Spirituality and Personal Development

I’m currently reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0 by Thomas Friedman. The book mainly discusses the ecological crisis we are facing, but the first three chapters also discusses the 2008 financial crisis. Ecological crisis and financial crisis may seem unrelated to each other, but Friedman argues that they actually have the same cause:

The way we were creating wealth had built up so many toxic assets in both the financial world and the natural world that by 2008/9 it shook the very foundation of our markets and ecosystems. That’s right, while they might not appear on the surface to have been related, the destabilization of both the Market and Mother Nature had the same root causes… The same recklessness undermined all of them.

Friedman explains the causes in more details, but they actually come down to just one thing: greed – the desire to get as much as possible for oneself without thinking about how things would be for other people or future generations.

Greed is the reason why people made irrationally risky investment in subprime mortgage assets. Greed is also the reason why people are depleting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. They want to increase their quality of life without thinking about whether or not they do it in a sustainable way.

The problem is people usually aren’t aware of the coming danger until everything is too late. Greed blinds them. Here’s what they might think:

1. Nothing could go wrong. We have done this for years and nothing negative happens. Besides, the probability that things could go wrong is small so there’s no reason to stop doing it.
2. Everyone is doing it. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t enjoy the rewards that everyone else is enjoying.

The scary thing here is this kind of thinking also caused the collapse of many civilizations throughout the history. The book Collapse by Jared Diamond has many such stories. Here’s one of them:

The overall picture for Easter is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world: the whole forest gone, and all of its tree species extinct… The further consequences start with starvation, a population crash, and a descent into cannibalism.

But why did the deforestation happen? Here it is:

… competition between clans and chiefs driving the erection of bigger statues requiring more wood, rope, and food.

This, again, is greed at play. Greed made the people exhaust their resources despite the apparent danger. Didn’t they realize that exhausting their resources would cause their civilization to collapse? Greed had blinded them, obviously.

The same thing applies to individuals. A greedy person may become obsessed with money or prestige at the expense of his health or relationships. Greed blinds him to the coming danger until everything is too late.

This is an important reminder for all of us. Beware of greed. Here is a simple rule:

Where there is greed, there is a silent danger.

Photo by NeoGaboX

photo credit: adeltoclarencedock

Daily life is tough. Really tough. Sometimes our emotions run so wild that we think we are going to give up. Other times our body is so tired we feel like we need to just collapse right there at work. Modern life seems to be about work, money, stress, depression and not enough sleep. But there is something that can help. There is a simple way to combat stress, create more energy and build a better life. If you feel like you need some extra help dealing with all that is thrown your way then maybe this 5×5 meditation plan is for you.

Why meditation can solve our problems

Before I actually get into the 5×5 plan I want to talk a little bit about why meditation can help to solve our problems. Many of you are probably thinking that meditation is just for hippies who want to sit around all day and do nothing. But that idea couldn’t be further from the truth. Mediation is an ancient art that has been helping people for thousands of years. It is completely supported by science as a means of changing our emotions, habits and even brain structure.

So how can meditation solve our problems? Well as many of you know, the Tibetan word for meditation is gom which can be translated literally as “to familiarize“. Meditation is really about becoming familiar with your mind and making your mind familiar to more favorable states. For example, if your spouse does something to annoy you over and over you will immediately get angry. If they do it again a few weeks later you will get angry again. Your mind has become familiar with anger. But if you use meditation you familiarize yourself with a different state of mind, you might automatically react with patience or understanding and thus avoid the anxiety associated with the anger.

Meditation is also extremely healthy. It causes your brain to release many feel good hormones like cortisol which can actually alleviate depression and other negative frames of mind. So while you are training yourself to become more happy, your brain and body are actually helping you do that on a more physiological level. Some of the other major benefits that you will experience when meditating include:

• becoming less tired
• having more energy
• being happy for no tangible reason
• stress anxiety becomes less and less vicious
• depression arises less often
• an increased level of awareness
• an increased ability to help others
• better ability to deal with difficult circumstances
• an increased immune system and resistance to disease
• a better functioning brain and mind
• increase health (heart, lungs, digestive system, etc.)
• etc

Regular readers will know that I spend a lot of time in the Himalayas with my yogi friends. At one time or another I have seen examples of all of these benefits with my own eyes. Meditation practitioners have an aura of natural happiness, health and energy. Being around them is often infectiously peaceful and can be a very intense learning experience. I have no doubt in my mind that this stuff produces concrete results in a short amount of time.

The 5×5 meditation plan for a better life

photo credit: Stuart Conner

So what is this 5×5 meditation plan? How does it work? It is quite simple really. All you have to do is spend five minutes meditating five times a day. But before you close the window thinking “there is no way I am going to do that” let me explain a little bit about what I mean by “meditating”.

What kind of meditation do you mean?
Most people think that meditation means sitting down with your legs crossed and your hands in a weird gesture. And while that style of meditation is fantastic, it is not really what we are talking about here. The 5×5 plan does not require you to buy a new meditation cushion and sit down for five minutes five times a day. All it is asking is that you stop what you are doing, sit there and look at your mind. You could be on the toilet, sitting in the car about to leave for work, about to go to bed at night, etc. All you have to do is sit there and look directly at your mind for five minutes.

