Simple facts: Do 20 push-ups and you feel great afterwards.

I’ve discovered this little truth a while ago. Putting effort and energy into the present actually can create great pleasure afterwards. I never was a big fan of investing energy now for pleasure afterwards, but somehow I discovered that the process itself can be fun, too. I focus on the present moment, the movements, the process itself, instead of on the goal – and get the results I like while having already pleasure. In the past I focused on the goal and got frustrated with the process of exercising. But today everything was new for me. I never really felt my body while exercising, never focused on how it feels to literally cause pain to yourself and holding it. How long do I stand? When do I give up? How much control do I have over my body? New insights in every present moment.

Why discover the world already if you don’t know yourself?

by assbach

This article is big. I don’t mean the length but the meaning for my life. More than ever the 3 principles of authenticity, truth and honesty are showing up as obstacles to become improved in my life. Usually I pay average attention to them but lately there were several arguments with other people around this topic. I realized that I want to become more honest and direct. In the past I tended to cover the truth  self-sacrificing myself to avoid trouble. I did this completely unconsciously because I believed in my ability to maintain peace no matter what. But I was blind to the differences that exist in the area of kindness.

The difference: being kind but honest or being fake

I don’t need to be mean to be honest like I imagined back then. I realized that I can combine both ways together and avoid to be fake. If you try to be someone else than your feelings are telling yourself, you are fake. For my self I was behaving fake because I believed that there is more value in current peace than in longtime honesty. I was simply afraid of being rejected in my childhood and this pattern lasts until today in my subconscious. But also for myself it’s time to change my mind and start being more authentic than I ever was. I must face the truth and realize that there is no need for the fear of being rejected for me anymore. I am self-confident today, I know my values and I am ready to fight for my path. If you disagree with me I won’t put you down. But if you won’t accept me I continue my journey regardless of yours.

Truth and honesty lead to authenticity. The profound question: “Who am I?” will be answered through acting honest, speaking words of truth. Never hesitate to express your view. There will be always someone hatin’ on you. But if you continue walking on this path you’ll get to know yourself better a lot along the journey.

Today for me it’s more valuable to know myself than to please everybody.

by Freewine

Today I want to talk briefly about something that touched me lately alot.
For me it was very hard to push myself to finish goals, or pursue some of my big dreams, or implement some necessary habits. All these things have one thing in common and I thought for a long time by myself that this one thing was just a lack of self-discipline. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? But lately things changed. I’ve realized something different that these failures all had in common.  It was not a lack of self-discipline. I just did not wanted to do them. Not at all.

What the hell?

Yes I know. It sounds really stupid. But I got to tell you something about myself first. Soon after discovering personal development for myself I started to read a lot. I got some ideas about what really was possible in my life and saw many people doing great stuff. Some of them impressed me more than others. The greatest example will be Steve Pavlina. Oh hell I read a lot on his blog and I noticed patterns in his behavior. What he did, what he not did. And slowly I started to shift from focusing what I wanted, what my heart really wanted, to what my mind told me to want. I never realized the difference. But I started to set goals and dreams for myself that I got from outside of myself. From others. My mind told me what a dream life should be like. It’s like people who say their dream life would contain a villa, ten cars, a playmate as a wife and some fame. But when they achieve something similar, they realize that this was nothing than dust. I had the same experience just that I wasn’t materialistic at all and it all played in the field of personal development.

Some of the dreams were the same my heart wanted to pursue but my mind stayed in control and forced me to work on my goals whenever I had free time. I felt like I really wanted to but I never achieved anything significant through this method. My mind started to go crazy. Imagine me working on several different goals but none of them succeeded. I was confused. I asked myself the biggest question I could imagine: “What’s my purpose and passion?”

