“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”
Jim Rohn

Do you often get distracted online?

Do you struggle with getting the most important things done each workday because you get stuck on Twitter or in your inbox?

Are you split between your online life and your real life at the same time as you check your Facebook while trying to have a conversation?

The internet allows us to connect with people all over the world, to learn about just about anything and check out an endless amount of cute cat photos.

But is can also become a huge time-and-attention-thief. A source of distraction that add a lot of stress too as you get behind on work or miss out on being fully there with the people around you.

So what can you do about it? Here are 4 steps that help me.

1. Shut off your notifications and make yourself unavailable as much as you can.

To be able to fully focus on your most important tasks:

• Shut off notifications in your email client and other such programs.
• Shut down instant messaging programs.

Then do your work with less stress, interruptions and ways to procrastinate.

2. Create a small and time-limited checking ritual at the end of your workday.

A less reactive way to handle email etc. – compared to always checking when you get a notification or being online in your instant messaging clients all the time – is to check and use such things at a certain time during your workday.

I recommend stringing all your checks one after another into one small ritual. And to perhaps do your instant messaging during that time-period too.

By bunching your email processing and social media checking and only setting off for example 20 minutes for email and 5 minutes for Facebook each day you stay focused instead of drifting off and spending too much of your attention and energy on those things.

I do my checking ritual at the end of my workday because then my energy levels are relatively low and I know I have used my peak hours earlier in the day to put dents into the most important things (usually writing and creating posts, newsletters and courses).

If you can’t wait until the end of the day wait for just an hour. You can probably postpone the checking for one hour in the morning without big consequences. Then, if possible, try the following:

After a day or two, try to move the checking further down the day. Maybe to after lunch. Or perhaps even, as I have, to the end of the workday.

The further you can move the checking in your workday, the less of a priority it will feel like as you fill the first hour(s) of your day with what is actually the most important stuff. This will reduce the impulse checking that often becomes worse if you start your day with the email etc.

3. Limit your access to your smart phone and computer.

I shut off my work computer at seven o clock in the evening at the latest – but usually earlier that that – and it stays off until the next morning.

This helps me to decrease stress and to stick to my work schedule for about 95% of the time.

My smart phone can not only become a distraction while I work but also when I am spending quality time with the people in my life.

I have learned to handle this by setting up small obstacles to using the phone. When I sleep it is not in the bedroom with me but in drawer beneath the desk in my home office.

When I work during the day or hang out at home during the evening I keep the phone in small wooden box with a lid on as far away from me as possible in my office. If I can’t see it or reach it easily then use it a whole lot less.

By putting up small obstacles like these I make sure that the phone is not by my side all the time and the procrastination by phone has dropped in huge way. And if someone calls or sends me a text message I will still hear it most of the time.

So if you can, prevent the easy access and what that tends to result in and put the phone somewhere where you can’t see it or where you have to get up and take a whole bunch of steps to get it.

4. Pause when you feel the urge to check and just be still.

When you feel the urge to escape by browsing Reddit, by checking your Facebook or by just quickly popping in to see if there are any new emails in your inbox then pause. Sit still on your chair and do nothing.

The urge and impulse will most often not stay for long. So if you just stay still and don’t act on it for a few seconds or a minute or two it will pass.

“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the indispensable prerequisite for success.”
Brian Tracy

What is holding you back from making big, positive changes with your habits? What is messing up your progress and making your motivation drop after a while? What makes you sometimes quit before you barely got started?

I am guessing one answer could be the need for instant gratification. It was for me.

But over the years I have learned a few things that help me to delay gratification for the most part so that I can reach more long-term goals and make new and positive habits into normal parts of my life.

Here’s what helps me.

Build a supportive environment.

When ads, magazines and other media over and over tell you that you can reach a goal very quickly – lose 30 pounds in 10 days! – you may start to expect such results. But in reality it is often a bit messier and takes more time and effort than that.

So start recreating the environment you live in. Discard some of your old input that just frustrates you in the end. Add new sources that support delaying gratification.