Why five times a day?
As beginners, we need to do short bursts more often. It is only the experts that can sit there for hours at a time doing their practice. It is the same of any discipline. If we were just starting with the guitar we would be better of practicing for short bursts so we don’t cut our fingers or get bored and chuck it in. If we were just starting with jogging or running we need to build up over time so we don’t drop dead of a heart attack! The same is true of meditation. Short bursts of five minutes done five times a day will cause us to make progress extremely quickly without feeling like we are doing a lot of work. In just a few sessions you will feel happier and less stressed.

What exactly do I do?
It is simple. Find a place to sit down. A chair is fine. Now focus on your breath going in and out of your nose for as long as it takes to get settled. It might take you two or three breaths or it might take a lot more. Once you have done that just gently shift your attention to your mind. Watch the thoughts coming and going and dissolving into nothing. Watch your emotions come and go. Don’t engage them. Don’t allow yourself to run away with your thoughts. Don’t play little mental games or carry out mental stories and chatter. Just watch. Observe. Don’t try to change anything. And after five minutes stop.

The routine
Let’s be honest. If you don’t have a routine you are never going to do it. So pick five times a day that will allow you to sit down and do this practice. I think the best times might be:

• before starting work
• after eating your morning tea
• before or after lunch
• after eating your afternoon tea
• before bed

If you try to associate your meals or an event like beginning work with a short meditation practice you will be less likely to forget as it will become part of your daily routine. After just a few sessions you will see some changes in your mind.

Obstacles
Anyone who has done a bit of meditation will tell you that you need to become good friends with obstacles. Meditation is fraught with them. Quite often as you start to become familiar with your mind you will notice a lot of negative emotions and chatter that you didn’t notice before. Many people make the mistake of thinking that meditation is making their mind worse. In actual fact, you are just becoming aware of things that you were too busy to notice before. Just watch them. Don’t let them fool you into playing with them. If you just observe they will vanish of their own accord.

Conclusion

Meditation has changed my life and the lives of many others. Over time it will help you to reduce stress and anxiety as well as teaching you to deal with emotions and difficult times with more strength, resilience and patience. Give it a go but make sure you give it the time it needs. Persevere and don’t give up at the first obstacle that you encounter. Much like breaking the pain barrier when you run, it becomes a lot easier after the first spell.

Please let us know if you have tried meditation and whether or not it has helped you. And if you decide to try the 5×5 meditation plan please stop back often and let us know how your progress is going. Your example might really inspire someone else to give it a go.

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Note: This is a guest post by Bob Hartzell of Get Degrees

When I went to college, I was right out of high school, overwhelmed by the freedom and very quickly baffled by the academic expectations. Today’s college students are often much more mature, more experienced – and in many cases, returning to school to improve a life. More often than not, college students are working as well.

Whether you’re eighteen and new to it all or you’re back in the classroom to try and make academics work for you again, college can be rough water if you’re intimidated and/or pushing yourself with family/job/education. Here are some suggestions to maximize the value of your time spent in the academic fold:

1. Don’t let a pile of overpriced books and a quicker learning pace make you think you’re in over your head. It’s just a new environment.

2. No matter what the professors think, classes probably shouldn’t be optional. Look at it this way – until you’re sure you don’t need it, take advantage of all the help you can get.

3. Take notes you can read. If what you’re hearing is too much to process on any given day, find a classmate to bounce your questions off of. But don’t think you have to learn to be a court reporter overnight.

4. This might be counterintuitive or difficult as hell – but asking a few questions of the lecturer doesn’t hurt either. Give yourself a chance to feel like you have an investment in all that academic achievement as well – have a good conversation with someone who is opening up new intellectual doors for you can be an enormous boost. There’s more payback to those classes than credits and a grade.

5. All that reading isn’t insurmountable a chapter at a time. If you break it into manageable bites, you can get through it with a lot less indigestion – and learn more from it in the process. Besides, ignoring it will drive you crazy.

6. You have probably heard this during your previous fifteen years in school – but plan your studying. That’s not to blow a hole in your day, it’s so you won’t blow a hole in your semester. If you do it and stick with it, life gets easier.

7. Weekends may not always be for playing anymore. If you’re working and going to school, for sure they won’t be. Once again, the idea is to make school manageable, which makes it tolerable, which eventually may make it…really intriguing. You can build an afternoon on your bike or a few hours in front of a football game into any schedule if you hit the books when you have it pencilled in. Otherwise you’ll be trying to read a textbook during the beer commercials and not enjoying the game nor learning much either.

8. Always do a draft. As good as you are at slamming a paper together, do yourself the favor of time for a rough draft. Bang it out like it’s a first and final, but leave time to review it anyway. You’ll be amazed at how little adjustments can make a major improvement and once again, what was once anxiety and pressure becomes a manageable chore that may just become an achievement.

9. Now about those exams – they’re going to weigh on you no matter how well you’ve covered the material. The key to taking an exam with confidence is to do as thorough a review as you can and see at least seventy five percent of the material for at least the second time. There’s a difference between holing up for a final review and cramming.

