In a not-so-surprising twist,it turns out that your gut feel was right…you never did get more done on any day but Tuesday!

A survey earlier this year revealed that indeed, Tuesday is indeed efficiency’s best friend.

TGI … TUESDAY?

Second Day of the Week Remains Most Productive, Survey Shows

MENLO PARK, CA — Why tackle today what can be put off until Tuesday? In a new survey, 57 percent of executives said Tuesday is the most productive day of the week for employees. Monday was the second most popular answer, although it appears to be losing favor: Only 12 percent of respondents ranked Monday as most productive, compared to 26 percent in a 2002 survey.

The national poll included responses from 150 senior executives — including those from human resources, finance and marketing departments — with the nation’s 1,000 largest companies. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Accountemps, the world’s first and largest specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.

Executives were asked, “In your opinion, on which day of the week are employees generally most productive?” Their responses:

Monday
12%

Tuesday
57%

Wednesday
11%

Thursday
11%

Friday
3%

Don’t know
6%

100%

The results mirror previous surveys conducted in 2002, 1998 and 1987.

“In addition to serving as a ‘catch-up’ day after the weekend, Monday is when many regularly scheduled meetings occur, which can decrease the time available to complete tasks,” said Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps and author of Managing Your Career For Dummies^® (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). “Many view Tuesday as an opportunity to focus their efforts and establish momentum for the rest of the week.”

Accountemps offers the following advice for maintaining a high level of productivity throughout the entire week:

• Make a plan. Spend 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of each day mapping out your desired accomplishments. Prioritize the tasks that are most important to the business.
• Sharpen your focus. People are more productive when working for an extended period in the same mental mode, as opposed to changing gears frequently. Try to cluster tasks that require similar effort or resources in the same time frame.
• Limit distractions. It can be tempting to review e-mail each time a message arrives. However, unless your job requires an immediate response, it’s often best to check your inbox periodically throughout the day.
• Don’t delay. Even peak performers occasionally put off working on unpleasant or overwhelming assignments. One effective way to overcome procrastination is to break a project into smaller, more manageable tasks.
• Recharge. Taking short breaks throughout the day can help you replenish your energy and fight fatigue.

Accountemps has more than 360 offices throughout North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, and offers online job search services at www.accountemps.com.

We all try to pursue happiness in different ways, and by coming to know yourself better, you take a very good step towards setting goals and dreams that will make you happy, and you have greater chances of self-actualization…

You can easier overcome bad habits when you actually sit down and define what habits are bad for you, and make a definite plan towards bettering yourself, for good. No pun intended

Socrates is famous for arguing that we must Know Thyself to be wise, that the unexamined life is not worth living.

The saying "Know thyself" may refer by extension to the ideal of understanding human behavior, morals, and thought, because ultimately to understand oneself is to understand other humans as well. However, the ancient Greek philosophers thought that no man can ever comprehend the human spirit and thought thoroughly, so it would have been almost inconceivable to know oneself fully. Therefore, the saying may refer to a less ambitious ideal, such as knowing one’s own habits, morals, temperament, ability to control anger, and other aspects of human behavior that we struggle with on a daily basis.

"Know thyself."

by Socrates

Knowing yourself is extremely important in living an improved life. It is something that most people think they know but really don’t. If you were to ask a random person on the street if they really know who they are, they would without a doubt say "Of course I know myself", but in reality, if you were to study them over a period of time then you would find out a lot about their habits and things they do that they probably have no conscious realization that they actually do them. Our habits are things we do without conscious thought, so it is important to try and take notice to every little thing that we do over a course of a day and then analyze our actions to see if there is something we can do different that would improve our life.

I have many bad habits, we all do, whether we want to admit it or not, they are there. Once you are able to pinpoint a bad habit, then start work on turning it into a good habit. By doing this we can all grow as people, and improve our lives. So it all comes down to Knowing yourself, knowing your habits, and knowing what your full potential is.                                                               By ImprovedLife

 Read this article here >>

Do You Want Success In Your Life?

