“A well-spent day brings happy sleep.”

If you want tips on how to become more productive, one awesome source would be Leonardo da Vinci.

He painted a whole lot of classic paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. His journals contain ideas for inventions like hydraulic pumps, steam cannons, helicopters and hang gliders. He was also, among other things, an anatomist, sculptor, botanist and musician.

Da Vinci got stuff done. A lot of stuff.

How did he do it? Well, here is a guide with his tips for getting things done.

1. Do.

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

If you want to get things done you have to do things. If you want big results you often have to take massive action. There is no way to get around taking action if you want real life results.

But it’s easy to get stuck in a mindset where you in a way substitute thinking for action. You think and think and take action just once in a while.

One thing that gets you stuck in this mindset is that you may see other people doing the same thing. And so your habit of taking action once in a while gets reinforced since it feels like the “normal” thing to do. The fear of failure and what people might say if you try, fail or succeed are powerful factors too.

But to get what you want you need to break out of that. You need to take a lot of action. And if you are an overthinker or procrastinator like I was then there is probably room for a lot more action every week.

I think the first step to taking more action is just to be aware of how much action you are actually taking. To be aware how much time you are spending thinking or planning. And catch yourself when you get stuck in unproductive thought patterns. And then adjust to take more action.

How can you snap yourself into action? Two tips that works well for me are:

• Pump up your enthusiasm. One way of doing that is to see what’s positive in any situation. Then build on that to get your enthusiasm going. Perhaps it’s just a thing or two. But that glimmer of positivity can be a starting point to change your perspective to a more positive one where you can find enthusiasm. And whatever the situation you are in will often be easier and more pleasurable to handle. Another way to pump up your enthusiasm is to get an enthusiastic vibe from other people. Listen to CDs with enthusiastic people – Brian Tracy and Wayne Dyer are two helpful guys – for perhaps 20 minutes. When you are done listening you’ll probably feel a lot more enthusiastic. Or hang out with enthusiastic people and get them to talk about what they are enthusiastic about. Enthusiasm is contagious, so use that fact to help yourself.
• Just do it anyway. If you don’t feel like you could pump up your enthusiasm, just go and do what you want to do anyway. You may not want to go to the gym. But you do it anyway. And after you’ve been there for a while you are glad you went there, because now you are getting your workout done. And you are feeling proactive, enthusiastic and good about yourself.

2. Do. Experience. Understand.

“Experience does not ever err. It is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments.”

“Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.”

If you take little action it’s easy to overestimate the value of the results. A failure or a mistake might feel like the end of the world. You may perhaps you beat yourself up about it for the rest of the week.

That won’t help much though. As you learn to take more action, the results contain less emotional power. You don’t get overwhelmed or lost in a sad funk. You also realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. People will probably not care as much as you think if you try, fail or succeed with something. They have their own lives to worry about.

So instead learn to take the lessons from a mistake or failure. Do not take the failure so seriously but instead see it – just like everything else – as a valuable experience.

So dive into life. Get experiences, because it is only here you will get some real understanding.

3. Be consistent.

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

It’s easy to get riled up and get going with something new on an enthusiastic high. But that initial enthusiasm tends to dissipate. That’s when you hit a plateau. That’s when you need to keep moving. Doing everything in small spurts and then turning to the next thing when something loses it “newness” makes it hard to get what you want.

You have to be persistent. And consistent. Then you can get pretty much anything done. One of the big reasons why people don’t get what they want is simply that they won’t keep going. Or that they go, stop, go, stop. Persistence and consistency isn’t exactly the sexiest things in personal growth. But they are ridiculously helpful.

Because the results you want may not come to you tomorrow or next week. Improving your life is often hinges on the ability to not go running around for new magic pills all the time or choosing the instant gratification option every time.

So, how do you become more consistent?

• Be aware. Just by being aware of what you are doing – and not doing – you can stop and change how you think and act in your everyday life. This will take time, but little by little you can avoid your own pitfalls – such as for instance the instant gratification route – more and more.
• Set the context for your day. What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. And your days are your life. We have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. One thing that can give you a good start is to do the hardest and/or most important thing first. If you start your day like this then you don’t have to worry about that special task for the rest of the day. Taking this route makes the day feel easier and you’ll have less inner resistance to getting the rest of the tasks of the day done. Another way to use this tip is to work out early in the day. It will make you feel energized and more alert for the rest of the day.

4. Move over, through or around obstacles.

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

Obstacles are tricky. They can easily discourage you. But they are seldom as scary as they look. If you actually start to smash them or move around them you may find that it is easier than you may have thought. The biggest obstacles are often the ones you put up in your mind. Not just in the way that you perceive external obstacles and make them bigger than they are. But also in how you create obstacles that aren’t even out there. They exist solely in your mind.

So be careful and reconsider your assumptions and perception. Realize that you may be making things a lot harder than they actually need to be. Realize that you to some part decide how hard or easy something is.

By diving into reality and taking action you get real life experience of how things are. Then you may see how the obstacles were just in your mind. Or how you can move over, under or through the obstacle by learning and adjusting. Or just by being persistent.