10. Put your best into it and then consider college the art of the possible. If you’re going through the learning process with newly tested initiative and applying standards you’ve never held yourself to before, than you can call that a victory. If you get a little better at it the first few weeks or the first few semesters, there will come a day when you know you’re doing an efficient job. That’s all you can ask of yourself.

Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides. It’s your college career, your major, your degree. Resumes aside, the value of an education is an intensely personal thing, so don’t demean it by thinking you should be some other kind of student. Every school experience opens up new horizons, but you won’t see them if you’ve got misguided expectations blocking your view.

Bob Hartzell is a freelance writer for Get Degrees®. They feature 100’s of online degree programs from accredited online colleges and universities worldwide.

Photo by orangeacid

I’m Canadian, but I’m currently living in the south of France. And, for the last five months, I’ve been doing something I never would have considered back home.

I’m not talking about drinking wine, eating baguettes or speaking French (although I’ve been doing plenty of those things).

No, I’m talking about riding a bicycle.

For the last 5 months I’ve commuted with my bike practically everywhere. I’d guess I bike at least 5-10km every day. And, while I’ve occasionally had a bike in Canada, that becomes agonizingly impractical when there is several feet of snow.

Location as an Underrated Factor in Pursuing the Ideal Life

I believe location is an underrated factor in pursuing the ideal life, but not in the obvious way people assume.

The obvious assumption is usually spoken in stereotypes. New York is fast paced. Paris is romantic. And if you want to start a technology company, you have to move to San Francisco.

I won’t argue with the specifics of these stereotypes, since I’ve never lived in New York, Paris or San Francisco. Maybe all the things said about these types of places is completely true.

What I will argue is that your location can have an unexpected impact on your lifestyle beyond the details that are most obvious when choosing a place to live.

The Unexpected Impact of Geography

Bike riding is a perfect example. The idea of biking everywhere I go wasn’t something I thought of when imagining life in France. Indeed, if I had chosen to live in a larger city like Paris or Lyon, the metro stations would more probably be my major source of travel.

Despite this, I think bike riding has had a major impact on my day-to-day lifestyle. For one, by biking 5-10km per day out of necessity, I’ve been getting a lot of exercise. Second, I’ve spent more time outdoors, which if you’ve ever experienced a winter in Winnipeg, is definitely a plus.

Location Independence and Choosing the Perfect City to Live

For most people, location is simply a matter of opportunity. My parents had moved to find jobs, and many other people will locate themselves wherever makes sense for their career.

However, there are a growing number of people who are drawing the majority of their income from location independent sources. Freelancers, web entrepreneurs or even at-home workers could theoretically live anywhere.

I think once you remove the job demand criteria as the #1 factor for where to live, a whole new area opens up, namely, picking the perfect city for your ideal lifestyle.

And, I believe this decision becomes more complicated for the reason I previously mentioned. Most of the salient details of choosing the perfect city are hidden, or at least obscured by popular stereotypes.

Finding the Perfect City

I’ve just started this journey, so I can’t weigh opinions about which cities are best. However, I think there are a couple factors worth mentioning, that are guiding my process of finding it:

1. Perfect is time sensitive. The ideal city, I believe, will be different when you’re 25 to when you’re 55.
2. Perfect won’t be obvious. I can’t be sure, but I’d guess that the ideal cities for most people are probably places they haven’t heard of yet. Or at least given serious thought to. The most popular destinations are also the most expensive and crowded.
3. Perfect needs defining. The size, weather and infrastructure that makes Montpellier an ideal city for biking is part of my definition of a great city. It will be different for every individual.

Of course, I’m not ruling out the importance of building relationships within a particular location over time. My argument isn’t that the ideal way to live means being a perpetual traveler. There are benefits to just picking a spot and then getting to know your neighbors.

However, just as the person you marry will have a major impact on your life, I believe the same is true of the city you live in. And, for a growing number, that decision will no longer be based on job openings.

If you need guilt to motivate yourself, your productivity system is broken.

“Are you procrastinating?” my roommate asks me. Three exams the next day and I wasn’t studying.

“No, I laugh, procrastination means I intended to do some work. I never planned on working tonight, so technically it isn’t procrastination,” I respond.

This was a conversation I had last week, during an exam period. Although my review schedule before exams tends to be a lot lighter than most, the biggest difference isn’t the time. It’s that I refuse to use guilt as a motivation tactic.

Stress-Cases VS Relaxed Achievers

Here’s the process a typical stressed-out student or worker uses to motivate himself:

1. Worry.
2. Be unsure where to start.
3. Take a break.
4. Take another break.
5. Feel guilty about breaking for so long.
6. Do 15 minutes of work.
7. Chat on Facebook.
8. Repeat.

Although there are probably a lot of problems in this situation, I think the worst is step #5. When you use guilt as a motivation tool you increase your stress without accomplishing anything.

Worse, guilt tends to be a lousy motivator, resulting in a little bit of effort but nowhere near the effort needed to succeed with your plan.

Now contrast this approach to the way a relaxed, effective student motivates herself:

1. Worry. (Hey, sometimes you can’t help it)
2. Stop and form an action plan with specific tasks.
3. Create a list of the tasks to be done.
4. Break the list down to a daily basis.
5. Work hard to complete the tasks.
6. Relax guilt-free.

