2009 In Review: Did You Focus On What You Really Wanted?
I’m sitting at a Max Brenner “chocolate by the bald man” shop, slurping a dark chocolate iced frappe in Melbourne as I type this on my macbook air.
This is the first chance I’ve had to get some laptop time in the past three days because I’ve attended a wedding of a high-school friend. What made the wedding unique is because it was an Indian wedding, which means it’s a big occasion, with over 250 people showing up at different ceremonies, held over three days.
Melbourne is a great city, my second favorite in Australia after my hometown of Brisbane. I love the trams, and although the weather is a bit unpredictable, I like how much cooler it is compared to Brisbane. It’s like Brisbane winter temperatures in summer at night in Melbourne – that means long pants and no sweating, a welcome relief from what has been a hot summer in Brisbane so far. Most of the biggest events come to Melbourne, including the Australian Open tennis, my favorite tournament of the year.
The wedding has been an amazing experience, with such a variety of ceremonies, including traditional Indian customs, food, dancing and clothing. I have a small family, so seeing such a massive group of people come together essentially just for two people, along with all the emotions involved, is at times overwhelming, yet an inspiring experience too.
If you want to see photos from the wedding I’ve tweeted a few of them, so just check out my Twitter profile for the links. And if you’re reading this – a big thank you to Venkatesh and Nishi for the invite to your wedding, and congratulations again.
The Year That Was
Now that the wedding is over I’m back to the real world, thinking about what’s coming next in my life. No doubt you’re thinking about what’s coming up for you in 2010 as well.
This is the last blog post I’m going to write this year, actually – this decade. That makes it a great time for reflection.
In 2009 I turned 30, and celebrated that milestone on this blog with a reflective blog post looking back over the last ten years of my life. You can read it here -
How To Become Comfortable With Yourself
Since I’ve already covered the highlights of the last decade, and this blog is a chronicle of the last five years of my life, I’m going to focus now only on the year that was and also what’s coming up next.
Looking at small time-frames works a lot better for me. I don’t make five year plans. I don’t even make one year plans. I do look to the past to help me frame my future intentions, however they serve more as learning tools and reference points for what I want now more than anything else.
2009 has been a particularly inspiring year for me because I realized how completely in control of my reality I am. Sure I’ve understood that idea long before this year, but it was more a concept to me, something that made sense but didn’t always manifest exactly how I would expect it to if I was in control. In 2009, especially now in December as I look back, I realize this year more than any other year, was a reflection of what I wanted to experience and thus made physical.
The Law Of Attraction
Earlier in the month I attended a live one day seminar by Jerry and Esther Hicks, who you may know as major players in the movement that is the law of attraction. The Secret DVD featured a lot of content from them, though I should clarify, it’s not specifically these two people who teach, it’s an entity named Abraham, who speaks through Esther, who does the teaching.
If you’re skeptical when you hear the idea of someone “channeling” another being, I don’t blame you, I’ve felt similar judgments in the past, although it’s not such a big deal for me any more. I don’t care where people say information comes from, we just put labels on things to give different meaning. Whether it’s experts, channeled entities, or even god who is speaking to you, it’s all the same thing. Listen to the message, not the messenger, and if it resonates, take it on board.
If you need the messenger to help lend credibility, that’s fine, just don’t be too quick to judge before you listen to the words. Far too many people miss out on potentially life changing insights because they refuse to take on ideas simply because of where the information is coming from. If something challenges your way of thinking, don’t reject it on principle, keep your eyes and mind open, listen to the words, see how what is being said can fit into your world view, and grow from there. You don’t have to like or even trust the messenger, to benefit from the message.
Setting Intentions
Seeing Abraham speak live on stage was a great experience. However it was the days that followed the event that I realized I had turned a corner in my ability to control what happens in my life.
What was interesting about this awareness was not that I suddenly could manifest whatever I wanted, it was that I had already done it – and in this case, manipulated aspects of my life that I previously struggled to change. I’m talking about aspects of my personality and life that had remained rigid for years, which in the space of months had completely changed, and it was all thanks to what I was thinking, the actions I was taking as a result and what thus manifested in my physical world.
Since we are reflecting, it’s worth taking a moment now to look back over the previous 12 months of your life and ask yourself these questions -
Is It Really Possible To Create The Change You Want In Your Life?
