same results as them.

Another way of looking at the choice you have is this: You can either carry on producing the results you do, e.g. healthy body, improving your finances, etc. or you can reduce the quality of results you are producing, e.g. eat less healthily or reduce you financial wellbeing, etc.

You can also look at this situation from the opposite perspective. Say someone who is producing better results than you gives you advice or criticizes you then again you have two choices, but the choices are flipped. You can choose to try out their advice and potentially produce better results like they are or you can ignore the criticism and continue to produce the results that you always have done.

When you look at criticism in this way it makes it much easier to choose whether to listen to it or not. When you have more experience at dealing with criticism the real question you will want to answer becomes "what is the best way to handle the situation when I decide not to listen to someone's criticism?"

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Thanks to the following for including this article in
-The Live the Power Unlimited Carnival located at Live the Power

A Model for Successful Living

Having taken the time to study what successful living is all about I have tried to come up with a very simple model for how the process works.

How one lives successfully is very subjective, but I believe this model is flexible enough to incorporate anyone's opinion of success and the path one must take to achieve it.

The model

1. Assume responsibility for your life

You are the only person responsible for your life in the long-run. It is ultimately how you act and are as a person that causes everything in your life to be how it is. Understanding this concept means you acknowledge that no one else but you has the full potential to take control of your life.

2. Recognize unlimited choice in possibilities and potential

As you accept that you are responsible for everything in your life, e.g. your health, finances, relationships, etc. you realize that you have created all the results you have up until now. This also means that you can create any result you want in the future. When you understand this you understand that you have complete choice over what any area of your life will be like in the future.

3. Decide - what you want/your goals/your future, etc

After realizing that you can choose exactly how to live your life and choose all the results you experience in life then you have to decide exactly what results and experiences you want.

4. Act

You must take action in order to produce the results you want.

5. Measure your results

After producing results from taking action you can now see whether or not you produced the results that you wanted. If you did then you can celebrate and set new goals to challenge yourself. If you did not produce the results you wanted then you need to take action again but in a different way. This process is cyclical until you finally produce the results you want.

The simplicity of this model leaves it open to much interpretation. I therefore believe it is a useful guide, but not a comprehensive answer to successful living. I do, however, believe that the answer to a question like "how do I live successfully?" is easier to figure out when you have some idea of what the answer looks like.

One Day Trial to Beat Procrastination

If you find that you are good at following through on some challenges you set yourself, but consistently procrastinate in other areas of your life then the following "one day trial" strategy may be very helpful for you.

This simple strategy helps overcome the following challenges.

1. It gets you to follow through on the things you usually procrastinate on.
2. It gets you to try a lot harder at the tasks you usually try half-heartedly because you are tired or don't feel like doing them, etc.

The Strategy

1. Make a list of everything you would like to do tomorrow that will help you create a great future and enjoy the process, e.g. exercise, review goals, research and eat healthy foods, research investment opportunities, etc.
2. Decide how long you want to spend on each task. Set a time that will demand high efficiency to complete it in the alloted time.
3. Order your tasks so that you have to do your least favourite and most likely to procrastinate tasks on first. Doing these tasks first will not only make sure you do them, but will also make the other tasks for the day seem a lot easier and give you great momentum for the day.
4. Add up the hours and check you have set a realistic amount of time for the day, not forgetting you might need to eat.

This plan should only be designed for one day. This has a very important affect on your psychology. If you look at it this way you don't have to worry about spending too much energy or worry about trying and failing, because it's only one day. If at the end of the day you don't like that you followed through on all your challenges then you can scrap having one day plans and at least you know not to spend any time feeling bad about not following through because you don't enjoy it anyway.

And that's only assuming that you do not enjoy following through. Imagine if you do enjoy following through on all those things you normally procrastinate on. Think how much a discovery like that could change your life.

I will leave you with the motivational text I had at the top of my one day plan to help me follow through when I first did it.

"Try it for a day 100% and see how it goes – if it changes your life keep it, if it is rubbish, then don’t, but you will only know if you try 100%. This could massively change how you feel about yourself and your ability to produce results, just DO IT."

Being the World's Greatest ...

What kind of mindset does it take to be successful in any field?

If you focus on a number of people involved in any particular area of expertise (e.g. investing, sport, charity work, fitness, etc) there will a rough group structure as follows.