Are you prepared to dedicate yourself to a journey of life long learning? Are you really committed to accelerate your success and achieve your dream life?

Manny Goldman is the founder of PersonalGrowth.com and author of the new book, The Power of Personal Growth.

After hitting rock bottom in 2004, Manny discovered Personal Growth and became an avid student. In the last 3 years, he has attended and volunteered at more than 50 seminars, read countless books and listened to dozens of audio programs.

Manny’s own personal growth has been described as phenomenal. In 11 months, Manny changed his life and went from:

• $100,000 in Debt to financial security
• Overweight at 245lbs to a lean 190lbs
• Clinically depressed to extremely happy and engaged to the woman of his dreams
• Lost with what to do with his life, to being clear on his purpose

Manny’s transformation has inspired him to become The Personal Growth Advocate™ and declare a mission to raise the global awareness of the power of Personal Growth for billions of people.  

In this FREE, exclusive 50 minute interview, Manny Goldman gives his invaluable insight on:

• The power of proactive vs reactive growth
• How harnessing the power of responsibility can determine your destiny
• Ensuring you know the 5W’s of your life so you can achieve your life dreams
• The 5 roadblocks that’s holding you back from your full potential
• The 4 elements of long lasting change
• The missing link in the education system that causes 95% people unable to apply what they learn
• The triad technique that you can easily apply TODAY to start a positive change in your life
• And much, much more…

If you’ve read countless amount of books and listened to bundles of audio on personal growth BUT still don’t know how to apply it, Manny’s step-by-step approach in The Power of Personal Growth and his community of support will get you there. Hear first for yourself what Manny Goldman has to say:

[audio:http://selfpursuit.com/files/audio/accelerateyourpersonalgrowth.mp3]

OR

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD! (Right-click, Save-as)

FIND OUT ABOUT MANNY GOLDMAN HERE!

Celebrating Earth Day, all of the students in kindergarten through sixth grade joined hands in one large circle surrounding the outside of the school building and passed the messae “Happy Birthday, Earth Day” from one to another.

Later students put their hands in the earth to plant seeds, pull weeds and clean up the school grounds.

They and other students at many of the schools in the county were learning the lessons of how to take care of the plant, celebrate nature and appreciate the resources the earth provides…

On Earth Day, people around the world came together, united in a celebration of friendliness to the earth and caring for our children’s future… That’s what it’s really about. 

‘Green’ teams stay true to Earth Day’s roots

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

Earth Day celebrants fixed trails, picked up trash and talked recycling at parks, workplaces and schools across the nation Tuesday, the 38th anniversary of the environmental holiday.

Earth Day was founded by Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, in 1970. He wrote he wanted to “infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause.” Now, corporations, governments and individuals pitch in.

•In Washington state, 18 volunteers repaired winter snow damage on the north side of Mount Rainier National Park, said Lauren Braden of the non-profit Washington Trails Association. “We’ve had record snowfall, so most of our work parties are working on lower elevation trails,” Braden said.

•In Weyers Cave, Va., Blue Ridge Community College students made a statement with a huge display of trash, with recyclables sorted.

•In Albany, N.Y., the Office of General Services announced it is replacing foam polystyrene plates and cups with biodegradable products made from bamboo and grass at cafeterias that serve 9,500 state workers and visitors daily.

•In the nation’s capital, Metro riders received free chocolate bars for saving 20 pounds of carbon emissions by riding the subway on Earth Day.

•In downtown Indianapolis, companies jumped at the chance to get rid of old computers, monitors and mice at the nation’s first Million Square Foot eCycling Event, which collected more than 25,000 pounds of electronics.

•In Sioux Falls, Kali Drewes, 18, bagged trash with employees of the wireless company Unicel at Sertoma Park. “It’s sad it takes Earth Day to get out and clean up,” Drewes said.

