Sometimes stress and negativity in general becomes so powerful that we almost feel like we can’t deal anymore.

We may temporarily or no so temporarily become angry, sad, depressed, apathetic over even burn-out and become unable to do what we used to do for weeks, months or even years.

Finding ways to release the negative tension and stress becomes crucial to not only handle life but to live a happier and more meaningful life.

Recently I’ve thought quite a bit about these things and done some brainstorming-sessions. Here are some of the ways I’ve come up with so far on how to live a more relaxing life.

1. Prioritize, reorganize and remove – One of the big problems with a life filled with stress is that it’s filled with too much stuff to do and think about.

Another big problem with a life filled with stress is perhaps not that it’s filled with things to do but that a lot of those things are stuff you really don’t feel like doing. You may feel that it’s just something that you should do.

Do you really have to do all things in life? Or are some of them just things you do by habit, not knowing really why you are doing them when you think about it? Or are you doing them because someone else thinks it’s important? Or do you think that friends, neighbours or just people in general will look down upon you if you don’t do it?

I have found that using the 80/20 rule – also know as the Pareto Principle – to be effective when trying to figure out what’s important in your life and what’s not really that important. Basically what the 80/20 rule says is that 20 percent of what you do accounts for 80 percent of the value.

I have found that as a rule of thumb, this is often pretty accurate. In your personal life or at work there are a few very important things that you can do.

Try to figure out what’s really important in your life. What those 20 percent are. Then do as much of that as you can. Try to figure out what isn’t that important of the 80 percent. Minimize the time and effort it takes in your life or if possible remove it. Then use your “new” time to do more of those really important things.

2. Declutter your outer world – A cluttered environment can split your thoughts ten ways and make it hard to relax – or focus – as your thoughts shift all the time thanks to, for instance, constantly discovering new stuff on your desk (bills, candy, reports, mail your forgot to reply to etc.). Less clutter in your outer world creates less clutter in your mind both at work or at home.

3. Plan on paper then work in the now – Write everything down so you don’t have to worry about forgetting something. Putting your plans outside of yourself in some kind of organizing-system to frees up mental RAM and allows your mind to work on other stuff than just trying to remember things.

One of the reasons GTD – the organizing-system from David Allen’s Getting Things Done
– has become so popular is probably because it not only it keeps everything organized and helps you actually getting things done but also because it keeps you working in the now by using a organizing system outside of your head.

Since you keep your plans and the future on paper or in an organizer-type of program and only do things one step at a time your mind doesn’t have to spend much time, on a emotional and psychological plane, thinking and thereby worrying about what will happen next or this afternoon. This reduces fear, procrastination and stress while creating a flow in your work.

4. Always arrive early – I was reminded of this very commonsensical advice while reading this post about the grandfather of 93-year old blogger Don. Simply, always arrive at meetings and appointments 5-10 minutes early.

5. Find a good listener and just talk– If you have troubles one great way to release that negative energy is to talk about to someone about it. They don’t have to come up with a solution to your problem. The point is just for you to talk about it and them mostly to listen. After you’ve poured it out it feels easier. Later, you can return the favour when they need a listener.

6. Meditate – I have had excellent results with guided meditations. I’ve tried Paraliminals from Learning Strategies. They have given me a very relaxing effect with almost no mental chatter for up to 24 hours.

And the upside is that they are extremely easy to use. All you have to do is lie down, close your eyes and relax. And both products gave me a very noticeable result on the first try.

There is of course a lot more to meditation and lot of other different and free meditation-techniques to try. Just google it and explore.

7. Watch/read your favourite tv-comedy, movie, book or websites – Laughter is awesome to release tension and just relax for a while. Since I like American Tv-Shows some of my recommendations are The Simpsons, Arrested Development, Frasier, Futurama and the Daily Show.

8. Breathe – The last few weeks I’ve started doing belly breathing exercises which has brought me both clarity of mind and a sense of calmness.

9. Exercise – Perhaps the most obvious advice of all. Exercise does not only release tension but also, over time, provides you with more energy to handle anything that might come up in your life. And there is a lot of good information online and you can find well filled authority-sites and helpful forums on most subsections of exercise. Again, just google around a bit and see what you find.

10. Fix the rest of the fundamentals – Perhaps the advice providing the largest impact on your life if applied. So, eat and sleep better. Stop or at least reduce smoking and drinking. And you’ll not only feel more relaxed but better in almost every kind of way.