Instead of guilt, there is a system. It’s this system that not only creates the results, but eliminates the wasted stress and time.

The System Doesn’t Need to be Complicated

If I’m making it seem like the second approach requires a black-belt level of mastery in GTD, that’s not my intention. A system doesn’t need to be hard or complicated to still work extremely well in 95% of cases.

Here’s the system I’ve used for the last few years of relatively guilt-free work:

1. Make a to-do list.
2. Chunk that to-do list into a list just for today.
3. Complete the list, without adding new items when you finish it.

Now, this may sound too easy. Sure, this might work for some people, but my work is too difficult, my academic program too intensive and the competition too fierce to limit myself in this way.

Wrong on both counts.

First, that attitude is wrong because this system works even better the more difficult your program is. The systematic approach to productivity, with pre-established limits, excels when your workload is hellish.

I’ve used this approach when managing full-time classes, international competitions, two volunteer positions and a part-time business simultaneously. Cal Newport has used a similar restrictions-first approach to get a PhD at MIT, build a wildly successful blog and publish several books.

Don’t tell me you’re too busy. You’re too busy not to have a system.

Second, this attitude is wrong because it assumes guilt is even remotely effective. It’s not. Guilt may be used in the 5% of situations where your system breaks down. But when you’re using it on a regular basis, it wears out and becomes useless.

Studies have shown that willpower is an internal resource. If you use it up on one task, you have less of it for the next task. So if willpower is this scarce, why force 100% of your work to rely on it?

Martyrs of Busyness

The real reason a lot of people like using guilt is for a secondary benefit that has nothing to do with accomplishing anything: social status.

When you tell people you have a killer workload, you aren’t just complaining. You’re also trying to tell people you’re important enough to have a killer workload.

Some tribes put discs in their lips or brand tattoos. Ours walks around telling everyone how “busy” we are, grinding away hours of our life in half-productive work. Whose is more destructive?

Guilt Free and Accomplished

January 2010 was the second best month for income I’ve ever had on the website. It was the number one for direct income. My health and fitness are nearing a personal best, last week I was able to complete 10 one-arm pushups with each arm in a row. Academically my grades will likely be staying high during my year abroad, and I’ve made significant progress learning to speak French.

Despite this progress, I’ve been more relaxed this year than perhaps any in my life. Tonight will be my forth night out in a row, in a series of going-away parties for friends leaving France. I’ve enjoyed enough free time to practice my cooking, read more books and enjoy the weather, women and wine in the south of France.

I’m not saying this to brag, but to point out a contrast. In other years I’ve had considerably more stress, a lot of it being self-inflicted. Also, during those years I arguably accomplished less towards my main goals.

I think that’s evidence that the burnout, guilt-soaked approach to work not only isn’t sustainable, it often doesn’t even get the most done.

photo credit: laurenfarmer

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. – Tenneva Jordan

If you scoured the entire Earth looking for someone who has shown more kindness to you than your own mother you would be gone a long time. Such a person does not exist. Your mother cared for you while you were in her stomach, gave birth to you, fed and raised you to become the person you are today. No body comes even close to her in terms of love and compassion. And over the years she has taught us many things, some helpful, some not so helpful. Here are a few life lessons that your mom was right about.

1. It could be worse
Of all the things your mom said to you as a kid this is one of the most valuable. Hidden inside these four words is a wealth of wisdom that has been somewhat obscured due to the popular nature of the saying. In fact, when your mom said this to you it was often at a time when you felt pretty terrible. And so you ignored her. I’ll never forget when my little brother broke his arm my mom calmly announced that “it could be worse” and to basically get it together. She was right. It could have been worse.

The reason this saying is so important is because it teaches two things that are essential to your life, calmness and compassion. When you think about how much worse your bad situation could be you realize that there is no point getting all worked up. But you also start to think about those other people out there in that “worse” predicament and feel sorry for them. It is a very powerful tool.

2. The proof will be in the pudding
As if on a timer, my mom would say “the proof will be in the pudding” every year about three weeks before school report cards went out. It was around this time that she started to get nervous that my brother and I had been playing too much soccer and not doing enough homework. So she would subtly let us know that even though we said we were working hard, the real proof would be the grades on that card. And for some reason it scared the hell out of me!

There are a lot of people in this world who are good at talking. They are good at spinning a few words together and getting out of a predicament. In a similar way, there are a lot of people who are good at making excuses. But the proof will be in the pudding. You can convince yourself and those around you that you are working hard towards your goals or a project but unless that hard work bears fruit then you might be kidding yourself. The proof really will be in the final product.

3. I don’t care who started it, you stop it
Do you remember those times back at home when you and your brother or sister were pulling each others hair out over some stupid little argument? Do you remember how cheated you felt when mom trounced in the room and told you to stop it even though you didn’t start it? It was the worst feeling in the world. It felt like everyone was against you and that the world was completely unfair. Well, in actual fact, your mom was teaching you an extremely valuable life lesson about self control and self responsibility.

photo credit: ASingleAtom

What your mom was really saying in this situation is that she wants you to take responsibility for being the bigger person and diffuse the situation. When you put it like that you might start to see some more adult-life scenarios where it would be useful. Perhaps an argument that you are having with your father or even with your siblings again? Perhaps a colleague at work has started a fight or maybe one of your mates did something silly? Even though you might be in the right it is often extremely wise to put your pride aside and diffuse the situation.

