“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

Even if you are not an American – like me – you’ve probably still heard of Abraham Lincoln. He was the president who introduced and worked on measures to free the slaves and led the country through the Civil War. A war that had just ended when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theatre.

But what can Abraham Lincoln help us with today? Well, here are 10 powerful and timeless fundamentals. I hope you’ll find something helpful.

1. See the positive in people.

“If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.”

“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”

What you focus on you will find. In a situation, in a person. There is always plenty of good things and plenty of bad things to discover.

So you need to keep your focus steadily on what you want to find. Don’t let it waver just because you are in a “negative” situation or someone just said/did something “negative”. If your focus gets scattered, try to get it back into a more useful place as quickly as you can.

You can develop whatever view of the world and people that you like. You can go looking for the negative in people and feel a short burst of good emotions as find something negative about a person and feel like you are “right”.

Or you can develop a habit of looking for the positive. A habit where you can expect people to treat you in a positive way.

Because we do to a large extent teach people how we want to be treated. If we expect other people to help us and treat us well then they are more likely to do so than if we are negative and expect to be treated poorly.

This may sound a bit weird, but how we expect to be treated can have a big effect on how the world sees us.

2. Be honest.

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

This is a pretty practical thing. Being honest will for several reasons work better in the long run. Of course, you don’t have to go out of your way to be honest and hurt people though. You can just as well choose to be silent if you like. Here are just a few practical reasons to minimize or just stop lying altogether.

• Your words aren’t everything. Words are only a pretty small part of communication. The rest are body language and your voice tonality. And it’s through those channels that the real you will shine through. People will in some way sense that something is wrong, that you aren’t being honest and authentic if those other ways you communicate aren’t in alignment with your words. So lying is just a short term solution. Sooner or later people will pick up on it.
• Poor self-image and stress. Cultivating a self-image as someone who lies will make you feel worse about yourself. You’ll feel like a fake and your self-esteem plummets. And if you on the other hand are honest you don’t have to feel like someone that is trapped or on the high-wire all the time.
• People really appreciate authentic communication. What separates people is to a large extent the walls that they build up between themselves. When you put aside personas and lies you can build real connections between you and other people. If you remove these walls of insulation then the people or you are interacting with are likely to reciprocate. And so your relationships can improve and are less likely to be damaged by miscommunication.

3. Unite.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Ego excludes and divides. The ego loves to make someone “the other” to strengthen its own power. It want’s to feel “more” than someone else. More clever. Prettier. Cooler. Wiser. Or more like a victim.

And by making the other even more wrong in your mind the ego grows stronger. However, the ego boosts of good feelings are just temporary. You have to reinforce them continually, just like a caffeine habit.

Consciousness and intelligence includes and accepts. You don’t have to be seduced by your ego’s wish to make people other than you. You can look at the positive in them and at the things you agree about. And be accepting.

When your thoughts are buzzing around in your head and telling you to exclude or divide in some way then you most often are listening to your ego. It may tell you that paragraphs just above this one are cheesy and stupid. You may not want to take such thoughts too seriously. You don’t have to.

The most useful advice I’ve found so far to get a handle on the need to divide is to not identify so much with my thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that I stop thinking or feeling. It just means that I realize – and remember in my everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through me. And that I am the consciousness observing them.

When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out.

When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts.

4. Create a friend where there is none.

“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

This is similar to tip #1 and # 3. But slightly different, seen from a slightly different perspective. It is a helpful and a bit unusual way of looking at people who you might perceive as different or other than yourself.

Turning an enemy or someone we don’t like into a friend is difficult because first impressions can be powerful. Our concept of a person can remain intact if we don’t push further and question and explore. But if you get to know someone better you can often find out quite a few positive and interesting things about them. People are often more intriguing than your first impression of them.

Of course, since the ego needs to tell you that you are right and someone else is wrong then it can be hard to change your opinion of someone. That opinion of him/her is tied up in your ego and fuels your sense of being “right”. Again, the key and the way out here is to not take your thoughts or emotions too seriously.

This can allow you to open your mind to a change in the relationship.

Now, how can you make him/her your friend? One suggestion would be to follow tip # 1 and start looking for the positive in the person. Then to take the first step and give some kind of value – like help for instance – to that person. And then to take more steps if s/he is not convinced that you want to change the relationship.

5. Believe in and go after your own success.

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

If you think you can succeed then you can. Your belief in your own ability to succeed is essential and does not only motivate you to keep going.

You may have heard that you  have to believe that you can achieve something to do it and that the how you will do it will then present itself along the way. Well, that is true in my experience. Whatever you focus on persistently you will find in your world. So be careful what you focus on. Remind yourself to keep your focus on what you want to make solutions and people who can help you “pop up” out of all those things and pieces of information that is the background noise of your world.

And don’t wait for too long. Procrastination may just leave you with the crumbs or sometimes nothing really. Taking action is awesome. But taking action with little delay will increase the probability of you actually getting what you want before the window of opportunity closes.

So develop a Just do it! habit. Learn to do some planning but then to take action quickly despite what excuses or other negative things your thoughts and emotions may put up in your way. Know that they may just want to protect you from uncertainty and risks. But also know that you are in charge of them and not the other way around.

6. Persist.

“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”

Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use.

If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off and try again. If the success you are looking for won’t come that quickly – a pretty likely scenario – then you have to persist. Persistence may be one of the most useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there in a less competitive playing field as lot other people have given up and gone home. But also because developing patience and being persistent will enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had hoped for.

7. Sharpen your ax.

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”

Instead of just starting to chop with a blunt blade for hours on end it’s a whole lot smarter to first sharpen the blade and then take on the physically harder task of bringing the tree down. This goes for everything.

If you are prepared then it will often be a whole lot easier to get something done. Sometimes it can be the thing that separates people that either keeps chopping until they can’t take it anymore and give up and the people who could get the job done.

So success is not just about doing hard work. It’s also about sharpening your ax at regular intervals and learning new and better ways to take down the trees in your life. And it’s about remembering what trees you want to take down rather than just any tree. However, you don’t want to get stuck in this stage and never take action. As with all things, you have to find a balance by experimenting.