11. Redefine your problems – Are your problems really as big as you think they are? Or are you perhaps blowing them up to scary proportions in your mind? Often we build up our problems, just like fear and anger, in our minds. And then they quickly lose all proportions compared to the problem at hand.

It’s common to dwell on your problems 80 percent of the time but to only think about a solution 20 percent of the time. This, of course, magnifies any problem. Me, I’ve taken some good advice and started to flip those numbers around and try to spend 80 percent of my time focusing on a solution rather than the problem.

Having a problem finding a solution to your problems? Maybe you haven’t come up with enough solutions yet.

12. Find the opportunity hidden within the problem – Another thing about problems is that we often focus on the bad part of them. But there is almost always a good part too. Or at least an opportunity within the problem. Perhaps it teaches us to be more patient, how to live more frugally or become more empathic. Finding this more positive part of the problem reduces it’s negative emotional impact and you may even start to see the situation as a great opportunity for you. When you are faced with a problem ask yourself:

What is the good thing about this? What can I learn from this? And what opportunity can I find within this problem?

13. Surrender to your feelings – Instead of fighting your feelings accept them and surrender to them. And you’ll find that the negative feelings quickly lose their power over you and fade away. Here’s the practical formula, which I have written about several times before, for doing just that:

When you feel a negative feeling then accept it. Don’t try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life).

Say yes to it.

Surrender and let it in.

Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labeling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes.

14. Overcome or at least reduce your fears – This is of course not as easy as some of the suggestions above and can take months or years. But if you reduce some of your fears you’ll start knocking down some of the walls in your life that are holding you back.

When you start to reduce one fear you will to start to feel more freedom in that area of your life. That sense of freedom, the practical knowledge you acquire and knowing that you can lessen your fear dramatically, that it is possible and you have done it can start to seep into other parts of your life. And being able to do what you want and being able to be who you want to be and not being kept back by fear can relieve large amounts of stress and negativity and change any life in a remarkable way.

For some practical tips have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear. One of the keys has already been described in this article (it’s #13) but there are four more that can be very useful.

Final Thoughts

As usual with these larger articles with over a dozen tips: you may not want to try them all out at once. That would probably just lead to more stress and you frequently beating yourself up.

Instead, just choose one or a few of the suggestions and try them out for a 30-day trial. That means using the tip every day for 30 days thereby making it a habit and something that you after a month can do more automatically and with less effort.

Some of the most useful suggestions in this article, those can have a very large impact on your life, are tips like number 1, 9, 10, 13 and 14.

I’ve still got another handful of suggestions on how to relaxify your life so I’ll probably post another article with those later on.

Better breathing seems to be just about the simplest lifehack there is so lately I’ve been trying a couple of ways to improve that part of my life.

Last year I tried one way of breathing recommended by Anthony Robbins.

Basically, what you did was breathe in while counting to 1, hold your breath while counting to 4 and breathe out again while counting to 2.

Robbins wrote that you should take 10 of these breaths, three times a day (morning, evening and before going to bed).

I tried it for about two weeks, and I guess I might have done something wrong, but it only made feel a bit woozy and overall more tired.

The last few weeks I’ve tried out a different approach. This one’s called belly breathing and it’s pretty common. The curious reader can get a lot more information by simply googling the term.

So far it’s been more successful compared to Robbins approach. I’ve noticed that belly breathing makes me feel more energized and clearheaded. It also brings a sense of calmness and sweeps away negative mental chatter.

Here’s how I go about it:

• Sit in a relaxing position with your legs apart.
• Put your hands on your stomach. Using your stomach breathe in slowly through your nose. If you are doing it right your stomach will expand and you’ll feel it with your hands.
• Breathe out slowly through your nose and do it with some force so you feel your stomach pull slightly inwards towards your spine.
• Breathe in and out for about 30 times. Take deep and slow breaths.

After you have taken 30 breaths and focused on counting them you should not only feel more relaxed and centered. Your body will also be able to continue breathing in this manner without you focusing on it.

That’s it. Continue with your normal day.

I try to repeat this short exercise about 3-5 times a day to teach my body to eventually shift into belly breathing full-time.

Who is John Chow?

Well, as far I know he’s a pretty successful entrepreneur and dot com mogul from Vancouver, Canada.