Imagine the effect this wisdom would have on a global scale if it was put into practice by world leaders and politicians. I am not saying that everyone should just admit defeat all the time, but rather that it could be useful to put grudges aside and be the person or nation who takes steps to solving the problem instead of arguing about it.

4. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all
What a simple but powerful lesson. Imagine how many disputes around the world would be avoided if people just remembered their mothers advice. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. This saying has applications for marriages, politics, business and friendships. And it has a lot more to it than it seems.

As a kid this saying probably just meant that you shouldn’t call your little brother a dickhead. But as you grow up and get a little bit more life experience you can start to add new meanings to it. For example, saying “something nice” might not just mean a compliment but rather something that is going to add to the situation and help the people that you are speaking with. Like the Buddha said, “do not speak unless it improves on silence“. So from this point of view the saying is a lesson in helping other as well as being mindful of what one is saying.

In the business and political worlds this saying is perhaps one of the most important rules there is when dealing with other people. You never say anything bad about a business partner or a competitor because it will inevitably come back to harm your reputation. The consequences in the political world are even worse. Gossip and harsh speech can have implications for careers, national progress and even international relations. Your mom was right about this one. Unless you have something helpful, intelligent and proactive to say, don’t say anything.

5. If you don’t do it now, then when are you going to do it?
If you are a regular reader of The Daily Mind (good on you!) then you will know that I am always talking about procrastination. So much of our lives is wasted because we hate the idea of now and we love the idea of tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes and we still haven’t accomplished anything we feel regret, depression and ever so unfulfilled.

One of the sad truths about life is that you can lose it at any time. Death is certain to come but the time of its arrival is most uncertain. So you might not even have a tomorrow in order to accomplish your task. Really, if you look closely at the matter, now is all you have. Now is all you have. If you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it? What if that opportunity never comes or if you run out of time because you are too busy. Will you be filled with regrets on your deathbed?

Again, we can add a little bit more grown up meaning to a saying that your mom probably said a thousand times. Of all the lessons she taught you this is one that really needs to hit home. She is right about this one. If you don’t do it now then when are you going to do it? My guess is never.

What lessons was your mom right about?

Every mom has a myriad of different lessons for their children. It would be wonderful if you could try to remember a few and leave a comment. It would be even more fantastic if you could try to think of some examples in your adult life of when the motherly wisdom helped you out.

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Imagine that your main goal in life was to have as much fun as possible. What would your life look like?

I’m asking this question because I reject the idea that the pursuit of fun, in its maximum, would result in a life of non-stop television, fast-food binging or substance abuse.

Instead I’d argue that, even if putting fun as the highest goal wouldn’t lead to the ideal life, there is still a considerable overlap. I want to make the case for two points:

1. That serious fun requires effort. Giving up all discipline and effort results in a local maxima of fun which is far lower than the maximum possible enjoyment.
2. That fun supports work-related and nobler goals, rather than distract from them.

Why People Don’t Like to Think About Fun

What if I told you that you weren’t maximally productive. That is, your current behaviors don’t accomplish the most for the time you invest, you probably wouldn’t require much persuading. After all, we all sense our deficiencies when it comes to procrastination or laziness.

But, if I told you that you weren’t getting the most fun, you might require more convincing. Somehow we feel that work is something that can be enhanced by analysis and introspection, but fun is not. Fun is something magical and trying to think about how to have more, destroys the very enjoyment we seek to create.

I’m not going to disagree with you. The act of trying to figure out how to have more fun, when you’re playing a game or socializing, usually makes the activity less fun. Fun is spontaneous, so thinking about it too much can undermine it.

However, while I believe a mindless, go-with-the-flow approach works best in the moment, that same logic doesn’t apply when structuring your life to have more fun.

Serious Fun Requires Sweat

Take travel as an example. You might feel that going on a trip will be more fun than staying at home and playing video games. But, the video games don’t require any advanced planning, whereas the travel might. So if you don’t apply any thought, you’ll end up staying at home.

Look at sports. Sports are a classic example of the frustration barrier. When you are lousy at a sport, it isn’t much fun to play. But as you gain skill, the sport can become almost obsessively interesting. If you didn’t apply the foresight to practice through the frustrating phase, you would never experience the intensely fun phase of mastery.

Being a connoisseur of fun doesn’t mean all your leisure time needs to require years of practice or planning. Instead it means that, as far as having fun is a worthy goal, there are benefits to putting some thought into designing a more entertaining life.

I’d rather live an adventurous life, which has richer fun experiences, than a merely entertaining one, which occupies itself with shallower fun.

Mindless Fun vs Serious Fun

I don’t want to categorize certain activities as always being mindless fun and others as being serious fun. I’m not going to say Shakespeare is inherently better than South Park, simply because I feel those comparisons are so corrupted by people using high art to signal status.

The difference isn’t the activity, it’s the way you pursue it.

Imagine one person watches television for six hours straight, because he has nothing better to do on a Friday night. Compare that to a person who, spends the same six hours watching television, but it’s in the deep appreciation of a favorite story. Reveling in the character details, completely fascinated by the broader themes of the work.