Contributing: Erika Smith in Indianapolis; Christina Mitchell in Weyers Cave; Jon Walker in Sioux Falls; wire reports (source)

 And here is another beautiful story to round off Earth Day for 2008…

Students’ Earth Day message: “Using tools to make it look cool”

By Mitch Fryer, LEADER TIMES

KITTANNING TWP. – Plant Earth received a helping hand from Kittanning Township Elementary yesterday.

Celebrating Earth Day, all of the students in kindergarten through sixth grade joined hands in one large circle surrounding the outside of the school building and passed the messae “Happy Birthday, Earth Day” from one to another.

Later students put their hands in the earth to plant seeds, pull weeds and clean up the school grounds.

They and other students at many of the schools in the county were learning the lessons of how to take care of the plant, celebrate nature and appreciate the resources the earth provides.

“It’s a way to teach kids to take care of the air, water, land and animals,” said teacher Sue Girardi of the all-day, all-out, schoolwide Earth Day program.

“It’s teaching a responsibility to the environment.”

Students worked on activities and projects in their classrooms and music and art rooms all week to prepare for Earth Day.

Everyone planted something. Everyone made something.

Grocery bags were decorated with Earth Day sayings, poems and designs and sent to a grocery store to be used at the checkouts.

The school held a rally about the hirstory of Earth Day. Students even made up their own Earth Day song for the occasion.

“We’ve been working on the courtyard, all the live long day… using all our tools, making it look cool.”

The song is a good one for Earth Day, according to fourth grade student Austin Roncher.

“It’s about the earth, us fixing it, cleaning it and helping it,” he said.

Mitch Fryer can be reached at mfryer@tribweb.com 

(source)

Let us remember this,

Every day is Earth Day.  ~Author Unknown

 There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.

~Brooke Medicine Eagle

 

“There is enough for all.
The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.”
Bourke Coekran

Earth Day 2008 falls on Tuesday, April 22nd.

• Earth Day is a name used by two different observances held annually in the (northern) spring, both intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.
• Earth Day is held each year to promote awareness of environmental issues.
• It’s a special day to learn about our planet and how to take care of it.
• Kids can visit various Earth Day crafts, coloring pages, and activities.

The first Earth Day was in 1970…

On April 22, 1970, 20 million people across America celebrated the first Earth Day. It was a time when cities were buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught fire.

Now Earth Day is celebrated annually around the globe.

Through the combined efforts of the U.S. government, grassroots organizations, and citizens like you, what started as a day of national environmental recognition has evolved into a world-wide campaign to protect our global environment.

Earth Day has no central organizing force behind it, though several nongovernmental organizations work to keep track of the thousands of local events in schools and parks that mark the day.

Earth Day Quotes

• The earth is what we all have in common.
  ~Wendell Berry, Author, farmer, cultural critic, 1934 -
• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
  ~Mahatma Gandhi, Spiritual leader, political, 1869-1948
• As we grow older we should become not less radical but more so.
  ~Margaret Laurence, Author, environmentalist, 1926-1987
• You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.
  ~Hal Borland, Author, 1900-1978
• I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
  ~John Muir, Preservationist, 1838-1914
• For 200 years we’ve been conquering Nature.  Now we’re beating it to death. ~Tom McMillan, quoted in Francesca Lyman, The Greenhouse Trap, 1990
• I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.  ~Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977
• Take nothing but pictures.
  Leave nothing but footprints.
  Kill nothing but time.
  ~Motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society
• And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.    ~William Shakespeare
• Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.    ~Cree Indian Proverb
 
• Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values…. God made life simple.  It is man who complicates it.  ~Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader’s Digest, July 1972
• Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.  ~Juvenal, Satires
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
  Margaret Mead 

Amy Waterman on Relationships

Amy Waterman is a dating & relationships expert and author of the books ‘Save My Marriage Today’ and ‘How To Be Irresistible To Men‘.

She’s traveled far from her childhood on the coast of Oregon. In the past ten years, she’s run a marathon, served as a Peace Corps volunteer, earned a masters degree in writing from the University of Wales, and studied agriculture in the U.K., South America, and Australia. She’s currently settled down in New Zealand and enjoys its natural beauty, fantastic coffees and wines, and healthy lifestyle.