Four suggestions for sharpening your ax are:

• Educate yourself. Do some research into the whatever you want to achieve. Look for the most common mistakes and smart things people do. Read books and online. Talk to people who have already been where you want to go.
• Do. Fail. Learn. Do. Knowledge from external sources is great. But to really understand you have to do things. And learn from your own failures and successes. And then do again with your new understanding in your mind.
• Manage your energy levels. You don’t just have increase your knowledge and understanding of things. You also have to have the physical energy to get things done when you find your opportunity. Otherwise you may just fall into a procrastinating pattern or back down. So workout. Eat enough. Sleep enough. Basic stuff of course. But if you do it consistently then you’ll increase you chances of succeeding when it’s time to start chopping down your trees. With a high energy level it will be easier to persist until you are done.
• Remind yourself where you are going. A lot of not so important busy work can dull your ax. You need to regularly review your plans and remind yourself of your goals and what you really want. If you don’t keep your eyes on where you want to go you might wind up somewhere completely different.

8. Take a responsibility for your own life.

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”

“You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

When we are kids people take care of us. They take responsibility. But to become an adult – and not just a kid in a grown up’s body – one has to take responsibility for oneself. There is no other way. Sure, letting someone else take the responsibility may be easier on you.

But without taking responsibility for yourself how can you be free?
How can you really live up you own potential and dreams?

It can be hard to break out of the comfort zone of having other people taking responsibility for us. But if you don’t then you will be trapped by other people’s standards, expectations and limitations. You have to set your own rules for your life. A bit scary. But also liberating.

9. Happiness is optional.

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

One big upside of taking responsibility for yourself is that it lets you decide where the standards and limits are set. When you take responsibility for what you do you will also feel that you deserve to do what you feel is right for you, in your life.

And our control and responsibility not only goes for what you do out in the world. But also for your thoughts and emotions. You are to a large extent in charge here too.

When you realise this then you realise that you don’t have to play along with your old patterns of thinking and feeling anymore. You don’t have to play along with is “normal” or common thinking. You don’t have to take your thoughts so seriously. You can choose to not feel insulted when someone says something. You can choose to not to be angry whilst stuck in traffic. You can choose to see the positive in people. And you can choose how happy you will be.

Pain is inevitable in life. But how you choose to process or think about things – and if you let them get stuck in your mind or not – is up to you. Suffering is therefore to a large extent optional. And so is happiness.

10. Live your life fully.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

This one is just beautiful. And I don’t really have much to add. But it might be useful to remind yourself of this saying regularly. Maybe when you feel like you are veering off track. Or when heading into things like small-mindedness, laziness or complacency. Perhaps you want to write it down and put it in a highly visible place so you don’t forget about it.

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“I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.”

“A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”

I’m guessing Muhammad Ali doesn’t need a long introduction. As an amateur he won the Olympic Gold. He then went on to become a three-time World Heavyweight Champion.

And in 1999, Sports Illustrated and the BBC named him as “the Sportsman of the Century”.

But what can we learn from one of the best boxers of all time?

Well, here are five tips from Muhammad Ali on how to break through the barriers in the world and in your mind.

1. Take a risk.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”

To get what you really want you will pretty much always have to take risks. Of course, that can be scary.

So how can you overcome this, take a leap and take the risk? I don’t have some simple and easy solution. But I do have a few tips.

• Really, really want it. When you really want it simply becomes easier to push through the inner resistance you feel. You are so motivated to achieve whatever it is you want that the risk may be scary but smaller than your desire.
• Ask yourself: what’s the worst that could happen? We often build big, negative fantasies in our heads of what may happen if we do something. Huge scary monsters. But probably 90 percent of what you fear never comes into reality. This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.
• Detach from the outcome. When you are actually doing and taking the risk in real-time detach from the outcome. Just focus on what’s in front of you. Things will become easier. You’ll create less inner anxiety and pressure for yourself. And you will perform better because you are totally focusing on what’s right in front of you and not weighing yourself down with a lot of self-created negativity and doubts.

Every time you take the leap and take a risk – even if things might not go your way that time – you can build confidence in yourself. By getting more experiences where you took action instead of sitting on your hands it will over time becomes easier to start moving in the direction you desire and take a chance.

2. Steer clear of self-sabotage and creating inner obstacles.

“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”

This is a big problem because often you don’t even know that you are for example self-sabotaging. You think that the thought loops that spinning around in your head is reality. But you can’t predict the future. But you are so stuck in your thoughts that you believe them as if they where the absolute truth.

Again, one way to gain a sober perspective is to ask: what’s really the worst that could happen? And then you can make a plan to handle that worst case scenario if it were to come into reality.

Another important thing here is to do what you think is the right thing in life as much as you can. Why? Because when you do that you start to build an image of yourself as someone who deserves the good things that come to him/her. Self-sabotage comes from thinking that you on some level simply aren’t worthy of what you want. So you sabotage for yourself along the way to get yourself back into the place or level of success you feel you deserve. So you have to make yourself feel more deserving.

Doing the right thing isn’t always easy. But you choose to go and work out instead of lying on the couch and watching TV. You choose to be kind instead of petty or judgemental. You choose to take a chance instead of not taking it. And a lot of the time you might not do the right thing. But by just increasing the number of times you do it during your week little by little you can really change how you view yourself. And over time this habit can become stronger and stronger.

Now, another essential thing to avoid self-sabotage and creating mind-monsters is this…

3. Keep your self-talk positive.

“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”

“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.”

If you are always negative and down on yourself it will be a lot more painful and sometimes pretty much impossible to achieve what you want. Keeping the self-talk in your head positive is essential. You can make that easier to by following the tips above.

Another helpful thing is just to be mindful of how you think about things. To say “Stop!” and cut off negative thought threads before they become strong. Just cut them off as often as you alert enough to do so. And replace them with more positive thought spirals by asking yourself questions like “What’s awesome about this?” and “What can I learn from this?”.

Keeping your self talk positive may seem cheesy or uncool. But beating yourself up all the time is far worse and really not helping you at all.

Plus, the thing is that your self-talk is contagious. Because how you talk to yourself affects how you feel. And as we know from bumper stickers, enthusiasm (and any other feeling) is contagious. And as we know from Ali, this self-talk can also start to seep out into what you say out loud too.

As you interact with people, there is always a social feedback loop. People tend to treat you as you see yourself and as a reaction to how you make them feel. Someone with very positive self-talk will probably be perceived as confident and positive and therefore be treated a certain way. Someone who thinks s/he is a loser and is always down on him/herself may be met with sympathy but also irritation or simply that people tend to avoid that person.

And since people and support is essential to just about any success you may desire your self-talk – and how you talk out loud – becomes very important.