The difference is between being an aficionado and a drone.

Why Serious Fun Supports Serious Work

I don’t believe that fun is the ultimate aim in life. However, I do think it’s useful to think about because I feel fun supports other goals. If you’re saturated in adventures and enjoyment, those experiences enhance the other aspects of your life, rather than detract from them.

I get a lot of emails from people wanting to give up online gaming or partying so they can focus on working more. That’s fine, if in their honest assessment, they’ve decided that there are more satisfying ways to use their spare time.

However, in most cases, I feel people want to abandon these pursuits, not because they’ve found something better to replace it, but because they feel they should. That watching television, playing World of Warcraft or going to a club is working against their bigger goals.

I’ve fallen into this reasoning trap myself. I’ve previously written about giving up television, and while I enjoyed the challenge (I still don’t have a television), I think I pursued the goal for the wrong reasons.

Instead of trying to eliminate all those distracting sources of low productivity, I should have been embracing them. Embracing serious fun.

How Fun Improves Productivity

The truth is, for almost all my goals, if you asked me whether I’m more productive now or years earlier when I had a more obsessive focus on work, I wouldn’t have to think about it. I’m definitely more productive now.

I believe a big reason for this is that seriously pursuing fun, making sure life is as fun as possible, gives you the energy to put back into your more focused pursuits.

Again, however, I want to draw a distinction between mindless fun, which is usually done just to occupy time, and serious fun, which is the conscious effort to make your life as adventurous and entertaining as possible.

Making my life more fun has occurred on many levels:

• Improving my business, so that the creative work I find incredibly fun is something I can get paid for.
• Living abroad, so even acts like going to buy groceries are interesting challenges.
• Building my social network, so I’m connected to other people’s adventures.

Even more, it’s been accepting that the serious pursuit of fun is productive. And that the ideal life not only accomplished but thoroughly enjoyed.

Note: This is a guest post by Armen Shirvanian of Timeless Information

If you want to see if and how you waste time, compare your current productivity to that which you have had at a winning time in your days. There is much benefit to gain from looking at a time when you felt like you were doing all the right things for a short time. You can see and reflect upon why that period of time came out feeling so good, and get new sense of how the time period you are now in is going.

You Can Stay At Your High Production State

The first thing to accept here is that you can maintain the high level of production that you have put out at some point. There is no reason you are weaker or less able now. You might have some distractions or pressures that you didn’t have when you were at your peak, but those can be pushed aside by your bigger vision. Let’s say you are a student who had a period where you were really focused on your schoolwork, and had a time where you were doing all the assigned reading given to you for a couple of months, and then slowed down since then. After a sizable amount of time passes from this period of success, you might start to feel like you can’t reach that state again. This isn’t the case, as you can reach that state, and even add to it, with new abilities you have strengthened since then.

Look At Your High Production State As The Goal

You want to view it like the high production state is where you need to be staying at, and any period where you are not at that state is a period where you are wasting some of your time and potential. This is an uplifting way to look at your effort usage. If you were once trying to sell a product to about 3 different customers every day for a few weeks, you have to now look at any time where you are not marketing at that rate as a time when you aren’t doing what you know you can do. This will keep you on an upward slope. No one wants to be told that they are wasting their time. It makes them feel like their actions are starting to look irrelevant to the masses. Using this knowledge, remind yourself when you do see yourself wasting time, according to the description I pointed out above. You won’t like the feeling, and will quickly build up some self-discipline to avoid that label, and self-discipline is the big deal.

Piano Practice Example

Let’s say you used to play a new piano song every week, and now haven’t played piano for a few years. You might think your past learning ability is out of reach, or that you have missed your opportunity. These thoughts don’t help much. Taking the experience gained from the past piano-playing, along with the confidence received from knowing this habit has already been tackled before, you can return to the routine again. There’s nothing stopping you from getting back your momentum by learning Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” within the next seven days, followed by Brahms “Brahms’ Lullaby” the next week, and Mozart’s theme from “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” the week after. You already have the skills to do so from your experience, and have more goal-setting resources at your disposal today, so you can be back in action in no time. Everyone always says “time flies”, and that means that the period of struggle to get the habit back in place will also fly by.

Work At The Level You’ve Already Shown You Can

Once your mind reaches a certain understanding, your mind will never go back to not having that understanding. In the same way, you can always return to a production ability, or winning streak, that you once had. Toss aside any blame on others, or views of yourself as no longer having the capacity, and you can again be rolling the ball up the mountain, soon enough.

Armen Shirvanian writes words of wisdom about mindset, communication, relationships, and related topics at Timeless Information. You can follow him on Twitter at @Armen.

Photo by madmolecule

photo credit: Shadow becomes White

Do you want to become a professional sports player and compete on the world stage? Perhaps you want to become a concert pianist and perform at Carnegie Hall. Or maybe meditation is more your thing and you would like to tame your mind and get closer to enlightenment. Regardless of the dream, the method is the same. Practice. A hell of a lot of practice. In fact, 10,000 hours of practice is what it takes to become an expert at any given field. So do you have what it takes?