(source)

We’ve recently had an opportunity to have a conversation with her on about her own relationships, lifestyle, and her books.

Listen to the full Amy Waterman Open Lecture here (approx 40 mins)

[audio:http://silvamethodlife.com/audio/amywaterman.mp3]

OR

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD! (Right-click, Save-as)

Enjoyed the Amy Waterman Open Lecture? Find out more about her book “How to be Irresistible To Men”

It’s a woman’s to guide to attracting the right men or to reigniting passion in their existing relationships. It’s delightful to read, I’d definitely recommend checking it out.

Click Here To Find Out More

Like me, you probably have a few self help books lying around. You have probably even read most of them. But even if you don’t, and even if you haven’t, you may well recognize a famous title such as Steven Covey’s ‘Seven Habits of Highly Influential People’. Beth Lisick started out slightly skeptical about the idea of self help, until she tried it and discovered the benefits for herself.

It is a fun, light-hearted and inspiring story of how, despite herself, self help changed her life for the better…

Emily Wilson asked the question: "Self-help is everywhere, but does it work?"

Self Help: $10 Billion for What?

Emily Wilson, Alternet.

When performer, rock musician and writer Beth Lisick woke up Jan. 1, 2006, and the only New Year’s resolution she could think of was learning to do the splits, she decided to aim a little higher.

Instead, she spent the year availing herself of all the advice out there to better her character, physical fitness, parenting and sex life, along with her financial, organizational and time management skills. Lisick read Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; she went to seminars with John Gray of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus fame and financial superstar Suze Orman; she consulted with Oprah Winfrey’s organizational advisor; learned about giving her child time-outs from a book called 1-2-3 Magic; gave Deepak Chopra (who she had previously considered ’spirituality lite") a chance, and went on a "Cruise to Lose" with fitness guru Richard Simmons.

During the year, Lisick tried to put aside her cynicism and refused to dismiss Covey for his Mormonism or Canfield for his love of golf and fast cars. Now she can always find her keys and ask for things in a direct way, and has embraced the concept of abundance instead of scarcity and negotiated a lower interest rate on her credit card.

Lisick chronicles her yearlong journey through the self-help world in her new book Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. She recently shared that experience with AlterNet.

Emily Wilson: Do you think your life is better now after a year of helping yourself?

Beth Lisick: I actually do. Like I said in the book, I thought it would be funny, in a way, if nothing changed. I don’t feel like I am a totally different person than I was before I started the book, but I think that if you immerse yourself in anything for a year, it’s going to change you, and it definitely did change me for the better. I feel like I am more organized, and I do have a better grasp of time management and organization that I really didn’t before. I started thinking about goals, and I had never had done that before in my life. And it was weird because it wasn’t like I was a person who could never get anything done. I do a lot of stuff, but I just think I did so much stuff it was almost like I was spreading myself too thin. That was probably the big one. I feel like I’m more organized and more focused.

You talk about reviewing the day before you go to sleep at night, which is something Jack Canfield and Deepak Chopra do. What are some other concrete things you do now?

I’m a lot better at looking around my house and if I see something and I’m cleaning up, just saying, ‘Where does that thing go?’ Before, a lot of things in our house, we just didn’t have a place for them, and we were always losing certain things like the digital camera, or my keys. Now when I’m cleaning up, I can say, ‘Where does that thing go?’ or if that thing doesn’t have a home, then I have to sit there and think, ‘OK, where can be a place for this thing that we just move from desk to table to couch?’ So that’s something I do differently. Those were my favorite things. Like the 1-2-3 Magic thing with Gus — the things where I could see immediate benefits. I could see immediate results with that.

You say early on in Helping Me Help Myself that you are a Godophobe. A lot of these books are very focused on God or a higher power. How did you deal with that?