Now, the social feedback loop is about what you really feel about yourself. Not that you repeat affirmations all day that you don’t believe in. So you need to start doing the right thing too, because positive real-life experiences have a deeper impact on how you feel about yourself than just making the self-talk more positive. At least in my experience.

4. Don’t make a big deal out of it.

“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

So you create a more positive self-image by doing the right thing and keeping your self-talk more positive. But it’s also a good thing to not go overboard. To not grow a huge ego and come off as arrogant or well, like a jerk.

This may be a bit counter-intuitive but not making a big deal out of what you are good at have some big benefits.

• Less defensiveness and negativity. I could for instance create a big ego around the fact that I have many readers on this blog. And that would feel awesome for a while. But sooner or later my head would become too big and I would come off in negative way. And if people would question what I am saying I would start to feel more and more threatened and nervous. Because I would have a big image to live up to and defend each day. I think it’s a lot easier to keep the self-talk positive but also just be a guy who knows some stuff, has done some things and write about all of that.
• Makes the doing easier and more enjoyable. If you think it’s a big deal then it becomes a big deal. And things become unnecessarily hard and complicated. You start to create monsters in your mind again. Your ego may want you to think that it’s big, big deal because it means that you are a big, big deal too. That effect is enjoyable but makes the doing harder and less fun after a while as the inner pressure starts to ramp up.

5. Use your emotional leverage to succeed.

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”

If you are here or have an interest in personal development then you have probably hit a point sometime in your past where you said “Enough of this! Something has to change”. Or you felt like you hit rock bottom. Now that isn’t fun. But as Ali says, it’s also there you can find that extra motivation and power to push through.

If you were unhealthy and overweight you feel like you never want to go back to that again. If you didn’t get anything done, procrastinated all day and felt like crap you don’t want to go back to that. If you were buried in a mountain of debt you want to never go back to that place or headspace again.

When you have had enough you will find a way to change your life. And I’m not saying that you should be driven by a fear to never return back to where you were. But to simply remind yourself of how it where back then when things get tough. And realize that yes, it may be hard right now. But it is temporary. And it’s definitely better than it used to be.

Your worst times may not be fun at all when they are happening. But later on they can be some of the most helpful and powerful experiences of your life.

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One of the most common problems people tell me that they want help with is procrastination.

So in this short article I will take some inspiration from wise people throughout history and add a few of my own thoughts on how to minimize this energy draining and stress inducing dilemma. These are four of the most effective tips that I have found so far for making procrastination a much smaller problem in your life.

1. Break it down and just take the first step.

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you start to look too far into the future any task or project can seem close to impossible. And so you shut down because you become overwhelmed and start surfing the internet aimlessly instead. That is one of the reasons why it is good to plan for the future but then to shift your focus back to today and the present moment.

Then you just break down your project/task into smaller and practical steps and focus on taking the first step today. That is all you need to focus on, nothing else. By taking the first step you change your mental state from resistant to “hey, I’m doing this, cool”. You put yourself in state where you become more positive and open, a state where you may not be enthusiastic about taking the next step after this first one but you are at least accepting it. And so you can take the next step. And the next one after that.

The thing is, you can’t see the whole staircase anyway and it will shift and reveal itself along the way. That’s why the best of plans tend to fall apart at least a bit as you start to put it into action. You discover that your map of reality doesn’t look like reality.

2. Don’t blow a task out of proportion.

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”
Olin Miller

”Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.”
George Claude Lorimer

By over thinking and putting things off you may not only be trying to protect yourself from the pain that can come if you take action and have to do hard work or if you fail. You also make mountains out of molehills. The quotes above are so true it isn’t even funny. The more hours and days you put something off the worse it grows in your mind.

Because you are dwelling on it. And so it expands in your mind. And since you are putting it off you are probably thinking about it in a negative way. This makes a little thing a big Godzilla, a horrible beast that is threatening to ruin your life.

So plan a little and then take action.

Often you don’t even have to plan, you have been there before and you know what needs to be done. So stop thinking and just do it no matter how you feel and what you think. How you feel right now changes as quickly as the weather so it’s not the perfect guidance system or anything. And you don’t have to obey what it says (it’s not chains made of iron). You can just do what you know is right anyway.

3. Start with the hardest task of your day.

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
Dale Carnegie

Maybe you have an important call to make that you also fear might be uncomfortable. Maybe you know you have gotten behind on answering your emails and have big pile to dig into. Maybe you have the last five pages of your paper to finish.

Whatever it may be, get it out of your way the first thing you do.

If you start your day this way you will feel relieved. You feel relaxed and good about yourself. And the rest of the day – and your to-do list – tends to feel a lot lighter and easier to move through. It’s amazing what difference this one action makes.

4. Finish it.

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”
William James

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”
David Allen

Not taking the first step to start accomplishing something can make you feel bad. But not finishing what you have started can also leave you in a sort of negative funk. You feel fatigued or stressed and sometimes you don’t even know why. It’s like someone zapped your inner power.

If that is the case, go over tasks and projects that you are currently involved in. Is there something there you know you want to finish but haven’t yet? Try to get that finished as soon as you can and you will start to feel a whole lot better.

Just be careful. Don’t think you have to finish everything you started. If a book sucks, read something else. Using this as an excuse to quit something that feels hard or unfamiliar is not a good idea. But there is no law that says that everything has to be completed.

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Image by Wolfgang Staudt (license).

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Plato

“Nothing endures but change.”
Heraclitus

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Pericles

Obviously, old greeks like Plato, Epictetus and Aristotle were really sharp. And what they talked about over 2000 years ago is just as relevant and useful today. Our outer circumstances may have changed dramatically over the last few thousands of years, but on the inside we seem to have stayed pretty much the same in many ways.

Here are just 7 of my favourite fundamentals from that place and time. I hope you will find them as helpful as I have.

1. If you are going your own way, prepare for reactions.

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
Epictetus

I believe this is very relevant to self-improvement. And something that is holding people back, no matter how much tips or knowledge they have about how to make their lives better. The fear of social rejection is strong in many people.

If you start changing then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

And that’s OK. Most likely they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

2. To get what you really dream about out of life, you have to wo/man up.

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
Aristotle

So to make some real changes you must accept that you may look foolish. You will need courage to actually apply what you have learned on this blog or through other sources. This is one common sticking point. The problem is not that you don’t have the correct tips or solutions. It’s simply that you avoid facing what you fear (even though you mind might still be telling you that the solution does not lie there but rather in gathering more information).