10,000 hours, the magic number

Many studies have been done on the topic of becoming a professional sports player or a great musician. And almost all of them have concluded that the magic number is somewhere around 10,000 hours of practice. Let’s do the math on that. If you practice in your chosen area for two hours a day you are going to get in 730 hours of practice per year. At that rate it will take you 13 years to reach the 10,000 hour mark. Using that equation, let’s imagine that you want to become an expert guitar player. Imagine you start a little late in life, say around 30. If you put in the hard yards, perhaps practice before and after work everyday and more on the weekends, you will be an expert by the time you are 40. It doesn’t seem so bad when you put it like that. After this you will have the rest of your life to play your guitar like a pro.

Why 10,000 hours?
Good question. It does seem a little random. But the more you look at it the more you start to see it is true. Most people need to continually work at something for around 10 to 20 years to become great at it. And the studies done on this topic have shown that it is usually around the 10,000 hour mark that they “graduate” from amateur to professional or from good to great.

Not everyone needs 10,000 hours
Let’s remember that some people do not need 10,000 hours to become great at something. You might have grown up in a family which exposed you to your chosen discipline from an early age which might mean that you have a more “natural” propensity for it. It might take you a lot less time to catch on. Or the opposite might be true, you might have a physical or mental block that requires you to put in a lot more time to become an expert.

Good genes vs practice: the ongoing debate

photo credit: j_bischoff

Here is a subject that really grates on me. Many people think that the deciding factor is genetics, not practice. There are those sneaky and ever so depressing souls out there who would have us believe that not everyone can become great in any field. And they might be right. I often wonder if I could become a maths expert if I put in 10,000 hours. I’m not sure I could; my brain just hates maths. But there is a key word there – hate. I hate maths because I never had a good teacher and as such I lost confidence. Now when I need to do it I put up all sorts of emotional blocks that prevent me from advancing. And that is conditioned behavior, not genetic. My father is a maths whiz. My brother is a doctor. Its obviously not a genetic thing.

So how much of a role does genetics play in this debate? Obviously quite a lot. But at the same time not so much. Let me give you an example. I am under six foot tall. I have played soccer since I was young and have some small talent. The same goes for martial arts. But I am genetically disadvantaged when it comes to basketball. I am just too short. Does this mean I could never have become a professional basketball player? No. It just means it would have been harder. There have been lots of short basketball player – Muggsy Bogues was shorter than me and did quite well for himself.

Genetics is a head start but it is by no means the final stretch of the race. I would much rather be the guy with a genetic disadvantage and a good practice discipline than the naturally talented guy who doesn’t think he needs to work. Scientists now talk about genetics as a potential but not a deciding factor because they are always switching on and off. The factor that will determine whether or not you become great at something is practice. Over 10,000 hours worth.

Do you have what it comes to become great? Some tips.

photo credit: nerd.reynolds

So the question is not whether you have the potential to be great but whether or not you have the guts. Now that you know you need to practice hard, will you shy away from the task? If you believe you have the stomach for greatness there are a few tips you need to know in order to get to your goal.

1. Routine is your only friend
When it comes to practice there is only one word you need to know – routine. You need to make a regular time for your practice sessions and stick to it like you do eating dinner. You would never (rarely) go to bed without dinner and in the same way you should never miss a practice session. As soon as you miss one you will find reasons to miss another and before you know it a whole week has gone since you practiced. That time starts to add up. Make a routine and stick to it.

2. Define a solid goal with a time line
Sure, you might have a pie-in-the-sky dream about becoming a professional soccer player but do you have a goal with a time line? Do you know where you want to be in ten years time? If your dream is just some vague hope then it will never get done. You need to lock on to a target and fix in your mind what you want to achieve. Without that time line you are kidding yourself. I promise you will never make it. Add a time line to that goal, however, and you have a good shot.

3. Micro steps towards the goal
Okay so you have a goal with a time line. How are you going to get there? What steps do you need to take to make sure you are in the right place at the right time? Here is an example. Let’s say you want to be a professional soccer player by the year 2020 and you want to play for Barcelona. First of all you need to get really good. Then you need to get really fit, fast, agile, elements that will set you aside from other players. Then you need to be in the right place for the scouts to see you; Spain or perhaps playing in a team that Barcelona is associated with. That might mean saving up to move to Spain. These are all the steps you are going to need to take to achieve your goal. Write them out too. Make them specific.

4. Reinforce good habits
A few months ago I wrote a post about the habits that help cultivate greatness. These are things you need to pay attention to. Things like eating healthy, avoiding alcohol, sleeping regular hours, etc. are essential for your long and arduous journey. You have to give yourself every advantage and without these “extra” bits you are going to find it tough. Practicing for four hours a day is hard if you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

5. Get an inspiring mentor
Almost all good behavior is learned. You get better at tennis by playing against better opponents. You get good at music by learning from an expert musician. And you stay on the path by being reinforced and inspired by a good mentor. Now, a mentor does not have to be someone you have personal contact with (although that is preferred). You might just pick a great athlete like Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan and try to emulate them by copying their sense of discipline, work ethic and training routines. That is a good start. You will need this inspiration when you don’t feel like getting out of bed for training on those early mornings.