I think the first thing I did was I realized the Godophobe part of me was really a holdover from adolescence. It was just when people would talk about their higher power and I would be like, "Can’t you figure out another way to talk about it without saying that," and then as I was reading these books, and it was just everywhere; it was impossible to escape. Then when I started thinking of those synchronicities and things I thought were cool, I was like, "Well, I’ve known for a very long time people substitute the word God for something bigger than me, something I can’t control, something that is mysterious and out there." And then I mention in the book a big thing for me is my friends who were recovering drug addicts or alcoholics, who, for so long, were unable to do the 12 steps because they could not accept the higher power part, and it just held them back for so long, and once they decided just to surrender that and say, "OK, I don’t even know what that means, I don’t understand, but I can think of it as this or that," then they were able to get sober and healthy, so I think about it in that way too.

You say you were surprised by how much you liked The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and that you have no interest in slamming Stephen Covey because he’s Mormon.

Yeah, I’m over that. I mean, I don’t think of myself as a journalist. I think my approach was to be like anybody else who reads the books and goes to the seminars and tries to figure out what it all means and how it all can work for them.

What am I going to do, go into some in-depth analysis of Mormonism? I felt like I don’t want to be another person who has those two paragraphs that talk about all the ridiculous things about Mormonism. I feel like I’ve read those two paragraphs everywhere, you know, about the special underwear. It just seemed boring to me. I mean, when I read longer articles about Mormonism, I find it totally fascinating, but I didn’t think anybody needed me to sum up the weird things about Mormonism. That’s kind of how I decided to start at the place where we all know these self-help people are cheesy. I mean, sometimes I couldn’t help myself and had to point out things that were so weird or funny, but I think the idea of writing some sort of expose of how it’s all a scam is just like, "Really? In 2008? I don’t think so." There are people out there who do that and are researchers or want to expose everybody for how much they make per talk and what their credentials are, but I don’t think that belongs in this book.

You had a hard time with John Gray and his whole Mars/Venus thing. Why was that?

I put my prejudices right out there because I was kind of a tomboy growing up, and maybe it was just the time and place, but there was never any moment in my entire life that I felt like there was anything I couldn’t do because I was a girl. So, to me, that whole idea of gender stuff is so fluid, and the blatant stereotyping drives me nuts. I just can’t get behind it — that men’s chemistry is one way and women’s chemistry is another. I think all of our chemistry is all over the map and, yeah, there are two sides of it that he exploits for his purposes, but I think people really like to buy into it, and they think, "Oh, I do love my chocolate. and I do love to go shopping, and I do hate it when my man goes into his man cave." It’s like we want to feel like individuals, but then there’s the sense of belonging to something. It just made no sense with my relationship with my husband, and it was just confusing to me. … It was almost not fair to choose him because I had such a huge prejudice, but I felt like I was cutting him slack the whole time.

Did you feel like a lot of these self-help movements are based on the personality of the leaders?

Yeah, the personality aspect is huge with the gurus because the ideas are very old and have been around forever, and so what it is is the personality of the guru and how they are putting their message across. You can say something like, ‘Do unto others,’ and we’ve all heard it a million times, but if somebody comes along and can say it in this way that is a little bit different and has a little bit of a different twist on it, all of a sudden it seems new and exciting again. Like, I was at a bookstore recently for one of my readings, and there’s a new Montel Williams self-help book, and I picked it up and I swear to God, the first thing I read is, "Drink six six- to eight-ounce glasses of water every day." So here’s this piece of advice that’s in every issue of every women’s magazine that ever comes out every single month. So it’s all about the personality. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because some people will listen to what Montel has to say because they’re a fan of his show. But that’s why it’s perpetuated in so many different ways with so many faces and hairdos and teeth; selling this thing is all about personality in the commercial sense. It’s not about the advice, because the advice has been around forever.

You’re fairly indifferent to money. You do talk about wanting a dishwasher, and visualizing getting one, but how was it for you to read about people who talk about having hundreds of thousands of dollars or aspiring to have a mansion?