If this is something that you do often then you have to increase your courage. So, how can you do that?

You have to take action and face your fear.

Maybe not what you want to hear, but in my experience and from what I have learned from others this is probably the best way to build courage and self confidence.

You can make this a bit easier though. Three of my own favourite tips for doing that are:

• Be curious. When you are stuck in fear you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people. When you shift to being curious your perceptions and the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear. How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you to discover and experience.
• Be present. This will help you snap out of overthinking and just go and do whatever you want to get done. This is also probably the best tip I have found so far for taking more action in life since it puts you in a state where you feel little emotional resistance to the work you’ll do. One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on your breathing for a minute or two.
• Realize that failure won’t kill you. It is when you face your fears that you discover the thing that billions of people throughout history have discovered before you. Failure won’t kill you. Nor will being wrong. The sky will not fall down. That’s just what people that haven’t faced their fear yet think. Failure is actually a great way to learn things about yourself and life. And to make yourself tougher and more courageous.

3. What they say might not really be about you.

“People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.”

“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”
~ Aesop

Criticism that may be valid should be taken seriously. But negativity directed towards you is often not about you. It’s more about someone else having a bad day, week or year and directing their negative energy at anyone passing by in their life.

This ties back to fundamental #1. So much complaining and negativity that people put out into the world is about how they feel about themselves and their lives. The problem is just that we are often so focused on own lives that we take every negative thing said to us personally. But the world doesn’t revolve around me or you.

So remember those two quotes when someone’s directing negativity towards you.

And more importantly, remember those quotes when you feel the need to lash out towards someone. Ask yourself what the real problem in your life is. And what you can do about it.

Instead of just lashing out and feeding more negativity into your and someone else’s life.

One thing you can pretty sure of is that the more people try to boost their own value and temporary positive feelings by putting someone else down, the worse they feel about themselves and their lives. And that goes for you and me too of course.

4. Discard the things that aren’t helping you.

“The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.”
Antisthenes

Some of what you learn in life is simply social conditioning that is fed to you over and over as you grow up. And so you believe that it is true. But you have to realize that some of the things you have picked up may not serve you in the best way. But you may have simply grown so comfortable with those beliefs that you cling to them – no matter how negative they are – like a safety blanket.

Another thing is that was once true for you may not be true anymore. As you improve yourself you have to let go of your past and your old self-image to be able to move forward fully. You have to accept that you have changed and then keep your focus steadily on your new areas of interest so you don’t slip back into your old – and so familiar and comfortable – self over and over again.

Also, if you have learned read a lot about personal development then you might have a lot of tips on different topics in your head. To simplify your life and thinking you might not need 25 ways to handle nervousness.

Articles with that many tips can be helpful but it’s important to try that stuff out for yourself and see what tips that work most effectively for you. And then simplify so you always know what action to take if you get nervous for example. Instead of having your mind so cluttered with information that you become paralyzed and take no action at all.

5. Your wishes may not be all that they are cracked up to be.

“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”
Aesop

Here is one of those beliefs that you may hold but may want to let go off to live a happier life.

We wish for something. A new car, a new job, a new relationship or perhaps a new pair of shoes. And perhaps you think: “if I only get this thing, then I’m home, then I’ll feel happy and good all around”.

And then you get it. And it’s awesome. But often for just a while. And then you may feel like maybe something went a bit wrong. Like it didn’t fulfil you or complete you like you thought it would.

Why? Well, after while when you get used to something, when it becomes normal, then the ego tends to want more once again.

Or maybe you can’t enjoy something for what it is because even though your environment changes, you are still the same. The same person with the same outlook on life. With the same self-imposed barriers for your own success and happiness and maybe self-sabotaging behaviour. And until you take a look at those things you may find yourself repeating the same patterns over and over. When you are the same, you often tend to get the same results over and over again.

Our wishes can also often come through accompanied by unexpected and not so pleasant side effects. Things may seem just perfect when you dream about them. In reality, it can become a little more complicated and messy.

Now, new things or people can be great. But if you think this one thing or person will fix all your problems or if you focus on the wrong aspects – what is not perfect, how can I get more etc. – instead of the positives and gratitude then you may find yourself always looking for the next thing and create quite a bit of unhappiness within.

6. Focus on building helpful habits.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

Becoming really good at something or making real improvement in your life isn’t about short spurts now and then when you feel like it. It’s about habits and consistency.

Here are two tips that have been helpful for me to establish new habits in my life.

• The 30 day challenge. You have probably read about this old personal development concept from for example Steve Pavlina. Basically, you make a deal with yourself to do one thing for just 30 days (one example: exercise every day) and no more than that. But after those 30 days you may discover that your mind will have become so accustomed to this new behaviour that it will be easier to continue doing it than stop doing it.
• Just focus on the process. While doing something for those 30 days you focus on the process rather than the results. I for instance use this when I workout. I don’t take responsibility for the results in my mind. I take responsibility for showing up – even the days when I don’t feel like it – and doing my workout. The results come anyway from that consistent action. And this makes it easier for me to take this action and establish the new habit when I know that is all I need to focus on. Instead of using half of the energy and focus I have available on hoping that I “reach my goal real, real soon”. Focus on the process and you will be a lot more relaxed and likely to continue than if you stare yourself blind on the potential results that never come as quickly as you want to and puts you on an emotional rollercoaster from day to day.

7. Suffering is optional. And so is happiness.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?”

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”
~ Epictetus

Suffering is optional. And so is happiness. What you choose to think about determines how you feel. It may seem “normal” and be common to go through a lot of mindmade suffering after the initial pain that ignited the suffering. And it’s easy to slip back into old thoroughly ingrained thought habits. But you don’t have to. You can learn to gain more control over your happiness and suffering.

One tip that I have found helpful for this is to learn to reconnect as much as possible with the present moment. Suffering is to a large extent created when your mind is thinking thoughts about either the past or a possible future. As mentioned already in this article, one of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on your breathing for a minute or two.

It is also very useful to realize that you are not your thoughts or emotions. They are just things that are flowing through you. But they are not you. You are the one observing them. This realization can gradually free you more and more from keeping negative thought and emotions going. Whenever they arise and you realize that you aren’t them and that you don’t have to identify with them then their power over you fades away.

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Your mind like answers. It seems like whatever you ask it, it will find answers for.

So it becomes very important to ask yourself the right questions. Questions that will help you out rather than just make you feel more miserable and helpless.