I still was confused and so I started to search. I tried to become a Rapstar. Rawfoodist. A full-time blogger. A Beat Producer. Novelist. Coach for Rap, the Law of Attraction or Rawfood. It was horrible because non of my goals really worked and I couldn’t understand why. My only answer was every time: “This is not my passion. I need to move on.” I really felt like a so-called “scanner” who never gets something done. I was frustrated, depressed and even considered to drop out of school. I really could not understand what was going on.

The Magical Helper

I was discouraged and created for myself a wallpaper saying: “I have clarity. I know my passion. I know the steps and goals for the dreams I want to achieve.” but I didn’t expected it to work at all. In the meantime I got to know a new girl, who is now a good friend of mine. We met because of social media and rawfood, but none of us was really into it, we both saw it like a future dream we want to accomplish as soon as possible so we had some sense of connection between us. We don’t really could go on without arguing a bit but I take all of her critisizm serious.  She told me that I was not myself. I was hiding behind the mask of several Steve Pavlinas or Leo Babautas. I did not understand a word she was saying there. But it touched me somewhere deep down and on the same weekend my girlfriend and I had a long conversation about some small problems we had in our relationship. It was weird but we figured out that I had problems to be myself again. I shut myself and my feelings down to protect myself and my girlfriend from “unnecessary problems” I wanted to solve for myself. I’ve read Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power Of Now” and wanted to get those emotions and thoughts out of my brain. I thought: “This is stupid! I don’t want and should feel like that. It’s not reality what I feel. I don’t need to feel this way.” and lied several times to my girlfriend about my mood.

But in reality this was exactly the problem. What caused myself to feel bad was her clinging to her best friend (male) but I had no reason to feel bad because I knew she loves me. But because of myself shutting down my emotions I got very cold to her and she needed heartiness from me. But because I was unconsciously unable to provide her with the feeling of love (although I REALLY wanted!) she walked over to her best friend. Unconsciously. What a circle.

So what happened after I’ve started to say what I was feeling? My ideal outcome of not feeling bad about the situation came in through what I feared the most! This is so incredible. Now the problem gradually gets solved because we both know what we need. Our love. And this started to open my eyes a bit. I started to tell others again what I felt AND told them, that I know I don’t need to feel that way and I was going to fix it. But for that time I just wanted to let them know.

What About The Passion Thing?

Well. A few days after these experience I had another fight conversation with that new girl. She told me again that I needed to stop doing something and watch myself. Zen stuff. I knew Zen but I didn’t understand again until speaking to my girlfriend. We revealed what I told you above. I was searching for my passion while using my mind. Ironically I even tried to ask my intuition and had no success, while I suppose that this small voice was screaming to me all the time. I just had not listened to it.

What did I did? I stopped to do something. I stopped and listened. What did my heart wanted right now? Shut up fuckin’ mind! Silence. Silence. And then a little voice appeared and told me things like go for a walk. Or read a book, a NOVEL again. No personal development stuff. Things I did very rarely. I was confused. But I did it. It felt good and .. nothing else. It just felt good. It wasn’t part of a goal, of a great plan. I wasn’t achieving something significant. I did nothing but enjoyed stuff. CRAZY. WEIRD. Is this life..?

Now I try to stop my mind thinking in terms of achievements. Successes. Goals. I just wanted to know what I really wanted first. Then I could move on. And until I don’t discover what my heart really pushes myself into I just will write or rap or eat or dance or draw or create what feels good to me.

I think this is called to “Go With The Flow”.

by iDream_in_Infrared

It’s time for me to become a novelist. On December 31st shortly before midnight I told myself that 2009 will become the best year I’ve ever had in my life before. This project is a chance to get seizable results to show to myself and others. While I have grown a lot this year, I’m not able to prove this to other people. I don’t need their appreciation, but when I’m yelling into the world that 2009 will / is my best year since I was born, people might ask me what curious had happened. Then I be able to say that I’ve grown on my personal and spiritual level as same as that I’m a novelist!