This is part one of a series on how to create positive change in your life based on what has worked for me, what hasn’t, and what I’m currently learning. Rather than write one of my usual 4000+ word monster articles I’m breaking it down for you into more manageable chunks.
This is going to be a very important series if you’re ready to arm yourself with some powerful tools in the battle for happiness, success and contentment in your life, so get ready. Here we go…
This Is Who I Am
As a blogger you are at times more open with your thoughts and feelings online than you might be in person, even with your closest friends and family. Despite knowing that thousands of people read this blog every day, I find it easier and I’m much more succinct, when I share my thoughts and ideas here, at least when it comes to certain subjects.
One of the wonderful, if surprising at first, experiences as a result of being open with people through a blog is that eventually you gain some kind of notoriety for being good at something. When I started Entrepreneurs-Journey I wanted to share my business experiences simply for the sake of sharing and to see whether other people found what I had to say of value. Some people did find what I had to say valuable, so I kept saying things, and more and more people found me and started listening.
Eventually my perception online became that of an “authority” in my niche, at least to a small sub-segment of the population. I became a “someone” rather than an audience, in one little corner of the universe, in this case as a blogger who talks about entrepreneurship, marketing, and personal development.
This is a great event for all kinds of reasons, but the most important reason, and be sure to underline this, is that with authority, more people actually read what I write. With the attention that authority gives me, I enjoy the privilege and honor of being able to influence people. This is power and it’s something you have to be very careful with as power is trust, and you don’t want to abuse people’s trust.
What’s a little strange for me is that I’ve not really done anything to enjoy my position other than tell you what I think and do. I haven’t been officially trained to do this in any way, I didn’t go to school to learn to blog (I started one instead), nor was I instructed along the way about the right way to do things. In reality I’m pretty much exactly the same as you are right now, except I’ve spent the last five years sharing aspects of my life through this blog over and over again, week after week.
The Challenge That Is Changing Yourself
How To Become Comfortable With Yourself
Reflections On My 30th Birthday
As I type this I just turned 30 years old and if you’re reading this and it’s still Sunday July 19 where you are, make sure you wish me a happy birthday 
.
I had a conversation leading up to my 30th birthday with a fellow 29 year old who was heading towards her 30th with a little trepidation. She had just divorced her husband, so needless to say she was experiencing significant changes in her life.
Personally I don’t look at 30 as a big deal, although there was one comment this particular girl made that caught my attention. She said as people turn 30 they usually are in one of two places – they have their “shit” together or they don’t. I told her I was about as happy as I could remember in my life as I turned 30, so her conclusion was I was one of those people who has their “shit together”. Yay for me.
It Was The Worst Of Times
It’s natural to reflect on your life as you get older, especially at milestone ages. If I look over my twenties I can certainly say it has been a wild ride, full of highs and lows.
I left my teenage years and entered my twenties while I was at university, not really enjoying my studies, not very motivated by much and just uncomfortable in my own skin.
The problem when your own self worth is low, is that you have great difficulty digging yourself out. You generally attract experiences to enhance your low self esteem because you view the world in “sad” glasses. Until you can switch the conversation going on inside your head from negative to positive, your experiences in the outside world will reflect this, further enhancing your negative belief structure.
In order to truly become confident, you need to have experiences that have a positive impact on you. There’s only so far re-framing your interpretation of events and thinking positive can take you, eventually you have to actually have the positive experiences to build your confidence.
As a result of my dogged determination to remain unhappy, I experienced many low-points. I’d have to say my time with panic attacks and anxiety during my early twenties was one of my least-favorite periods.
As always, thanks to the wonderful world of polarities that we exist in, the trauma caused by these experiences forced me to seek out answers to big questions. If I didn’t suffer the pain, I wouldn’t have gone looking for answers to certain questions either – you need the ying in order to see the contrast and thus fully experience the yang.
I won’t go into detail here, but if you want to read more about my experience with panic and the resultant search for happiness, you can read this –
During my early twenties I had a few part time jobs and experimented with different web projects. My most successful at this time was my Magic: The Gathering card game website, which I grew to the largest site of its kind in Australia and then later sold for $13,000, the first big website deal I made.
I also started my proofreading business BetterEdit.com in my early twenties, which I would invest serious time into growing, including trips to university campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hawaii, Vancouver and Toronto to promote using posters.