Questions like: “What’s awesome about this?” and “Will this matter 5 years from now?”

Another favourite goes something like this: “What would X do?” X being whoever inspiring figure you want it to be. It’s a great way to shift perspective in a situation and find a more useful frame of mind.

For example, the non-conformist and rebel might ask: “What would Tyler Durden do?” Me, I like Winnie the Pooh.

What would Winnie the Pooh do?

Let’s say I feel closed up, tense and kinda whiny. It’s not a helpful frame of mind.

Let’s think about Winnie the Pooh for a minute. He is warm and open. Relaxed. Centred. He doesn’t cling to the past or the future but is happy to live in the now. In fact, it doesn’t seem like he’s thinking that much at all.

Now, this might seem like a sorta stupid bear. But that’s mostly coming from a perspective where someone is a bit too identified with their own smartness. It’s often better to not think so much and let thoughts and actions naturally arise within you – much like a tennis player out on the court – if you want to get things done and be happy.

Now, back to me. As I feel like a not so good version of myself I often still remember that I can turn that around. Like everything else, it’s just temporary.

So I ask myself: “What would Winnie the Pooh do?”

That focuses my mind on all the positive things I associate with honey loving bear. And so I start to think different things. My mind comes up with more helpful answers. Asking yourself a question like this one is a way to activate and remember the “better parts” of yourself. To snap yourself out of an unproductive and negative emotional state and frame of mind.

I find this question to be especially helpful in social situations.

On side note, many of the common and less productive emotional states and frames of mind can be found in the Hundred Acre Woods. Rabbit is very identified with his mind and thinks he’s very smart. He’s a bit of an overthinker. Piglet is very kind and seems to want to be brave. But he’s filled with self-doubt. And well, Ior, he’s just totally locked in into a negative frame of mind no matter what happens.

Now, here are few others of my favourite what would… people.

What would Jason Bourne do?

No, the Bourne frame of mind isn’t about putting your car in reverse and going off rooftops.

It is about putting a stop to thinking and allowing yourself to work with what you already know. As I said about Pooh, you allow the right action to arise from within rather than think a lot about it. You have trust in yourself and your experience.

This is what Jason Bourne does a lot of the time up on the movie/TV-screen. He does what he’s learned, he lets his body and subconscious do most of the doing. A lot of thinking would only hold him back.

Now, thinking has its place. But to be wrapped up in it all the time often leads to much doubts within and little actually getting done. The thing is, you know what to do most of the time already. Don’t put up obstacles in your own way.

I have been using this one for years now, it’s a very good question to become focused and to focus on the how rather than whys and doubts.

What would Eckhart Tolle do?

Eckhart Tolle is one of my favourite personal development writers.

He is very much about living in the present moment and having an accepting frame of mind.

I have found that this question is most helpful when you feel angry and frustrated. Or getting your mind stuck in past or future scenarios. Or when you have a lot of conflict within, when you are dividing up the world and feel like you are right and someone else is wrong.

Asking that question can help me to flip the perspective around to a more useful one a lot of the time. And when that doesn’t work, listening to one of his audiobooks for 10 minutes usually does the trick. Emotions are contagious. Even stillness within.

To learn more about his views on things and be able to use this question, I recommend the audioversion of the book Stillness Speaks. It’s a short book that quickly gets to the point.

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“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
St. Augustine

“If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.”
Sir Isaac Newton

One of the most helpful qualities a person can have if s/he wants to grow is to be patient. With patience and persistence you can overcome pretty much anything.

But why is it hard to be patient? How can you improve your patience? And how can patience help you out practically in life?
Here are seven timeless thoughts that may give you some answers to such questions.

1. Social programming can stand in the way.

“How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?”
Paul Sweeney

Everything is moving fast in today’s society. Instant gratification is default setting in many minds.

I’m not saying this to rail against today’s society. I’m just saying it to give at least a partial explanation why patience is hard to understand and use to your advantage.

Social programming doesn’t pay much attention to patience. It wants you to do more right now instead. And after a few years here you may want to have more things right now. And the thought of delaying gratification may seem a bit… weird.

2. With patience you’ll get it.

“He that can have patience, can have what he will.”
Benjamin Franklin

This may not be such a popular thought. People may not want to hear about it.

Still it’s what every successful person has had. And so they chipped away. Practised day in and day out.

It often looks like they have some massive talent or big stroke of luck when they become successful. That might be the case. But people may not see all the years of hard work that came before that big break. Or they don’t want to see it and instead rationalize it as “huge talent” or “luck”. That way they don’t have to think about the fact that they also have the option of putting in all that work. And that they by doing things that way could perhaps someday even outdo the dreams they have right now.

It’s easier to just put it down as big talent or luck. And keep dreaming about quick fixes and magic pills.

3. Don’t give up yet.

“Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.”
Soren Kierkegaard

“It’s not that I’m so smart,
it’s just that I stay with problems longer.“
Albert Einstein

Since society tells us to look for quick fixes it’s easy to make the mistake of giving up to soon. After you have failed perhaps 1-5 times. That’s the “normal” thing to do. But what could have happened if someone just kept going after that? And for each failure learned more and more about what works?

I think people often make a mistake of giving up too early. Your mind probably has a reasonable timeframe for success. This might not correspond to a realistic timeframe though.

It’s useful to take a break from advertised perspectives and let more realistic perspectives seep into your mind. Learn from people who have gone where you want to go. Talk to them. Read what they have to say in books or online. This will not give you complete plan but a clearer perspective of what is needed to achieve what you want.

Now, that’s not to say that you should never quit. But it can be helpful to keep going on your current path for a while longer.

And that’s not to say that you should do the same thing over and over in exactly the same manner. It’s better to do and get an experience. Take the lessons you can learn from that real life experience. And then adjust how you do things as you try again.

4. It gives you an advantage.

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
Thomas Jefferson

While other people fly off the handle you can remain cool and patient. While other people give up after trying a few times you keep moving. While others run in circles chasing the next quick solution to their problems you stay steadily on your path.

5. It’s a form of protection.

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will be powerless to vex your mind.”
Leonardo Da Vinci

This is a wonderful point. With patience wrongs or failure will not feel like the end of the world. They no longer hold such a large emotional power over you that you just give up. You know that if you just keep going and perhaps adjust how you do things then your life will improve.

6. Build it.

“Patience can’t be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.”
Eknath Easwaran

“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.”
Helen Keller

The more you can remain patient the easier it gets. It’s a muscle you build over months and years of time.