• Start to read blogs that keep your motivation and optimism up but also focus on long term progress.
• Read books from people who have done what you want to do. People who can paint a picture of what you may encounter based on experience and give you a more accurate time-frame for success.
• Talk to the people in your life or outside of it that seem to be good at delaying gratification. See if they have some strategies and tips that can help you.
• If you can get accountability partner that helps you to stay on track with for instance your diet or building your own business then that can be very helpful too.

Adjust your expectations with the help of your new environment and use the environment for support when you feel like giving up or giving into an instant gratification impulse.

Detach from of the outcome and learn to find the pleasure in the journey.

When I lost 26 pounds in 2009 and over the years as I have built this blog I have created and used an environment that supported the long term work. But when I have actually done the exercising or writing, day after day and week after week, I have detached from the outcome.

I first got this tip to detach from the ancient Sanskrit Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. It says:

“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”

This tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.

Basically, I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the possible results), well, that is not up for me to decide about or try to control. I let it go.

Now, I apply this when I do something. I can get motivated by future results before the doing the activity. But when I start doing any of those activities I detach and change how I think. I just focus on showing up and doing. This may sound a bit weird or hard but after a while it gets easier and easier to do that shift in your mind and to not start projecting into the future while you are doing.

I have applied this to these 3 areas for example:

• Working out. By focusing on just showing up and doing the workout you won’t get discouraged when you haven’t lost x pounds after a week. You become more patient and more emotionally stable when you don’t think about losing that weight all the time. If you just show up and work out – and control what you eat – the pounds will come off. This really helped me to get into better shape and to find the enjoyment in doing the work outs.
• Blogging. If you don’t have to worry about what people may think about your next post then it becomes a lot easier to calmly write what you want instead of getting stuck in some kind of writer’s block. This has made it a lot easier for me to keep writing pretty much every week for the last 6 years and to make that journey so much more enjoyable and fun than it could have been.
• Social interactions. If you detach from an outcome such as someone liking you at a party or on a date then you’ll be less nervous. You won’t try to impress people. You will be more like how you are with your closest friends, relaxed and easy going. Just being yourself is an often cited and sometimes criticized piece of advice. By detaching from outcomes – while still of course using your common sense – it will be a lot easier to just be the best version of yourself.
  Using this approach was a huge help for me to just have fun and be more relaxed as I improved my social skills.

Pause when an impulse is about to sway you onto the wrong path.

When you feel the need to give into an impulse to wolf down some candy even though you trying to get into better shape or you feel the urge to check your Facebook instead of focusing on doing an important task then just pause.

Just pause and be still. I have found that the need will pass if you don’t do anything for a few seconds or minutes. Then think of something better to do and do that instead.

And if you slip and still give into the impulse then don’t beat yourself up. Instead, think about how you can avoid giving into that impulse again. Try to find a solution to use the next time you are in such a situation. Then get back on track again and keep going.

“If my dreams can happen to me, your dreams can happen to you. Champions are not made on the track or field; champions are made by the things you accomplish and the way you use your abilities in everyday life situations.”
Bob Beamon

The Summer Olympics are here and in full gear. This time I have probably watched it more than ever and enjoyed a lot of great entertainment in the athletics, triathlon, swimming, gymnastics, wrestling and sailing competitions.

For me it is not just exciting, educating and suspenseful to watch the competitions. It’s also very inspiring to see how much work people have put in, the fantastic things they achieve during the Olympics and the joy that people get out of it all no matter if they watch or compete.

So today I would like to share some of the most inspiring thoughts I have found from current and past Olympic champions.

1. Don’t make things harder, bigger or more complicated than they can be.

“All I’ve done is run fast. I don’t see why people should make much fuss about that.”
Fanny Blankers-Koen, sprint, long jump, high jump and more

One thing I try to keep in mind is to not make a too big a deal out of things.

Many movies or life-stories of successful people tell us stories of the underdog that struggles and struggles until he or she finds the success that he or she was dreaming of. Things often take time. Perhaps longer than one would hope for. And keeping yourself in underdog position can be motivating to keep soldiering on.

It can also be a way to make things a lot harder for yourself than they need to be. Every bit of progress and action becomes a big struggle. Approaching things like you’re in some kind of battle may look cool on the movie screens. It may not be the most pleasant way to go about things.