Apparently he rose to fame with The TechZone. But I’ve never visited that website, so…

I am however a fan of his blog JohnChow.com.

In fact it’s the only semi-personal blogs that I read regularly. Mostly, I just read different niche-blogs on personal growth and blogging.

John’s blog is basically about the internet and blogging – often with thoughts on the business side of things – mixed up with odd ramblings about, and pictures of, things he eats.

While reading John’s blog for a couple of months I’ve learned a thing or two. Here are five of those lessons. Some are new, some are good reminders. Most are principles that apply not just to blogging but to many areas of life.

1. Be consistent – I’m, more and more, becoming a firm believer that one of the biggest keys to success is being consistent. John posts very regularly and with great frequency. The blog features a couple of semi-short posts almost every day of the week.

Being that consistent is probably one of the largest factors to his blog growing so fast. Every time you visit there is always something new and – 7 times out of 10 something – interesting to read.

2. Be proactive – John’s networking skills seems to be a lot more energetic and creative than that of your average blogger. He quickly expanded his MyBlogLog community by holding a competition for everyone that joined. Today that community has 714 members.

He has also expanded his part of the pay-for-browsing network Agloco to an impressive 6000 members by networking and blogging about it. And he created the clever Adsense-ads that said stuff like “I love Steve Pavlina ” or “I love Darren Rowse” and placed those ads on their blogs.

Almost every week John reminds an amateur blogger like myself about the importance of being proactive to be successful.

3. Keep optimizing – John often writes about new plugins for blogger-software WordPress or about other new opportunities for bloggers. But he doesn’t just blog about it but actually tests things out and, after a while, reports back. He seems to constantly be experimenting to optimize his blog and business.

Every little bit counts in every part of your life. And those little bits soon add up to vast improvements.

4. Mix it up, lighten up and have some fun – One of the big factors that always keeps me coming back to John’s blog is that he writes well and, pehaps even more importantly, keeps a light mood in all his posts. I like how he manages to share a bit about his dining out-experiences and other personal stuff once in a while and not make it dull or that incongruent with the rest of the posts.

For some reason it seems like his mouth-watering pictures and restaurant-reviews fit right in with rest of the site. And that mix plus the consistency in tone and mood makes the reading a whole lot more fun.

5. Give. Sooner or later you shall receive – In a few short months John has gone from making zero bucks on his blog to making a couple of thousand dollars a month. Not bad. And even though he’s the “self-proclaimed root of all evil” John seems to be a pretty good guy. He does nice write-ups about interesting sites once in a while, like this post about 12 year old blogger Paris Spence-Lang.

John also donates all his blog-earnings to his church and other charities. I think John’s sharing and giving attitude certainly is a big factor in his quick blogging success (and probably earlier successes too).

What goes around always seems to come around. Sooner or later.

This was a part of John Chow’s Review my Blog project.

This is also the second article in the on-going series – and category in the right navigation column – “Lessons I have learned from…”. If you like, you can read the first article called 9 lessons I have learned from George Costanza. It’s actually 9 lessons plus 1 bonus lesson because I fumbled with the title. :)

What is stopping you from getting what you want in life?

Your friends?

Your family?

A sense that failure – or success – might change your life and that feeling uncomfortable?

A sense that the people around you might disapprove of you aiming for what you want, of you succeeding or failing.

Essentially it boils down to fear. The big roadblock, sometimes the massive wall in the middle of road that keeps you from getting what you want.

How to overcome it? Here’s some useful ways I have found so far.

1. Taking small steps

This is good for fear that can seem overwhelming at first.

For instance the strong feeling – it can almost feel like a flight or fight-response – just before doing public speaking or asking someone out for a date. If you’re for instance nervous socially you might not feel able to ask people out on dates right away. The fear of being rejected and that others might think less of you if you get turned down can make many of us feel unable to ask the question.

A solution is to take small steps instead.

Steps like first just saying hi to people. Or starting to talk more to people online via forums and Instant Messaging. And then trying to be more involved in conversations to exercise your conversation-muscles.

I guess one could say that you gradually de-sensitize yourself to social situations or whatever you are afraid of. Or, seeing it in a more motivating way, building courage and expanding your comfort zone in this part of your life (which is something that often bleeds over to other areas of life too.)

So, identify your fear. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort.