1. There are people who are terrible at the skill or expertise who try and fail, but never learn. These kind of people do not often stay in a field for a long period of time.
2. There are people who do it for the fun of it, have some success here and there, but don't contribute massively to the field, except for in their sheer numbers.
3. There are the people that do it for a living, e.g. fund managers, professional athletes, etc. These people contribute the most of the 3 groups so far, but they are often not as pro-active in their contribution and commitment as they could be.
4. There are people who commit and dedicate themselves to excellence. They pro-actively set goals to challenge themselves to expand their current skill level and the level of all others, e.g. Warren Buffet, Michael Jordan, Mother Teresa, Lance Armstrong, etc.

Numbers 1 to 3 will make up the majority of any field of expertise. Often those in group 4 are the ones that set the boundaries and standards of possibility for the other groups.

So what are some of the mindsets that make group 4 different from the others?

In a way the answer to this is partly what my blog is all about, but I will focus on one specific answer here.

People in group 4 are unique, because they share a different mindset to the people in the other groups. The beliefs they have cause them to act differently to the others which causes them to produce different results.

I like to call the mindset they share as intelligent counter-convention.

What I mean by intelligent is that their beliefs are very well thought out, especially in terms of achieving their outcome. When you hear and read about anyone who is the very top of their field they always seem to have beliefs that are entirely congruent with producing top results.

What I mean by counter-convention is that the beliefs shared by group 4 will often run contrary to those of the rest of the group. If they did not then they would produce similar results to groups 1 to 3.

Warren Buffet, the person to generate most wealth through investing in the world, is a great example of this. When you read about him or watch him speak you get to hear how his beliefs are subtly different from the majority of the investing world. These differences from everyone else are what allows him to consistently beat the stock market indexes.

So what can we learn from all this?

1. If you have well developed beliefs about a particular skill and you are largely criticised for them, do not scrap those beliefs straight away. There are countless examples in history where someone has been criticised initially for doing something and later rewarded for having done it. Groups 1 to 3 will want you to share the same beliefs as them, but this will come at the cost of producing the same results as them.
2. If you are going to copy beliefs from someone, pro-actively choose these beliefs. Copy the beliefs from people who are producing the results you want. If you only want to enter a field for a bit of relaxation, e.g. playing a sport in your free time, then copying beliefs from the world's greatest may not be the best strategy for you.
3. Do not forget that you have a choice of which group you can be a part of.

I cannot think of a successful person in the world who does not exhibit some type of intelligent counter-convention. If you can please tell me. I believe it is an essential factor to rise above the majority and contribute your full potential.

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Thanks to the following for including this article in
-The Live the Power Unlimited Carnival located at Live the Power
-The Carnival of Money, Growth and Happiness located at Credit Card Lowdown

Small Chunking to Achieve Big Goals

A while ago I set myself some very large goals intending to completely transform my life. After doing so I definately took some steps in the right direction, but I still found myself taking no where near enough action to making them a reality as soon as I would like.

I thought and researched hard about what was holding me back. To summarise all my research and thinking I came to the following conclusions on how best to tackle these monster goals.

I decided to small chunk my goals so that I could eventually reach my larger goals one step at a time. This method is working for me because after completing the first mini-goal I have the foundation for the next mini-goal. Eventually all these mini-goals stack up to achieve the big goals I had set in the first place.

Say you are overweight and you want to lose 2 stone of fat. This would be your large goal. You may know that you should eat less and exercise more but you would probably not have the expertise to get a diet and exercise program to see you through to your final goal. As a result you may make changes to your eating and exercising that do not benefit you much and even if you do make correct changes a lack of belief that what you are doing is helping may cause you to give up before you can even see any benefits from the changes. However, if you set a mini-goal of losing 2 pounds then this would have a completely different affect on your psychology.

Setting smaller mini-goals helps you for the following reasons.

1. It increases your motivation much more if you have doubts of whether or not you can achieve your larger goal. For example, if you are overweight you are more likely to believe that you have the power to lose 2 pounds than 2 stone.
2. It will be easier for you to figure out how to achieve to a smaller goal in something you are unfamiliar with than your large one. Once you have figured out how to get to your first mini-goal you can then figure out how to get to the next and so forth.
3. It gives you confidence, because if you're ever doubtful about achieving your major goal you can always look back at a number of smaller goals you have achieved along the way and remind yourself how far you have come. This would be harder to do if you didn't have the smaller goals to reflect on.
4. You are more likely to take a tiny step out of your comfort zone than one massive bound into a large fear.