Your attitude towards things does to a large degree determine how you experience them. And how or if you take action. Now, things can be difficult. But making things harder than they need to be, to identify with an image of someone who makes progress inch by painstaking inch can make you feel important since your struggle is so epic. It’s a bit unnecessary though.

If things are hard or difficult then it is most likely you who are creating much of that in your own head. So be good to yourself. Let that kind of thinking go and replace it with a lighter and a less serious attitude. You’ll thank yourself later.

2. Climb out of the sea of negative voices.

“When anyone tells me I can’t do anything, I’m just not listening any more.”
Florence Griffith Joyner, sprinter

It’s easy to let other people’s negative opinions slip into your mind. But remember, they are just opinions. Not fact. Even though the opinion may come from someone your look up to and respect. When faced with this problem ask yourself a few questions:

Have they actually tried this or do they know something about this? Or are they just sharing their own pessimism?

Or trying to keep everything as it always has been as change and the unknown can be scary?

You may often realize that people are just voicing there own problems and identity. Rather than giving your accurate and experienced advice.

Listen to what others have to say. If what they’re saying makes sense, take it into account. But hold your own opinion in the highest regard. Make own decisions instead bouncing around like a pinball while reacting to what others tell you.

3. Don’t let hero worship get in your way and hold you back.

“It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.”
Dan O’Brien, decathlete

Sure, you may not be able to swim like Michael Phelps. But to put people you admire up on pedestals is to make things unnecessarily hard on yourself. Because everyone is human, no matter what that have accomplished. If you don’t think that you can do anything similar then it will be very hard for you to do so.

You won’t feel worthy to do so. You’ll feel that this or that person is so very different from you. And so you’ll hinder or self-sabotage to keep yourself in line with your own expectations and self-image. Understanding that everyone is human can open you up to your own potential.

And realizing that everyone fails and make mistakes can remove other mental blocks in your mind too. When you feel like everyone is human you feel more connected to people. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

4. Be careful with inflating your ego or identifying too strongly with your success.

“I’m the same kind of guy before all this happened.”
Michael Phelps, swimmer

If you let the success go to your head then it can, for one, make you an arrogant jerk. It can also make you more emotionally reactive as you inflate your ego and strongly identify with your achievements.

This will feel awesome at first. But soon you may start to doubt that you are still as good as your last achievement and as awesome as everyone said you were. And so you become more reactive to criticism or having a bad day. This affects the steadiness of your focus, thoughts and emotions. And so your inner life becomes more of a rollercoaster. All of this can not only affect your relationships with other people but also your performance.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t have a high level of confidence in yourself and your abilities. It just means that you should be careful with getting completely wrapped up in your past achievements and letting you ego inflate to a harmful size.

5. Put your work into a longer perspective.

“What I can tell them is the way you become an Olympic champion is to start working now. I tell them why it’s always worth it to put the time and effort into something you want to be good at.”
Rafer Johnson, decathlete

How do you become really, really good at something? The biggest part is the amount of work you put in. Sure, you can work smart too and save energy and effort. But the people that really fulfill their potential seem to put in years and years of hard work that most people just aren’t willing to put in. Why?

Well, I’d say:

Because of the support from other people.
Because they know that they need the challenge and can’t stay in their comfort zone and just take it easy.
But mostly I think it’s because of the love of what they do.

So focus on doing what you love – or like a whole lot – to get really good at something.

6. Take a risk.

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

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 couple of 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? It is common to build big, negative fantasies in your heads of what may happen if you do something. Huge scary monsters. But probably 90 percent of what you fear never comes into reality. 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.

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.

7. Focus only on what you are doing right now.

“I’m trying to do the best I can. I’m not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.”
Mark Spitz

When you are actually doing the best that you can out on the court, in the pool, behind the computer or wherever you do what you do in then detach from the outcome. Just focus on what’s in front of you. Not on what you missed in the past. Not on the all possible future outcomes of your performance right now.

Then things will become easier. You’ll create less inner anxiety and pressure for yourself. And you will perform better because you are just focusing on what’s right in front of you and you are not weighing yourself down with a lot of self-created negativity and doubts.