2. Getting some concrete, positive motivation

Getting to the stage where you really feel that you need to stop waiting – or need stop reading one personal development book after another – and take action can take some time. One way to get moving is to replace some of your negative thoughts – that creates negative feelings – with clear, positive reasons to get going.

Take 5 minutes. Take out a piece of paper and a pen. And write down all the wonderful ways you can come up with how making this change will improve your life.

Lack of motivation can get you stuck while contemplating how much your life sucks. If you don’t become clear on you motivation it can become hard to get going and knowing why you are actually need to change.

Writing down all the wonderful things you will gain in your life by overcoming this fear can be powerful. Focus on those positive things to get motivated and inspired. Revisit your page of paper when you feel discouraged, uncomfortable or afraid. Even if it loses it’s inspiring effect gradually, it can be the initial trigger to unstick you. The spark to get you started to take those first actions that sends you into an upward-spiral of thought and action.

3. Seeing failure and rejection in a new light

Often it’s easier to not do something because we fear failure and rejection. We may fear failure when starting on a new career-path. And rejection from friends, family and the people around us if we fail. Or we might be afraid of being rejected when asking someone out.

However, as I have written before, the definition of failure we are brought up with in society might not be the best and most useful to have. If you look at the most successful people you quickly notice that they have a different response to failure than the more common one.

They don’t take failure or rejection that seriously. They know it’s not the end of the world if they fail. Instead they look at each failure and see the good part about: what they can learn from it and improve next time.

They have an abundance-mentality. They know that if their first business-venture fails it feels like crap for a while but it’s OK in the long run. They learn from it and then they try again.

If they are rejected for date, do they give up? Probably not. They know that next week or the week after they might find someone else that’s interesting and ask them out.

They know that there are a lot of good people out there. That there are a lot of good business opportunities out there. But they have also learned that to become successful at anything you have to fail perhaps 5, 10, 20 times or more.

The morning of day when you learned to ride a bike you fell of it time and time again. But you just brushed yourself of, perhaps cried for minutes or two and then you got up on the bike again. And towards the afternoon, or the next day, you probably started to become pretty good at riding your bike.

The same applies here. You have work on your skills to sharpen them. See failure or rejection not as something incredible negative that might end your life if it strikes. Redefine it in your mind to lessen the negative emotional impact and the fear. See failure simply as feedback on what you need to improve on. Listen to the advice the failure gives you and you will improve.

And success will come.

4. Being in the now

What this means is to keep yourself steadily in the now. Not letting your thoughts and emotions run away to the future or the past. That doesn’t mean that you don’t make plans, of course. You might think about asking someone out. You make plans on when to do it or perhaps what to say.

But being in the now means to not getting your mind stuck in a kind of psychological and emotional headspace that is placed in the past or future. It means not dwelling on what has gone wrong before and what could go wrong tonight or tomorrow. Such thinking will only create and ramp up your fear to the point where you feel unable to do anything. And just feel like running away.

Instead, make your plans. Then just be and don’t think about the future. Focus on the now and what needs to be done now. The future will be the now soon enough. And when you’re arrive there it will be much easier to get things done when you have created a minimal amount of stress and fear within your mind.

Whenever you feel fear, your mind is often dragged into a hypothetical, future scenario where you think you might fail. Your brain is over-analyzing a possible situation, which leads for many of us, to a negative, downward spiral of thoughts. This expands and empowers your fear to the point where you become almost paralyzed. So, how do you beat the fear in such situations?

You stop fighting. You surrender.

How to surrender:

Let me explain. By surrender, I don’t mean that you should give up and go home.

Instead, when you feel fear then accept the feeling. Don’t try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life).

Say yes to it.

Surrender and let it in.

Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labeling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes.

I’ve mentioned this technique in several different articles already. And, yeah, I’m still amazed of how well it works. :)

As you surrender to the fear instead of fighting it the negative energy will pass through you and your body will release it. And you can return to focusing on the now once again.

Focusing on the now not only reduces fear but also increases the chances of you succeeding as your mind is focused, your confidence ain’t shattered and your thoughts become clear. It also makes it easier to succeed because when you are in the now you are not that self-conscious – something that quickly can lead to insecurity – but instead focused on the outside world and people you are interacting with.

5. Redefining you, me and reality

To change yourself and overcoming fear you have to be prepared and willing to redefine yourself.