As Keller says, life can teach you to become more patient. During the rough parts of life you often have no choice but to be patient. These are the times that will especially strengthen your patience muscle.

When we are young we get much of what we want instantly from our parents and other grownups. As we become adults we learn that people won’t give us everything we want anymore. If we want to have the things we really want we often have to learn to be patient.

Otherwise we may time after time wind up in a loop where we get things we kinda want right now to cover up the real and deeper wants. This can bring dissatisfaction after the initial buzz of newness dissipates. A vague knowing at the back of our minds. As we consume more right now to make that uneasiness go away.

7. Be patient with yourself.

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.”
St. Francis de Sales

This is a very important thing to keep in mind when it comes to personal development and life. Because things will not always go as planned. You will fail. You will bail out because of fear. You will become confused. You will do things you know you shouldn’t have done. You will probably do these things more than once.

Don’t beat yourself up about it for two weeks or three months. Or give up.

Instead, be smart and patient with yourself. And get back up on that horse and back in the saddle again tomorrow.

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If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few decades you know who John Lennon was.

So let’s just get to three of my favourite tips from him.

1. Work for what you want. Instead of getting stuck in complacency.

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”

It’s easy to get stuck in complacency. To do what you always do and to take an easy way through things. To watch TV with a bag of chips on the belly instead of going to the gym. It’s comfortable and nice.

But if you want to get what you really want out of life you have to ditch much of that complacency. Because it uses up your time, energy and focus to just keep you where you are right now.

I think the best way to avoid complacency is to be aware of your behaviour so you don’t slip into that comfortable zone. To keep your focus on the right things to help yourself to grow. And not only check your own thinking and actions continually but also fill much of your life with people and information that will inspire you, challenge you and keep you in a supportive environment.

With your focus on the right things you can create proactive habits. Habits where you just do whatever you want to do (even if you don’t always feel like it). Habits where you expand you comfort zone little by little – or in big leaps if you like – instead of spending your time just in that narrow zone.

This doesn’t mean that you have to stop watching your favourite TV-show. It just means that you keep your focus on what you really want and to work towards that. It means to do what you really like doing. Instead of letting your focus slide into escapism or the easy or lazy way out all the time.

2. Live your life. Have experiences instead of hundreds of plans.

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”

Plan your life. But don’t get stuck in planning. Or overthinking. Or overreading. You can’t avoid failure or mistakes by making the perfect plan. Things will go wrong. And that’s when you learn valuable things.

Experiences will make you understand in way that words from another person can’t. No matter if the experiences are “good” or “bad”.
There are always one or more lessons – or just moments – to take away from experiences. And in retrospect, some of the most negative experiences may become some of your most valuable experiences later on.

So be careful of trying to make everything just perfect before you get started. Plans or circumstances will never be perfect. Be aware if you are getting stuck in overdoing things. It can waste a lot of your time while life is passing you by.

Oftentimes it’s better to jump in and just do it. And then afterwards you can see what the actual results were – which are not always the same at all as you may predicted – and more accurately aim your focus and actions to improve your results when you take action the next time. Simply put: fire, aim, fire. Instead of doing it the more normal way where you aim and then you fire.

3. Be open.

“The more I see the less I know for sure.”

If you think you are always right then it will be hard to grow and expand your life and consciousness. Being open to learning and being open to the possibility that you may be wrong may not be as comfortable as thinking that you’re always right.

But being in a state of uncertainty at times is a way to expand your comfort zone and add new lessons and perspectives to your life. Staying complacent is a way to avoid uncertainty and the scary unknown out there.

And if you aren’t open then you can’t see the lessons that you can learn. Your mind will filter out stuff based on what you focus on and the questions you ask yourself. So make a habit of asking yourself: “what can I learn from this?” Then you open up your mind to learning something. If you think you already know the answers you will filter out the new and possibly important stuff that doesn’t fit into you being right or into your current view of the world and yourself. And so valuable lessons pass you by.

That would be sad, because that’s one of the nice things about life. It can surprise you a lot if you are open to it.

And you can get much out of life if you are open enough to step through the doors that open. Instead of making the common mistake of getting hung up on the door that just closed and staring at it until your new door of opportunity has closed too.

Don’t make that mistake. Instead, keep your mind open. And then you can choose to step through into something new.

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Here are a five clues, success habits and tips from Arnold himself.

1. Believe in yourself.

“I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.”

“We all have great inner power. The power is self-faith. There’s really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer.”

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

A very strong belief in yourself can be ridiculously useful.

Corny as it may sound, your belief in yourself determines a lot about your journey and your results. But the problem with statements like “Just believe in yourself, man!” is that they don’t come with any practical instructions on how to actually believe more I yourself. So you have a hard time getting anywhere.

I have found a few things that have been helpful.

• First, by realizing that you are able to handle negative stuff that comes your way your belief in yourself and your capabilities grows.
• You can also work on a similar process voluntarily. By setting goals and achieving them your belief in yourself increases. And by facing your fears and finding that you can indeed survive such experiences your belief in yourself goes up too. None of these options may sound that glamorous, fun or quick. And a lot of the time they aren’t. But like with so much else,you have to put in effort to get good results.

But there is also another side to this challenge. Quite a bit of the problem with a lack of belief in yourself comes from internal self-sabotage, self-limiting beliefs and resistance within your mind. It’s you holding yourself back.

I have found that reading Eckhart Tolle’s books like “A New Earth” – or books on mindfulness in general I guess – to help you realize that you are not your ego, thoughts or emotions and rereading to strengthen and deepen that belief can be very helpful to reduce the inner struggle, over-analyzing and self-sabotage. Over time you can get better control over your mind and you´ll stop listening so much to your own negative inner voices and emotional resistance.

Having a reasonably good handle on that part makes it easier to see yourself doing what you want to do. Because, as Arnold says, you have to be able to envision what you want to do or it will be very hard or just impossible bring that vision into reality.

By getting better control over your mind it becomes easier to hold this vision in your mind day after day, week after week. You’ll be less prone to self-sabotage. And your belief will waver less when being questioned or worse by other people or just society in general.

2. See struggle and failure as something positive.

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”

Failure is seldom the end of the world. It’s a part of the journey, a part of the learning curve. The problem is just that if you have a scarcity mentality then every failure or potential failure may seem as the sky falling. This can hold you back from performing well. Or from taking action at all. The key to overcome this is to develop an abundance mentality that tells you that there are always more opportunities. This allows you to not take the setbacks too seriously.