8. Don’t let the initial impression get you down.

“Don’t be afraid if things seem difficult in the beginning. That’s only the initial impression. The important thing is not to retreat; you have to master yourself.”
Olga Korbut, gymnast

Since society often tells us to look for quick fixes or instant gratification it’s easy to make the mistake of giving up too soon. After you have tried something maybe just once or twice. Or after you have failed or put in a pretty bad or mediocre performance perhaps 1-5 times. That’s a pretty “normal” thing to do.

But what could have happened if you just kept going after that? And for each time you did it you 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 time-frame for success. This might not correspond to a realistic time-frame though.

It’s useful to take a break from common and often 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 a complete plan but a clearer view of what is needed to achieve what you want.

“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
Aristotle

What other people think and say about you and what you do can hold you back in life. If you care too much about their opinions.

You may not take some action that you want to take because you fear being judged by someone or people in general.

You may not make improvements or changes in your life because you know, based on previous experiences, how some people could react if you did that.

Caring about what other people think about what you do in a healthy way can help you to gain valuable feedback and keep you grounded. But caring too much about what people may say or think if you do something can keep you in the same old rut, unable to move forward and to live the life you truly want to live.

So how can you overcome this common issue and find more inner freedom to do what you want? Well, people will always have thoughts and opinions about things. But you can learn how to care about what they say and think in a more helpful way.

In this article I’ll share 5 tips that have helped me to make that shift.

1. First, people don’t think about you and what you do that much really.

Holding yourself back in life because of what other people may think or say does, in my experience, to a large part come from a belief that people care a great deal about what you are about to say or do. Perhaps you are afraid that people will laugh or analyze what you said or did for the rest of the week or year.

But a much more realistic scenario is that they have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. This might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.

Yes, in your head you may be the most important person in the world. But don’t project that onto other people. Because in their world the most important person is probably themselves or their kids.

2. Take praise and criticism evenly.

My mindset for praise – that I try to stick to as much as I can – is that it’s cool and I appreciate it. It’s great to get praise, but I seldom get overly excited about it and jump and down shouting enthusiastically.

A great upside of this mindset is that when you receive the opposite – negative criticism – you can often observe it calmly without too much wild, negative emotions blocking the way. This allows you to appreciate that piece of criticism too (if there is something to learn from it).

Going about things this way can help you to not care too much about what other people think.

3. Care more about what you think about yourself.

If you care too much about what people think of you then that craving need can make you feel quite needy and you start to define yourself based on what they may think of you.

So replace that somewhat desperate need with something healthier, something you have more power over. Something that will give you more inner stability and lets your life not become a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions controlled by other people’s opinions.

Start caring more about what you think about yourself and start raising your own self-esteem.

Two ways of doing that are:

The daily self-appreciation journal.

It is easy to get lost in basing your self-esteem on just what you accomplish, on what you get done in a day or week. Or on what other people may think about you and tell you about yourself. But basing your self-esteem on just that makes it pretty unstable.

One way to help yourself out with that and with appreciating what is good and awesome about you is to use a self-appreciation journal.

You can do that by taking out a pen and notepad (or use a word processor on your computer or cell phone) every evening for a week. There you write down 5 things you appreciate about yourself. But make sure that you do not only write down accomplishments.

Also write down good stuff related to your core-self esteem. By that I mean things that always there no matter how you perform at work or in school. It could be things/traits like your sense of humor, your kindness, your honesty, wisdom, creativity and so on.

Be kind and understanding towards others (and yourself).

By being kinder towards and more understanding of others if becomes easier to do the same to yourself. One simple way to focus on being more understanding and kind when you feel the need to judge someone is to use helpful questions. One I find to be really effective is:

What parts of this person can I see in myself? How is he or she like me?

This one helps me to shift my perspective from what is different and what I feel the need to judge to what we have in common instead. This tears down the mental barriers between us and I can feel closer to and more understanding of this person.

Try it out whenever you feel the need to judge someone, no matter if it is someone close to you or someone you don’t even know.

By doing so it becomes more natural to extend and use this more understanding and kind frame of mind when you view yourself too. And by behaving in this way towards others you will feel better about yourself and in that way raise your self-esteem too.

Plus, by being kinder towards others you are more likely to get that kindness back from them too.