You have to be willing to try these things out for yourself and keep practicing. No one can do it for you. But if you do that you can make what may seem to you to be big progress pretty quickly. And when you get used to it and these things become more and more habitual you will start to do them naturally.

But since it seems that just about everyone is addicted to their own personality, consistent change in behavior will still probably be kinda slow and gradual (with some epiphanies).

An addiction to positivity can lessen the fear in your mind of what might happen in a new, unfamiliar situation or how someone might respond to what you are saying. A negative view of the world can create fear and hold you back. But if you, for instance, become more positive – try the Positivity Challenge! – many of the people you meet will respond in a similar manner. In general, no matter how you think about the world, people are often like a somewhat of a mirror for you.

Change will be hard if you deep down still think: I am this shy or negative or scared person. “That’s just who I am”, you tell yourself. “Always have been, always will be”. And will be the truth for you as long as you think it’s the truth. If you are prepared and ready to change, you can however rewrite what you perceive as the truth about yourself and your personality, thoughts, actions and emotions.

Something I’ve recently started to think about and apply is what’s called Subjective Reality. Although I don’t fully understand it yet – I think – basically what it means is that there is no separation on the world. There is no you and I separated from each other (like in the more common worldview many of us are accustomed to).

Instead we are one.

You might not fully understand it or internalize it – I haven’t yet – but just going into a conversation with perspective that you and the other(s) are connected and really just one can be very useful.

When you apply this perspective on the world it’s a lot harder feeling fear. Or being mean or unkind. Just like it’s hard to do those things to yourself. Without the perspective of separation it seems like you – almost automatically – become calmer, kinder, less fearful and more open. It feels like you are naturally connected to the rest of the world.

Steve Pavlina has written a lot about Subjective Reality, so if you want to explore that further I recommend this link.

As for now and for me, I am focusing mainly on numbers 4 and 5. And I believe I’m just beyond getting started. I can probably deepen the understanding and application of those two points for months and years. A replacing such deeply – socially and habitually – ingrained beliefs and ways of thinking will probably take some time.

So, I’ll get back to my thoughts on and experiences with fear in the future.

Now, what are your tips for overcoming fear?

One of my favourite snippets of movie-dialogue is this one from the 1999 film Three Kings.

In this scene Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) wants the small team to save a fellow soldier and steal Saddam’s gold just after the war in Kuwait has ended.

The young soldier Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) has his doubts about the plan:

Archie Gates: You’re scared, right?
Conrad Vig: Maybe.
Archie Gates: The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.
Conrad Vig: That’s a dumbass way to work. It should be the other way around.
Archie Gates: I know. That’s the way it works.

I think many things in life works just about like that. Of course, watching other movies, reading the paper and books or watching our favourite sit-com for a couple of decades conditions us to think it’s the other way around.

Someone does something because they are simply courageous.
Someone creates something awesome because they are just that inspired.

That certainly happens. But I think it’s often better not to wait for that perfect day or moment when you feel courageous or inspired as such times can come sporadically to say the least. It’s better and more effective to just get going. But it can seem as a lot harder.

Often, though, it only feels really hard and difficult before you start and during the first few minutes. Once you confront what you have to do then the tension releases, melts away and the inspiration or courage starts to seep in.

I have often had troubles getting going with writing a blogpost these last few months. I procrastinate by surfing aimlessly, checking the Pavlina forums, optimizing functions on the blog and checking my email. I like writing and sometimes I feel inspired and almost pounce on my chair to start tapping the keys. But many times I have a hard time getting started and being as productive as I could be.

It’s pretty much the same thing with times I when have had to be courageous. It’s like in Three Kings – but seldom as scary or dangerous though.

But you have force yourself and when you’re get going (or in some instances, when you are done) you get the courage you would wished for before you started. When it comes to these kinds of situations I find it easier to get going by simply not thinking to much about what you are about to do. Over analysis can, and will often, create a hell of a lot more fear in your mind than the situation warrants for.

So, I’ve started to give up waiting. When it comes to inspiration I just force myself to sit down and open one of the couple of dozen ideas for an article I have laying around. And lo and behold, after a few minutes words just starts pouring out of my fingers. And as a bonus a few ideas for other posts always start popping up in my head.

So, if you want to get some inspiration or courage, just force yourself to get started (something that I’d like to add gets easier every time you try it). It might not be sexy, cool, complicated or just like in – most of the – movies you’ve seen. But it works.