This technique is a great way to achieve larger success, because when you small chunk to a small enough level it becomes easy to achieve your next goal. The biggest change this will have on your goal achievement is that psychologically it is much easier to get started. Once you get started you will begin to build up the momentum to carry you through to your final goal and have a path of where you came from to look back on and be proud of.

How Responsibility Transcends the "Life is Unfair" Attitude

How do you deal with "unfair" situations? How do you feel if someone receives something better for doing less work than you? Is it right that you sometimes end up worse off than someone else even though you have better intentions?

When you say that something is unfair it implies that what happens to you is outside of your control. One of the main things I believe self-improvement is about is learning to take more responsibility and control for your life and destiny. The problem with claiming that something is unfair is that is has the complete opposite effect. Even if there are rare instances where you have absolutely no control over your current situation maintaining this attitude in the long term will cause you to relinquish control of your life.

So how can you deal with seemingly unfair situations?

You do everything in your power to try and get what you want. Let's say, for example, you apply for a job and someone who is less qualified than you gets it. This is a situation that you could potentially view as unfair. A good way to react to this situation is to continue to assume responsibility and try different means of getting the job. For example, you could continue to write to the employer expressing your belief of your suitability, you could offer unpaid internship to prove yourself, you could request feedback from interview and improve on the things where they thought you were weak, etc.

From the above example you can see that as long as you continue to assume responsibility there will always be more ways in which to act. Deciding that something is unfair is similar to accepting defeat, because you are saying to yourself that it is no longer up to you to get what you want.

I do, however, believe there are situations when it can be helpful to claim unfairness. It can be helpful to claim unfairness if it will cause you to get the result you want while remaining in line with your values. For example, if you are unfairly descriminated against in a job interview then I believe you can claim unfairness to the government, because this could help you get the job you want.

There are different ways in which the term unfair can be used. I want to be clear that I strongly believe it should be avoided when it becomes an attitude you have that causes you to give up control and responsibility. In my last example using unfairness is acceptable, because it is used to your advantage and you are still taking control of the situation.

Giving up the "life is unfair" attitude is another step you can take to accepting more responsibility for your life.

How to Beat Procrastination 2

What follows is a technique that I have found very effective for overcoming procrastination. I have already discussed one technique that I apply in this post, however, I believe that goals should be attacked from all angles and therefore the more techniques there are to use the better.

Procrastination arises when you feel doing something will cause you more pain than not doing it. Eventhough you logically know you should do it, you will not follow through with it if you feel like it will cause you pain or struggle.

What you therefore need to do is start seeing the pleasure in that thing that you "have" to do to achieve your goals. This could apply to doing exercise, speed reading practise, making a difficult phone call, etc.

For example, when thinking about exercise most people see the pain of exerting themselves and getting out of the house. The people that enjoy exercising see it as an opportunity to challenge themselves, experience some endorphins, get some fresh air and give themselves more energy for the rest of the day.

It really does come down to how you look at it and believe you will experience it. The actual activity of "going for a run" is not what differs from person to person greatly. It is the perception of it that differs so much.

So how do you change how you look at a certain activity?

What I do first is consciously ask myself the question "where is the fun in this activity?" I ask myself this question in different ways until I come up with the answer. Once I have come up with this answer I make the picture of the fun part of the activity big and bright and really feel the experience. With enough practise this becomes very easy and now I no longer find myself struggling to follow through with these activities, because I want to do them anyway.

If having read this you are thinking "well that sounds like a great exercise, but I really can't be bothered" then ask yourself that question now about following through with this very exercise. Once you enjoy carrying out this exercise you can use it to begin finding the fun in everything else you "should" be doing, but do not really want to do.

If there were a set of key challenges to overcome on the road to success, beating procrastination would be one of them. Enjoy this exercise :)

Discover Your Core Beliefs

Sometimes I find that the beliefs that I think and journal about are not always the ones that I act on. I have mentioned this phenomenon in greater detail in this post.

I believe this is a common situation, because a belief that makes sense to us logically will not necessarily govern our actions as much as years of conditioning will.

So how can you know what your real beliefs are if what you talk about is not in line with how you act?

You have to review your past actions and ask "what belief would caused me to do that?"

It's a pretty simple exercise, but the real effectiveness comes in the application of it. Taking the time to compare your intellectual beliefs and your core beliefs will help you to become a more congruent person.

It may also help you to learn more about the beliefs that are guiding your actions. You can then use this valuable information to help determine whether these beliefs are moving you closer or farther away from you goals.