Jack Canfield had a lot in his book about visualizing yourself behind the wheel of a red convertible. Even go to a dealer and sit in it, visualize yourself on those golf courses around the world or having vacation homes. That was stuff like with the Mormonism or whatever that I had to let it go. Because I think once you’re at the level those people are at — you know, in Jack Canfield’s defense, he’s got those things, and I’m sure he can’t imagine his life without them, so he’s saying to these people, ‘All right, you can come along.’ But, for me, it’s always been such an unattractive quality in a person when they wanted a lot of material things or a lot of money. So that was a hard one for me, and I think a lot has to do with my background of being raised without any want for money. Growing up, we had everything we needed. There were things we didn’t get, but we lived a very solidly middle-class life. I think part of it too is being a writer; I just thought, I’m never going to have money. So yeah, money is a huge issue for me, and I have to really edit myself to not obsess over it.

It seemed like a hard year because you and your husband were really struggling with money and then there was this relentless self-examination. What was the hardest thing about the year?

I think the hardest thing when I first started reading these books was facing up to these faults and shortcomings that I had previously overlooked. Now that I’m aware of what they are, it’s hard to imagine I wasn’t paying attention. And I was perfectly happy not paying attention. I’m an optimistic person — I’m a happy person — and so there wasn’t a huge struggle I was trying to get over. The hardest part reading some of these books was realizing some things. It wasn’t like, "Oh I don’t have the convertible and the mansion," it was, "Oh, I don’t manage my money well and, wow, I don’t always do what I say I’m going to do." So it was pointing out all these things in my personality that were kind of depressing.

What was the funniest thing about it?

I think the fun part for me was knowing your life can be an experiment and that you can just decide to do something and do it. I think, generally, in our lives, you want to walk around with that feeling that it’s your life and you can do whatever you want, but it was cool to put it to the test. So even in the darkest hours I was like, all right, I’m doing this thing.

I also really enjoyed the people that I met. Because, in the Bay Area, when do you ever meet a person who’s never had a cappuccino in their life? And you’re sitting next to them the moment they decide to have their first cappuccino. That’s so great. I mean, when I was at the FranklinCovey seminar and I was talking to the woman who is an event planner for industrial laundries, I was like, "God, what kind of events do you plan?" You’re given the opportunity to talk to people from all over the place, and I really liked that. I think I just have fully admitted I love people so much, and I love being around them.

(this story was sourced here)

Emily Wilson is a freelance writer and teaches basic skills at City College of San Francisco.

I stumbled across the following entry on positivityblog.com 

‘Self Pursuit’ is also about the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment in life, which doesn’t necessarily come only from having money, or the perfect wife, or the dream job…

I really felt like sharing this because it has some pretty wise gems on happiness and what it means to us. To read the full blog entry, click here.

Seneca’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Finding Happiness

1. Happiness is optional.

“A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.”

What you think about most of the time you become. If you see the world and yourself through a lens smudged by negativity then you’ll find much misery. If you look outwards and inwards through lens brightened by positivity you’ll find much to be happy and appreciative about.

So being happy or miserable is seldom so much about the external circumstances at the moment. It’s more about how you look at them, yourself and your world.

Now, thinking about things with a positive attitude is easier said than done. But you can shift a negative attitude into a more positive one. It will probably not happen like flicking on a light switch, but gradually you can spend more time with a positive attitude than a negative one.

A few starting points for adopting a more useful attitude are Take The Positivity Challenge! and Top 5 Ways to Live a More Positive Life.

2. You don’t have to create anger and other negative feelings.

“A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.”

Sometimes it is of course necessary to bring up and resolve a conflict. Often though, conflicts or quarrels are just a waste of time and good way to create negativity within and in your environment. Perhaps someone wants to be right. Or release pent up emotions created elsewhere.

Avoid taking such bait by others or giving in to temporary negativity in yourself. Just let it go.

3. Grow and deepen.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”

Each day, month and year we can learn more about how to live in better way. Getting to know yourself and the world around you is simply an awesome way to find more depth in yourself and to handle and manage your life and happiness better and better.

How can you learn to live?

• Learn from others. There is a vast selection of books, CDs and DVDs from all ages on what people have found out throughout their own lives. Make it a habit of exploring such material – you can find a selection of recommended products here – and talking to people around you about what they have learned about life.