For everyone who doesn’t know what the NaNoWriMo is about, here you’ve got the full description from their website:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano

In short:
You are going to write a novel with at least 50.000 words in november only. 30 days to write a novel is a tough plan, that’s why your story doesn’t need to be great – it depends just on your discipline to write such a long novel.

I see a great opportunity for myself to gain more self-discipline through attenting to this project. After november I will be able to look back gladly and tell myself, that I’ve reached a big goal in 30 days, which most of the people on earth never reach in their entire life. If this isn’t motivational for upcoming goals, I would really need professional help.

I’m really exited because I have nothing prepared – just 2 characters and their descriptions as their living locations. I’ll see what real creative flow can create, because I’ll try to stay focused in a positive mindstate to let the words flow through my fingers. I don’t want to create by myself. I want to let creating. Someone or something (even if it’s just my unconsciousness) will take control.

We’ll see on november 30th what will have happened.

by Stephen Poff

Why not?

Yes. You could loose all your money, your car, your home, your wife and / or your children, your family could hate you, you could have nothing to eat. But hell it’s worth it! – if you gonna accept the consequences and will be willing to learn.

Because sometimes we really need to fall deep down until we’ve learned something essential. We know that a lot of really successful people had a hard youth, not much money and problems. But they’ve overcome this obstacles, they’ve survived and: they’ve learned. They got courage, they know how to break the greatest walls on the way to your dreams. That’s why I recommend:

If you are falling already, keep falling until you learn your lesson. Then never fall again so deep.

Remember that you should only fall once in your lifetime in the same way. Then never again. Be open to every emotion you’ll feel, keep your clarity even in the worst case scenario and you’ll gain so much power, strenght, courage and energy from your failure, that you’ll have the energy to run up that hill again – and even much further than the point from where you’ve fallen down.

But never fall down without learning your lession or you’ll need to repeat it again. And again. And again. I want you to understand that failure is the real success. Even if you are going to fall a hundred times until you’ll be successful, in reality you have succeeded a hundred times before putting all peaces together to unravel the mystery.

And really: The best way to get clarity about a topic is through an ultimate failure. When you’ll realize what matters the most, get up. Your dream is waiting.

by suvodeb

Today I want to talk about simplicity in your own kitchen. While I don’t have my own kitchen, but I’m sure a lot of you have, I tried to accomplish this simplicity just for myself in a maybe unique way. I want to share with you what idea came to be.

2 of a pair

I chose to only own every thing in the kitchen 2 times. 2 plates, 2 forks, to knives, to spoons, 2 glasses and so on. While my Mother still got many many dishes, I chose 2 of every kind for myself to “own” for a while. She had no problems with my decision, even less when I said that I will clean them by myself.

How does such a minimalistic kitchen life look like?

Today is my first day of this experiment and I ate already some toast. I’ve taken one plate and one knife, used it to make my toast and cleaned my plate directly after, my knife even before eating my toast. This really was not hard for me to accomplish. I mean, to clean one knife and plate it takes maybe 30 seconds. And there is no dishwasher needed anymore for myself. I’ll save some water by the way, that’s nice too.

I think I’ll enjoy this new little lifestyle change. We’ll see how long it will last. Maybe ’till forever?
And yes, Greenpeace is going to be proud of me.

That’s everything I want to say today. Listen to Mr. Clinton.

by zachstern

Face it. You are different from anyone else on this planet. Maybe some guys tell you that you are strange and there are several reasons for them to do this. But don’t complain, just be thankful. Because they show you what you already know inside. You are different than the regular citizen. You’ve got other thoughts, other hobbies, other interests. Maybe even already other goals.
But remember: You Are Not Alone.
We are nothing better than the regular citizen. We are all equal, but just different in our actions. Everyone on this planet is unique, even if some of us share the same interests. Don’t be arrogant, you are not better than anyone else. If you think that way, your personal development isn’t very high, but that’s great. Why? Because you’ll have still a long way to go where you can learn a lot of great stuff.

What do you do if you are not the same?