6. Train smart
When I was playing state soccer in high school my coach said something that hit me like a tonne of bricks. He came up to me during drills and said, “Son, you are damn good at that right foot shot.” I looked at him, smiled and said thank you. His demeanor then changed dramatically and he barked, “So why the hell are you still practicing it? Work on the left”. And from that point on he would make me do laps if I shot with my right foot, even if it was the best option at the time. Now, his method might have been extreme but his lesson was priceless. Why spend your valuable time practicing what you are good at? You need to push your comfort zones and improve on your weaknesses. That’s what great players do; they find their weakness and then they train it until they are bleeding and sore.

Conclusion

As you can see, becoming expert or great at something takes a lot of time. But it also means a lot of other things like being in the right place at the right time, having a disciplined work ethic and being mentally tough when obstacles arise. I wonder how many people will be put off by the idea of putting in 10,000 hours work. Does that seem like a lot to you? Or has it inspired you to know that there is a specific target to aim for? I would love to hear your thoughts about the genetics argument as well so please leave a comment.

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Being good at things is the key to success. Painfully obvious, right?

That means being good, having mastered skills, ranks far higher than other commonly touted “keys” to success, such as:

• Overcoming fears
• Just getting started
• Rejecting societal norms
• Having the best attitude

Sure, being a terrified, procrastinating, peer-pressured, pessimist probably won’t help you master skills. But that doesn’t remove the fact that mastery, both in your career and in your personal life, is the most important element.

Why Being Skilled Matters

For your career, the argument is simple: we live in a capitalistic world where, all else being equal, the people with the rarest and most valuable skills get the biggest rewards. Assuming you can convert those rewards to what you desire in life (do you want a big house or location independence?), mastery leads to career success.

For your personal life, the argument is subtler but I believe the same logic applies. If you have skill, achieving success becomes easier in almost any area of life:

1. Health - mastering a sport or exercise routine will keep you healthy, while mastering your own habits and willpower can ensure that they stick.
2. Relationships - mastering your interpersonal communication helps, whether you’re trying to find a new relationship or sustain an existing one.
3. Learning - improving the way you learn has a ripple effect, where ideas you pick up can be integrated into any other area of life.

Even if you disagree that mastery is the most important element, I think most people can agree it is at least a very important part of living a successful life.

What Encourages Being Skilled?

The biggest gains in skill come when you are situated on edge of your current competence. If you stay with what you’re already good at, you won’t improve much.

Being way outside your level of skill isn’t conducive to mastery either. Unless you can receive positive feedback, or regular wins amidst failures, it is difficult to learn from your mistakes. The best way to train as a sprinter isn’t to run against Olympic athletes from day one. It’s to race against someone just a bit faster than you, so you’ll know when you make improvements.

Therefore, practicing for improvement should always be at the edge of incompetence. Where you have enough skill for positive reinforcement, but not enough skill to be considered good–yet.

Living on the Edge of Incompetence

If you accept the first premise: that mastery is an essential ingredient to successful living. And, you accept the second premise: that mastery requires an environment of being on the edge of your incompetence. Then the conclusion is difficult to escape: successful living requires living on the edge of incompetence.

For the last several years I’ve made a deliberate effort to live on my edge of incompetence. I make an effort to choose goals and projects that are not just difficult, but require skills I don’t currently possess.

In the business projects I’ve undertake with this blog and website, I’ve always chosen ones that were slightly outside my skill level. I wrote and designed a free ebook, then created one for sale, then created one with an affiliate program, finally now I finished a hybrid between an information product and a monthly coaching service.

Successfully executing the latest project would have been a certain failure a few years ago, but I slowly advanced my edge of incompetence. And I did that by living on it.

My other goals have also put me on the edge of incompetence. From learning French, taking salsa classes, practicing to cook more elaborate dishes or training to do a pistol squat and handstand pushups. The goals weren’t just difficult (although challenge is important) they also pushed me beyond my current skills.

Hard Goals vs Skill-Acquiring Goals

It’s possible to set a difficult goal that doesn’t explicitly require gaining new skills. For example, let’s say I set a goal to give up junk food. This might be a difficult goal, but after having done 30-Day Trials as a method for changing habits for years, it probably wouldn’t improve my skills significantly.

Similarly, I could set business goals that don’t really express what skills are going to improve. I have a goal to increase my business income to a minimum of $3000 per month. That will be a challenging goal to meet, but it doesn’t make it clear what skills I’ll need to improve and where I’ll be sitting on the edge of my incompetency.

Deciding exactly how a particular project will push you to learn new skills is an often neglected step. It’s the difference between aimless and deliberate practice.

Setting up Camp at the Edge of Incompetence

I feel, for many people, they want to get out of their edge of incompetence as soon as possible. It’s cold, painful and irritating outside. Far nicer to be safe and warm within your existing skills.

So when they live their life, the venture to the edge of their skills only lasts as long as it needs to be. When they need to pass a test, they study really hard. However, when the exam no longer threatens their security, they don’t bother reading a book on a difficult subject.

Not only do I feel this is suboptimal, since these people will only increase their skills when forced to, it is also a lousy way to live.

If you set up camp on the edge of your incompetency, you get used to scaling your frustrations and learn to tolerate the uncertainty. So when most people are complaining about being outside the comfortable home of their skills, you feel fine because you never closed the door.