• Learn from yourself. What you learn from others can have a bad habit of not sticking so well. But if you are open to what you can learn from your own mistakes and successes then there is much to be found there. And lessons to revise over and over again as you discover new things and that your old assumptions may not have been as correct or useful as you believed.

4. Will more solve your problems?

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

“What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.”

Society is to a large degree built on getting more.

Of course, to a degree this is very useful. But it may not be the thing that will solve all your problems.

You may not find your answer or happiness in more. It may just alter your troubles and problems. And/or give you more of them. What is already there inside of you perhaps gets highlighted and magnified when you get more. Instead of getting whatever you want when finally making all that money your wanted you may find that greed, jealousy and selfishness within you and in your world increases.

You may have thought that when you finally arrived at that place your problems would just disappear. But the ego always wants more and is never satisfied.

So trying to fill yourself up with more – money, power, smartness, prettiness, a feeling of being more enlightened than others – and then finally becoming happy may become like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

5. Give without wanting something in return.

“He that does good to another does good also to himself.”

“It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.”

Shared joy is increased joy. And one of the best ways to become happier is simply to make others happier. When you do that positive feelings seem to be generated from within.

And when you make someone else happy you can also sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling flows back to you.

And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong there is another upside. People will feel like giving back to you. And so the two – or more – of you keep building an upward spiral of positivity and happiness.

Seneca has a very good point here about how it is your responsibility to give and the receiver’s responsibility to be thankful. But just because s/he may not be thankful doesn’t mean that you can’t feel happiness or should stop giving.

I also think it’s important to try and give without wanting something in return (something that is not always easy though).

Why?

Because if you give something but your mind and body says that you are just doing it to get something in return then that will often shine through. People will see and feel it in your reactions and your general vibe. And so they are less likely to be thankful or reciprocate. Giving, at it’s finest and for maximum usefulness for all involved, has to be genuine.

6. Know what you are looking for.

“If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.”

If you don’t know what you are looking for you probably won’t wind up finding it. You’ll just drift along with different currents and winds.

So you need to know what you actually want. Then set a direction and keep your focus on that direction. Then it will not only be easier to reach your destination but also to use the focus system in your mind – your reticular activation system – to help you filter out information and opportunities that can help you along and that previously may have just blended into the background of your world.

7. Laugh

“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”

“No one is laughable who laughs at himself.”

Taking things too seriously can make life a lot harder and painful than it needs to be. It may be a common or “normal” way to look at things. But you are always free to choose how to view, react and think about things.

Taking things and yourself less seriously can really help you to decrease conflicts, anger, sadness and anxiety. And laughing at the life and yourself releases tension and tends to make you less susceptible to the gray and dreary clouds of negativity that may plague others. Check out Lighten Up! for more on this.

8. Excess may not be the key.

“It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”

“It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.”

I guess this one ties in to # 4: to seek happiness in more.

An excess of things may often look wonderful when you imagine it. But when you actually get it and are taking it all in then it loses the magic you imagined. So quality and moderation may bring more joy than an excess.

The first five pieces of candy always taste better than the rest. And if you eat the whole bag of candy you often wind up feeling a bit nauseous and sick.

One awesome gadget or tool is often better than five OK ones. One great looking shirt or skirt often brings more joy than five OK looking ones.

9. Be in charge of yourself and do a great job.

“Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

“Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.”

Just going along with whatever happens and just doing your job may not bring much happiness.

But taking control of your own life – instead of floating along – and doing a great job brings satisfaction and joy. Not just from the people around you but from within. When you feel like you are in charge of your own life and that you are doing your best there is an exhilaration and happiness that you create inside of yourself. Such a self-generated happiness makes sure that external circumstances – that always fluctuate – have less of an impact on how you feel.

10. Live in the present.

“There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.”

“True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

What is there?

Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Yesterday has passed. Now is the present moment. And all three of them are always the present moment when we are living in them.