4. Remember, not all things that they may say or think is really about you.

If someone is pretty much always negative about what other people do or he or she often makes personal attacks and let the destructive words flow then, when such things are aimed at you, remember that it isn’t always about you.

Such words or negative habits can be a way for that person to release pent up anger, frustration or jealousy about something in his or her own life. Or a way to reinforce that his or her viewpoint or belief is the right one. Or he or she may have habit of getting others involved emotionally – baiting them – to build a negative spiral, an argument or fight to get attention. It’s about him or her. Not about something you did or want to do.

It can have a calming effect to remember this. And to remember that the other person is still human and might be having a bad day, month, marriage or job.

5. Listen to the supportive and level-headed people.

I wouldn’t recommend to stop caring about what people may say altogether. Listening to what they have to say can provide you with valuable feedback and help you to keep yourself grounded so that your life and relationships do not spin out of control or break down.

But try to choose who you listen to. Listening to your relative that is always angry about everything or a friend that always sees the pessimistic side of things may not help you so much.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
Maria Robinson

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

I didn’t really try to improve my life very much until I was 25. Before that I mostly just moved along in the same old rut.

Since then (I’m 32 now) I have tripled my effectiveness, lost more than 30 pounds, adopted a more optimistic view of my life and raised my own self-esteem greatly.

I have learned to simplify my life and to inject a lot more happiness into my days and years.

Why am telling you this?

Well, the point here is not to brag. My point is that you are not stuck permanently in the life you have now. Even if it may feel that way.

It may sometimes feel like you should have started to change your life earlier, when you were a kid or in your teens or early twenties.

Or that you should have been born into those right circumstances right away as you came to this earth. It may feel like it is too late now.

You may look to your past and tell yourself: “if only had done this or that then things would have been different and better now”. That may be true but you cannot really change the past unless you got a time-machine.

And reliving the past in your mind does not change today and this week and month. It just has you hooked on mental reruns that keep you in your regretfilled rut.

It isn’t too late for you to improve something in your life that you really want to change. No matter what age you are at.

Over the past 5+ years I have received thousands of emails from readers of all ages – between 14 and 72 – that have told me about how they have changed their life in a positive way.

I understand that you may not be able to change your life in any way you want right now.

There are real limits in most people’s lives and personal development isn’t magic that can fix just about anything quickly and easily.

But you can do what you can with what you have where you are right now. Start there.

Make a small change if that is what is possible. From that small change and success you will gain confidence and you can build upon that to make more and perhaps even bigger changes.

4 steps that will make it easier for you to get started

1. Think about what you really want to change.

Maybe you already know it. It could be your social life, your confidence, your health or money situation. Or take a few days to think about it.

Take time to focus on this because if you really want something then it becomes a whole lot easier to keep going.

Or let your curiousness guide you. Ask yourself: what would I like to explore in life now?

Find one or a few areas to improve or habits you would like to incorporate into your life. Write them down.

2. Choose one thing or habit to focus on for now.

If you have found several things or habits you would like to focus on then choose to focus on just one at a time. Spreading yourself too thin pretty much always leads to failure because life tends to get in the way.

If you have a regular life then you’ll probably won’t have the time and energy to change three things at once even though you really hope and think you can.

If you like, choose a theme for a year and focus just on that. I have chosen themes in the past like health and social skills.

Then put most of your efforts for 365 days into creating new habits and routines in just that one area.

3. Take small steps.

This is very important. The feeling that something is too big or scary or difficult is one of the most common things to hold people back from taking action at all.

On the other hand, people also tend to overestimate their own willpower.

The plan sounds so good in your head but when you execute it then you can’t really take as much action or move as fast as you thought.

Focusing on just one thing at a time and doing it in small steps may feel kind of like something a child would do.

I have thought that was the case – like so many other people have  in the past – and then fallen flat on my nose after a few days or weeks of trying to change too many things too quickly.

Instead, ask yourself: what is one small step I can take to move forward in this situation?

I use that question pretty much every day in some way and it has been immensely helpful over the last couple of years.

4. Ask yourself: What is one small step I can take right now to get ball rolling ?

Don’t get stuck in planning. Or thinking that you will get started tomorrow or next week.

Get the ball rolling instead.

Do that today by just taking one small and practical step towards what you want.