Enjoy your life and leave a legacy of great achievements. Do something special, create value and enjoy growth. Life’s a gift, even if you can’t believe it’s paths your gonna be still in the flow..

by Chema Escarcega

Imagine a cowboy riding into the sunset, on a path with no destionation and no clear end. Do you feel the freedom and lightness? You can gain it, too. Imagine yourself without fears concerning the future, without doubts about being on the right paith, with a feeling of being alive right now – more than ever. If you want to feel like this keep reading.

The 3 keys to a carefree life

The following 3 keys are essential but simple tools leading to a life with no worries. If you really want to feel the full potential of living free and light try to bring them to perfection.

1. Truth

Start with this one. Being true is very unpopular today and needs a lot of courage. We tend to behave the complete opposite of what lies within us, of what we would love to show, just to please others. To be accepted. But we’ll never be truly accepted if we won’t accept ourselves, because anyone who is willing to accept us is willing to accept our false identity. That’s why it’s crucial to be true to yourself. If you can be true to yourself you will accept your real self, giving others the possibility to do the same. But without truth there will be no acceptance, which ironically anyone dissembling is seeking.

2. Independence

Anything you do, you do to get or become something or someone. In our western society the whole focus lies upon the goal – the purpose – the destination. We are seeking more and more productivity to get more things done, to get more money, to buy more possesions, to gain more time later. The bottom line is we’re searching for hapiness. But real hapiness rises from independence of: goals, money, possesions, time – or persons. Independence gains the highest value in a relationship with true intentions. Stop being attached to your partner – that’s not real love! Instead of this be thankful for getting love, for the possibility of giving love and appreciate any second with your partner. With this approach any obstacles can be overcome with love or lead to a great friendship after ending the relationship.
If attachment is noticed, behave like mentioned and let go of it to maintain independence. All attachment is rooted in fear.

3. Faith

This last one is the most important. You need to have faith in everything you do and everyone you deal with more intensive. Don’t be pessimistic and don’t try to predict the future. Maybe someone will cheat on you, or maybe he won’t. Maybe it will be alright, but maybe it’ll crash. Who the hell knows?! Think optimistic, rely on a positive attitude towards life. Your perspective determines your life experiences. If this noisy voice in your head starts to yell at you again, just yell back:

“I don’t worry. I’ve got faith.
I’ll handle it!”

with such a attitude nothing what happens will upset you anymore, believe me. Be aware of the power of a simple “I trust you.” This won’t only transform your own reality but also your partners’ reality. Also trust yourself. Believe in your own power, tell yourself nothing else but the truth and be aware that usually nothing bad will happen. And if it does? You’ll handle it! This takes you to a position of power where you can act from. Don’t digg your own grave – instead of that spread your wings and fly.

Don’t be such a Pollyanna (blindly optimistic) – act now!

Many doubts are dealing with the problem of being passive, being a victim of your own blindness. Even if it’s really great to handle your life this way – don’t be passive. If you will think in such terms and stop acting, you won’t get any better than being pessimistic. Indeed you are going to be broke, lose your partner, your job or your house. Let’s face it. You need to pay your bills, get some food and sleep every night. But you don’t need to live with a pessimistic attitude which ruins your life experience. Enjoy your life all along the line.

The Path Of No Destination

What’s the purpose of all this? Hehe. Maybe just adopt this 3 keys to a careless life and get some insights. Be active.
What is the Path Of No Destination? It’s the path everyone of us choose sometimes in life, not knowing where life may lead you.  It’s the path you creep on while searching for it’s purpose. Often we get anxious, confused and desperate because of not knowing where we’re going. But now we’ve got 3 keys to deal with this situations everyone has in his life.

If you feel anxious about the outcome of a football match, your relationship, your job or even your whole life – follow these 3 keys:

I think you got the point. Try to adopt this attitude for at least one week and compare the different outcomes. What life do you want to live? Choose yourself.