So there is no real space where you and I can change or live in except the one you and me are in right now. And now. And now.

But still we insist to spend much time regretting yesterday. Or fearing tomorrow. That’s normal. But it’s isn’t so useful.

We can’t really do anything about the past. We can learn valuable lessons from it but after that it’s not so important.

And most of the things we fear will happen in the future never really show up. A negative attitude can do wonders to create monsters within the mind to occupy much of your time. So, planning your future is very useful but over thinking it is seldom helpful.

So much time is lost thinking compulsively, over and over again, about things we have little control over. And it can create a huge amount of suffering inside that is projected and acted out into the world.

And it distracts us – blurs our vision and shatters our focus – and keeps us from fully enjoying what is really the most important time.

Now.

(Read this blog entry from The Positivity Blog Here)

"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I’ve gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."

Jill Bolte Taylor

Jill Bolte Taylor was a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist when a blood vessel exploded in her brain. One day, she woke up and realized she was having a massive stroke…

(Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.)

She spoke at TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design – three wide-ranging subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future.) Every year, 1300 of the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather together for four days of networking, education and exposure to new ideas. Past speakers and performers have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Paul Simon, Richard Branson, Frank Gehry, Philippe Starck, James Watson, Billy Graham, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, and Bono.

However, TED is about much more than famous names, Jill says. It is about passion, laughter, beauty, and ingenuity. It is about ideas capable of changing the world, and she was given 18 minutes to share her personal story and an idea that she believed was worth spreading. She says her experience at TED was both phenomenal and life transforming. Her story is a powerful one of recovery and awareness.

"So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are — I am — the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.

Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading."

(Read the transcript of her amazing speech here)

The "science" behind this states that everybody has 2 versions of themselves:

1. the identity they really walk around with = the shell
2. the person they really want to be = the core identity

The core identity is the true identity, held captive by lack of knowledge, and circumstance.

If you are working as a lawyer in a law firm, working 70hr weeks and not very satisfied, your shell dictates that you are a stressed out lawyer.
But, your core identity could be that of an artist. Or a Casanova. Or a rock star.
That’s your core identity. That’s who YOU want to be.

Most communication between people is surface to surface, shell to shell. That means, you hear someone’s words, and based on those words, you comply…or not.

Our deepest core desires are never things such as ‘make money’, ‘get out of the house’, etc… If this is what you think it is, your brain is lying to you. It’s never something like that. These are the just surface outcomes. The truth is, the whole point of ourselves is to create and to perpetuate experiences. Goals are meaningless.

If you think about what you want in life, you will probably find that it’s not about money or wealth. It’s experiences, as well as to perpetuate, and to create.

You need to know who you are, and who you want to be. But, how do you know?

THE QUESTION:

If there were no limitations or consequences, what would your perfect, average day look like?

Limitations means you don’t have to worry about money, health, geography nor limiting people.

Consequences means it has to be something safe, not anything that will get you in trouble or arrested. Be wise.

Average means you could do it everyday and not get killed (this means your perfect day would not include climbing Mount Everest, for example.)

Ask yourself:

• Where would you live?
• What would your house look like?
• What time would you wake up?
• What would you do in the morning?
• What would you do in the first hour of your day?
• Who would you eat with?
• What would you eat?
• What would your friends be like?
• What would you do for personal fulfillment?
• What purpose would you strive for?
• What would your business be?
• What would you actually do for work?
• What are your clients like?
• What are your relationships like?
• What would you do for family time?
• What would you have for dinner?
• What would you talk about over dinner?
• What would you do at night?
• Who would you do it with?
• Where would you be?
• Where would you do it?
• What would your thoughts be as you go to sleep?

Your perfect day will help you identify who you really are, and what your core identity is.

Law of Attraction

When you have a picture on your mind of your core identity and your new life, you’ll find that things start moving you towards that: you start attracting the right circumstances, the right people and so on… This is because you are more focused on your goals as you work towards them…

What we are really aiming for is this:

• experiences (because goals are meaningless);
• a new identity, and
• the sum of all this is Life.