From 20 to 25 years old I spent a lot of time playing with different projects and gained a lot of experience. I also began my study of Internet marketing during this time, and delved into more philosophical and spiritual studies too, as a means to figure out why the world is the way it is and what I could do to be happier in it.
I don’t look back on my first five years in my twenties as the most fun of times. Sure there were good times in there, but much of the experience was sabotaged by my attitude. I’m glad to have gone through that period for the growth it provided for me as a person, but I wouldn’t want to go back there again.
It Was The Best Of Times
A clear contrast to my first five years in my twenties, from 25 to 30 my life went from good to better to great, and thankfully, it’s still going!
It’s funny how as you get your “shit” together, people start to look at you as if you have answers to a question that has been bugging them for a long time – what to do with their life. Read the rest of this entry >>
How To Master The Inner Game Of Business And Life
I remember a year or so ago I was trawling a popular Internet marketing forum. This particular forum has some successful marketers, but mostly the members are opportunity seeking newbies, including lots of young guys who are looking to make money online quick and care little for hard work.
I did an “ego” search in this particular forum for my name (market feedback I swear!), and came across a thread from some people discussing my Blog Profits Blueprint free report. Someone had asked how to make money blogging and my report was referenced by another member.
Some of the feedback was positive, but there was also a few replies that were along the lines of…
“It’s full of too much fluff”
“Just show me how to make money”
etc…
My report talked too much about things you control with your mind, like being consistent and persistent, finding passion and then narrowing down to a focus, and not enough about specific techniques that just make money flow like mana from heaven.
Put in other terms, these particular people wanted to know the “how” without really knowing the “why”. Unfortunately, you can make a little money by implementing certain techniques, but if you don’t know why you are doing something and how it fits into the big picture, and most importantly, how you as the owner of your business impact your results, then any success you have will be short lived.
I wasn’t really upset about these comments, rather I felt bad for people who wanted a quick fix and weren’t seeing what they were doing online as building a long term sustainable asset. They preferred to flutter from technique to technique hoping to strike it rich one day, just like miners digging for gold.
Impatient people rarely have time for “mindset” lessons, thus they will stop reading an article like this after the first few paragraphs. Discussing things like the inner game seems useless to them. In their opinion all you need to do is figure out what works and do it, there’s no need to worry about much more than that. That might work if we were all robots, but we’re not, so you do need to pay attention to your fallible human characteristics, like your thoughts and your feelings.
The Inner Game of Business
What the people in the forums were neglecting is the importance of your “inner game”. The concept of the inner game is widely used in fields like personal development, in the seduction community and is talked about in business circles as well, yet I find people often have trouble grasping exactly what the inner game is, since it’s such an intangible aspect of life.
Some people, particularly men of course, don’t like to talk about things like feelings and thoughts, when they consider what really matters are actions and outcomes. That’s true, but behind every action and the resulting outcome is a thought and a feeling. Doesn’t it make sense to track back all the way to the origin of something to make sure we have all aspects of the process congruent? Of course it does if we want success, and that’s exactly what the inner game is about.
Are You Tired Of Failure?
How To Become An Efficient Procrastinator
Everyone is a procrastinator on some level. Some of us are terrible offenders, spending hours doing useless things like browsing facebook or blogs or walking up to see what is in the fridge multiple times a day, all in an effort to avoid the work we know we should be doing.
Over the past few weeks I implemented a method to help get the most from procrastination. This technique means you still procrastinate, in that you do something that is not exactly what you know you should be doing, but you still get results from your activities rather than waste time on idle tasks.
I call this efficient procrastination and here’s how it works.
Your focus needs to be on action. The whole reason I started thinking about this technique in the first place was after writing my article – Are You Drowning, Treading Water or Swimming? – which made me realize as long as the majority of daily activities moved me forward in some way, I could count that day a good one.
Once you realize that action is key, the next step is to isolate actions that lead to results of some kind for you and your business. Generally some tasks require more work than others and some you enjoy more. It’s precisely because of the tasks that you don’t enjoy, yet are critical for your business to move forward (or for you to move forward personally – like say studying for an exam), that you look for ways to procrastinate.
When you are sitting down, working on something you don’t really enjoy or you are tired of and that procrastination urge hits, it’s time to go and do something else, however that something else is still an activity that helps your big picture. You must choose a swimming forward task, not a time waster.