One way to help yourself to develop such a mentality is to replace some of the usual input – news, advertising – with information and the vibe from personal development authors/speakers. Another way is just to hang out more with people with an abundance mentality. Or just people that are positive and enthusiastic about life.

Now, most of the time you only really fail when you give up and surrender. If you keep going you’ll build your inner strength to live and move through rough patches. And if you are able to look at your setbacks and learn from them you can also deepen you knowledge, perhaps avoid some mistakes and find a better course towards your goal.

Remember that to succeed you need those failure. They make you stronger and smarter and that build-up of yourself is vital to success.

3. Go the extra mile.

“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”

Going the extra mile. It’s not easy. Personally I think this has often been because I have just thought too much. Overthinking often leads to negative thought spirals where you use your mind to decrease your own strength through self-doubt. And if you add up all the overthinking you can waste months or perhaps even years of your life.

It’s more useful to just stop thinking when all then thinking that is needed is done. And to then just go and do what you choose to do. And then to learn from your experiences and to keep going.

4. Go work out.

“Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body.”

Yep, working out is very useful in more than one way. I have found that one of the best ways to turn an anxious, negative or weak mood fully around is simply to go exercising. It is also reliable because it is not so dependent on your mind. You just have to drag yourself wherever you need to go and make your body do certain movements to get the desired result.

And, anyway, how are you going to be able to go the extra mile without extra energy? Over the last few years I realized that many problems are simply based in a lack of energy. So working out or not isn’t much of a choice really. If you aren’t naturally a bouncy, high energy person then you have to exercise in some way to create that energy you need to achieve whatever it is you want in life.

5. Go and help others.

“Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.”

Helping others is valuable in so many ways. Beside the wonderful upsides that Arnold brings up – like the fact that you are helping people out and at the same time enriching and adding meaning to your own life – you also create a lot of relationships.

And the Law of Reciprocity, the urge to give back is strong in people. If you provide value and help to them then they will often be inclined to give you a hand when you need it. Or feel the need give back by paying it forward and helping other people.

This creates big, expanding upward spirals of positive actions and thoughts. And that can be very useful for us all.

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About 2500 years ago a slave called Aesop lived on the Greek island of Samos.

He is known for the fables that he wrote down. Many of them were even older that Aesop and had been passed down through the ages through the oral tradition.

So even though these seven useful tips are attributed to Aesop, they may be much older than that.

1. Your wishes may not be all that they are cracked up to be.

“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”

We wish for something. A new car, a new job, a new relationship or perhaps a new pair of shoes. And perhaps you think: “if I only get this thing, then I’m home, then I’ll feel happy and good all around”.

And then you get it. And it’s awesome. But often for just a while. And then you may feel like maybe something went a bit wrong. Like it didn’t fulfil you or complete you like you thought it would.

Why? Well, after while when you get used to something, when it becomes normal, then the ego tends to want more once again.

Or maybe you can’t enjoy something for what it is because even though your environment changes, you are still the same. The same person with the same outlook on life. With the same self-imposed barriers for your own success and happiness and maybe self-sabotaging behaviour. And until you take a look at those things you may find yourself repeating the same patterns over and over. When you are the same, you often tend to get the same results over and over again.

Also, our wishes can often come through accompanied by unexpected and not so pleasant side effects. Things may seem just perfect when you dream about them. In reality, it can become a little more complicated and messy.

Now, new things or people can be great. But if you think this one thing will fix all your problems or focus on the wrong aspects – what is not perfect, how can I get more etc. – instead of the positives and gratitude then you may find yourself always looking for the next thing and create quite a bit of stress and unhappiness within.

2. Learn not only from your own life.

“Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.”

This is a very useful thing to keep in mind. Not the easiest to implement consistently though. Some things are very hard to learn by just watching others make a mistake.

You have to make it yourself, get the experience of it and learn about the thoughts and feelings associated to it. With that understanding it can be easier to actually learn to avoid doing the same mistake over and over.

However, to keep your eyes and mind open to the mistakes and misfortunes of others around you – or via books or blogs – is still very useful. It can allow you to make quicker and less painful progress, for instance when you are a beginner at something.

3. Beware of complacency.

“Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”

One of the big, and sneakiest, obstacles to living the life you wish for is complacency. It tells you that it’s easier to just stay where you are, to watch TV and eat snacks instead of for instance working out or trying something new. Or expressing yourself in a genuine way.

Complacency might give a feeling of things being good enough. Or a sense of security. But a sense of security is often a just false sense of security. You never really know what will happen.
If you want to fulfil more of your potential, if you want to find out what you really can do, then complacency isn’t such a good idea. But how do you keep yourself from falling into it?

I don’t have an easy answer. I think you have to keep your focus on the right things to help yourself to grow. And not only check your own thinking and actions continually but also fill much of your life with people and information that will inspire you, challenge you and keep you in a supportive environment. And keep you from falling back into a lazy, comfortable rut.

4. Work on your own goals.

“He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own.”

“If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs.”

One good reason to have a direction and goals in life is simply because if you don’t, then someone else does. And that person will get the people without goals to work on his/her goal. Or as the second quote suggests, they might help you but with an ulterior motive.

And so you lose your personal power. You give it away to someone else by not having your own direction, by not keeping your own hands on the wheel. And it may not feel that horrible really. It might feel safe.

But on the other hand, if you start setting goals and get a direction in life you tend to perk up and feel more empowered. That vague, underlying uneasiness that seemed to float through your life start to vanish. You feel more alert. And you can start to work much more on what you really want out of life, instead of what someone else may tell you that you should do or want.

5. Kindness is always good.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

Any act of kindness can put a positive spark into the world. Just a genuine compliment can make a person’s day. And even if someone doesn’t appreciate your kindness you can still feel good about handing it out. In the end, their response is their business. And in the long run, you tend to get what you give.

6. What they say might not really be about you.

“People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.”

“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”

Of course, criticism that may be valid should be taken seriously. But negativity directed towards you is pretty seldom about you. It’s more about someone else having a bad day, week or year and directing their negative energy at anyone passing by in their life.

So much complaining and negativity that people put out into the world is about how they feel about themselves and their lives. The problem is just that we are often so focused on own lives that we take every negative thing said to us personally. But the world doesn’t revolve around me or you.

So remember these two quotes when someone’s directing negativity towards you.