The Cost of Indecision

In some area of your life you may be undecided about something. Undecided about whether to commit fully to a relationship, whether to quit your job and start your own business, or whether to give up eating the trashy foods you love, etc.

The reason I find myself in this situation is because I feel that once I make a decision I may live to regret it. I fear a potential feeling of regret therefore I shy away from making the decision.

Recently, however, I have come to look at the situation differently. By looking at in this new way I understand that indecision is in fact setting myself up for greater regret. If I spend my whole life undecided about a major part of my life then I will not be giving my all to it. If I was to regret anything when looking back on my life it would be that I did not give my all to something. I could not imagine more pain than realising that I could have given more, lived life fuller and enjoyed myself more.

As well as everything I have just mentioned is the fact that once a decision on something major is made your life is no longer the same. Points you argued before making the decision are no longer relevant. For example, before committing to a relationship you may fear that you will never have the opportunity to be with anyone else, however, after making that commitment you could probably think of nothing worse than being with someone else.

There are probably more places than one in your life where you are hovering on a big decision. Once you have all the information you can realistically have about a decision you should not spend too long making that decision. Although it may seem difficult, it would be better to say you gave your all to your decision and not succeeded first time, than to live with having never made a decision at all.

Using Sport to Understand Financial Success

After looking back on some of the things that have made me a successful sportsman I have observed many links between sporting and financial success.

Some of these are simple and obvious, but as you look through this list I hope you find at least one little nugget that you can add to your arsenal for tackling financial or indeed sporting success.

Key: Sporting advice (corresponding financial advice)

1. Pick your sport wisely (pick your field of expertise and vehicle for creating financial abundance wisely)
2. Pick your team wisely (surround yourself with good people)
3. Buy equipment that you can get the most out of for your standard, e.g. sticks, clubs, boots, etc (get equipment with a good benefit to cost ratio, e.g quality of computers, speed of internet connection, etc)
4. Get good coaches (get good financial coaches, gurus or educational products)
5. Play above your standard (surround yourself with people achieving better results/earning more money than you)
6. Make friends with players from better teams (e.g build relationships with more successful businessmen)
7. Have your reason to improve be to benefit your team (Have your reason to improve be to benefit your family or someone else)
8. Coach (share your knowledge)
9. Exercise daily (review your accounts daily)
10. Know your goals and review daily (ditto)

Can You be Too Confident in Your Beliefs?

When are the best times to be close-minded about your beliefs? Can it really be constructive to not acknowledge another person's point of view? Are you making yourself vulnerable by being too open-minded?

Let´s say you become very confident in a particular belief of yours. Often you will stop seeing credibility in any belief but your own. This can have some pretty negative consequences, because there is always the possibility that there is a more resourceful belief out there than your own. If you refuse to acknowledge any new beliefs then you will never allow yourself the opportunity to make use of a better belief.

However, being very confident in your beliefs is a very good way of convincing others of your beliefs. For example, If you're starting a new business and you're looking for financial support, when you speak to investors you are much more likely to receive investment if you are 100% confident that you're business will be successful.

So where do we draw the line? How can we know if we are too confident in our beliefs? Can we even be too confident?

I believe to overcome this challenge we need the flexibility to be both 100% confident in our beliefs and open to new beliefs. I don't, however, believe it is possible to experience these two different states at the same time. What we need to know is when to experience which one.

I believe that if we are teaching others of our beliefs, for example speaking in front of a crowd, or, as earlier, pitching for an investment, then we should be 100% confident in our beliefs.

If I was having a discussion with a friend or with a small group of people then I would be very flexible and open-minded about my beliefs, because this is a great atmosphere in which to challenge and develop my beliefs.

I believe this type of flexibility is the most effective way of making the best of both worlds.

Using Different Advice from Different Gurus

In my last two posts I have talked about the use of immersion to achieve a large goal, such as becoming financially independent.

In order to achieve large goals I believe as many different techniques as possible should be used. So what is another effective technique to achieve a large goal?

As I mentioned in my previous posts different people will offer different advice for achieving the same goal. This happens because people's advice comes from a simplification of their reality. People will therefore produce different advice if they are simplifying different realities.

So what's the best way of tackling this issue?

Try out every one's advice. This is a real simple one, but not necessarily that obvious. If two gurus in an area are offering different advice. Try them both out and measure your results. Then go find another guru and try out his advice. If you continue this process you will eventually achieve your goal, because you will eventually find advice that is most suited to your reality.