And more importantly, remember those quotes when you feel the need to lash out towards someone. Ask yourself what the real problem in your life is. And what you can do about it. Instead of just lashing out and feeding more negativity into your and someone else’s life.

One thing you can pretty sure of is that the more people try to boost their own value and temporary positive feelings by putting someone else down, the worse they feel about themselves and their lives. And that goes for you and me too of course.

7. Help yourself.

“The gods help them that help themselves.”

The ones that help themselves consistently by making plans and taking action get more opportunities and more of what may be perceived as luck. Things just seem to line up for them. While others may stand on the sidelines and begrudge all that luck and success that those people have.

The more you help yourself, the more help you tend get from the world around you. If you don’t help and empower yourself then there will probably be a whole lot less help of any kind coming your way.

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Jonathan Swift was a writer that lived a couple of centuries ago (1667-1745).

He is perhaps most known for classics like “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Propsal”. The latter being the ironic and shocking essay where he suggested that impoverished Irish people should sell their babies as food to rich people. Such works has earned Swift a reputation as one of the finest satirists of all time.

Since Swift was a writer there is a ton of things to quote. Here are seven of my favourite words of wisdom.

1. Don’t fear to be wrong.

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than yesterday.”

So much of what we learn in society is about how you should not fail and not make mistakes. In school we are taught to get good grades and play by the rules. And so always taking a safe route and not taking risks can become an ingrained behaviour as we learn to associate failure with shame and pain.

But one should really not be afraid of making mistakes. Or admitting that he or she has been wrong. By recognizing that you can release the negative emotions that may dwell within and move on to the next thing. Admitting that you have been wrong also makes it easier to clearly analyze what you did and what you can learn from the experience.

2. Money is useful. Love of it is hazardous.

“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.”

Money is very useful. But if you let it take the wrong place in your life it can wreck havoc.

It can create greed and much negativity in your life. And if you love the money, you’ll probably just want more and more. No matter how much you get. And it may not fill you up and finally make you happy as you may have hoped.

The drive to always want more can become like filling a bucket with a hole in it. And as you slowly realize that this won’t work as you had hoped bitterness and negativity can start to feste.

Now, it’s important to not let this reasoning lead you to believe that money is evil. Money is a tool. It can help you to achieve many positive things.

3. Dig where you stand.

“Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.”

It’s very easy to fall into an addictive pattern of criticizing yourself and others. But what are the positive things in you and the people around you?

If you just look for things to criticize then that is what you will see. If you look for things to criticize in yourself that is what you will see in yourself and pay attention to in others.

So what can you do? You can start digging where you are standing. Instead of asking yourself those negative questions continually, ask yourself: what is good about me? Ask yourself where your strengths and talents lie. And don’t give up at once just because a negative mindset may initially not let you see what’s good and positive about you.

What you focus on most of the time is what you will see of reality. Knowing your weaknesses and learning from mistakes is helpful. But to dwell on criticism and the negative parts will just keep you in a loop where you create more of that for yourself.

At some point it’s useful to move on from that and start to shift your focus to the positive. And see what gold that will help you uncover.

4. Go further than you may think you can.

“I’ve always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I’m going to make the next one.”

One big problem with success is that you may want it right now. Or at least very soon. No wonder, advertising continually bombards us with messages of how we can become thin or rich in just 30 days. And people often want to believe in that.

Now, I’m not saying that a lot of the stuff out there doesn’t work. They probably do work. I’m just saying that it may take more time, patience and work than advertised to get you where you want to go.

It’s useful to take a break from advertised perspectives and let more realistic perspectives seep into your mind. Learn from people who have gone where you want to go. Talk to them. Read what they have to say in books or online. This will not give complete plan but a clearer perspective of what is needed to achieve what you want.

And then you plug away. You don’t let setbacks or failure discourage you. You go out and try again. And just when you feel like giving up you go on a little further. And a little further.
Because it’s often darkest before the dawn.

5. Put down the extra, unnecessary baggage you are carrying.

“The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.”

We pick a whole lot when we are young. Some of it is helpful. A lot of it will hold you back and create a lot of unnecessary suffering in your life.

You may have learned things from society – or sometimes gotten stuff drilled into your head – when you were young. You may have taken what someone said or did to you once or repeatedly as an absolute truth about you and your life.

But as a grown up, as you start to examine your life and beliefs you may discover that those things was just things that happened. They are in the past. You are here now.

And by grasping that it’s you who are always in control of your life – that you are creating it right now – you understand that unhelpful beliefs or what happened doesn’t have to mean that much really.

You can choose to drop them and continue with a lightness in your step down a road that you are creating for yourself now. One tip that can help you with that is to first accept that you are carrying the negative thing and how it is affecting you. And then to let it go. Acceptance of what already is does – even though it may sound counterintuitive – make it easier to let something go.

6. Be good to yourself in simple ways.

“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”

It’s nowadays common to run yourself into the ground and then, as you feel like a shadow of your former self, to seek help.

But a big part of keeping your health – mentally and physically – in good shape is to prevent problems before they even show up and force you to go to the doctor.

Swift brings some common sense into this challenge. By doing simple things consistently, by making them ingrained habits one can avoid many problems down the line.

• Doctor Diet. Eat not too little or too much. Eat slowly to really enjoy the taste and avoid overeating, an upset stomach and added stress.
• Doctor Quiet. Always being around noise, other people and stimulation via a lot of information can drain you. It’s important to find some quiet time for yourself regularly to avoid being overloaded. Being out in nature is for instance one good way to reconnect with the quiet and stillness.
• Doctor Merryman. How happy and positive one wants to feel is often to a large degree a choice. You can cultivate a negative attitude towards everything. Or a positive one.  And a whole lot of tips for creating a positive and optimistic attitude can be found in my book  The Power of Positivity.

Now, this may sound like almost stupidly simple advice. And the information is very simple. Many very helpful things are very simple.

More advanced tips can sound intriguing because one may associate complicated with better. But everything has to have foundations. Without those everything you build on top of them will only work at a limited capacity or sometimes just crumble.

7. Be open to the idea that you can always learn.

“No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.”

Being open to this will open up your mind. If you think you know everything, great insights and wonderful new paths to explore will just pass you by.

By being open you’ll see, feel and learn things you wouldn’t otherwise. But be careful of focusing too much on learning from books, blogs etc. They have a place and can help you correct things may have done backwards for all of your life.

But the most important thing is to live. And to learn from your experiences. Because it is there you find true understanding of things.

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