Look at an obstacle as a way for the world to test you and teach you. Instead of a solid brick wall.

5. Know what’s important (for you).

“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.”

There is always enough time. You have the same amount of hours in the day that da Vinci had. But the thing is to know what is important to you. And to take action based on that.

Knowing what you want and following that path is vital for the rest of the tips above. To be able to take all that action, to do it consistently and to crush internal or external obstacles you need to know what you want. That will give you the motivation to keep going. And I’m talking about what you really want. What is most important to you (not what your parents, teachers or society may tell is important).

How do you find out what you really want? I think you need to really think about it. But more importantly, I think you need to just experiment and try things. From all that doing and all those experiences you learn things. Not just about the world but also about yourself.

Experience makes it clearer in your mind if what you thought you wanted is really what you want. Over time your map of yourself and your life becomes more accurate. And by doing things you not only find what is most important to you. You also find the things you really enjoy doing and that makes it so much easier to keep going.

6. Focus.

“As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.”

You need to know what’s important for you. You also need to focus on it. And focus on it consistently.

And this is not just about keeping your focus on what you are doing and what you want each and every day. It’s also about the focus of your attitude. To for instance keep your focus on the positive, on your curiousness and your enthusiasm. On what gets you where you want to go.

Instead of negative doubts, beating yourself up or other things you may focus on from time to time for some reason. That stuff will seldom help you. Of course, if there is a real problem then that needs to be handled. But oftentimes it’s easy to get stuck in negativity because of old habits, what other people may say or just to strengthen a victim identity and get a strange sense of satisfaction and familiarity out of the negativity.

So finally, here are three practical tips that I have found to be very helpful to improve my focus.

• Exercise. This is so key. Regular exercise makes me more focused, positive and energized. The best way to make exercise a consistent part of your life each week is to try different things and find what you like doing and what fits you and your situation.
• Singletask. Do just one thing at a time to get things done quicker and with less stress. For me at least it works a lot better than multitasking.
• Work in a cone of silence. Try to minimize possible distractions. You could do that by for instance unplugging your internet cable, shutting off your phone and closing your door.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone on Facebook, Twitter and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”
Bertrand Russell

“Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.”
Harold Coffin

Envy can be like a tiny devil on your shoulder that whisper words into your ear, gnashes on your soul and makes life into something that is often filled with suffering and much negativity.

Or the envy can just be something that irritates and distracts you from time to time.

In any case, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you want to, then you can at least minimize it in your life.

So that you can spend your time here in a lighter and happier headspace.

Focus on yourself when it comes to comparing.

Comparing what you have to what others have is a good way to make yourself miserable.

It feeds your ego when you buy a nicer car or get a better job than someone else. You feel great for a while.

But this mindset and the focus on comparing always winds up in you noticing someone that has more than you. That someone has an even better job or car than you.

And so you don’t feel so good anymore.

The thing is that there is always someone with better or more than you. So you can never “win”. You just feel good for a while and then you don’t.

A more useful way to compare is to just compare yourself to yourself.

Look at how you have grown and what you have achieved. Appreciate what you have done and what you have.

See how far you have come and what you are planning to do.

This will make you make you more positive and emotionally stable since you are no longer comparing and feeling envious of what the other guy have that you haven’t.

Be grateful for what you got.

Besides comparing yourself to yourself it can be helpful to add a regular gratitude exercise to your life to minimize the envy.

So take just two minutes out of your day to focus on being grateful for all the things you got. Make a list of them in your head or write them down in journal at the beginning or end of the day.

Develop an abundance mentality.

Envy often seems to come from a perceived scarcity in some area of your life.

Maybe you feel envious because someone else got the job you wanted. Or because someone else got the opportunity that you had hoped for.

Perhaps you are feeling envious because you are afraid of losing something and feel that if you do then you have hit rock bottom.

Focusing your mind on the scarcity can really screw with your thoughts, feelings and life. It can cause much stronger negative emotions than is really reasonable.

And it gets you really stuck in the envy, intensifying it, making it stronger and more long-lasting by feeding it with more thoughts and emotional energy.

To get out of this confining and destructive mentality you can choose to focus on the opportunities and the new chances. You can develop an abundance mentality.

There are always new business opportunities to find, new tests in school to take and new people to date/make friends with.

This way of thinking relieves much of the pressure you may feel if you have a scarcity mentality that makes you think that you only got this shot right now.

Or makes you feel like an utter failure just because you just stumbled and things didn’t work out this time.

So keep your focus steadily on the opportunities, on the new chances, on what you can learn from your failures as best you can instead of confining your mind and your life.

It is sometimes hard to do so from day to day but it is even harder in the long run to live a life where you don’t keep that positive focus.

Think about what’s in it for you.

I have found this to be helpful in many cases when I have negative thoughts or when I’m behaving in a less than useful way.

Basically, I ask myself: What’s in it for me? And each time I fall back into that negative headspace and behaviour I remind myself of this question and the answer.

This reinforces to me the pointlessness of what I’m thinking. And often I just think to myself: “Oh, I’m being stupid again. Time to focus on something useful/fun/positive instead”.

Now, there are upsides of being envious that can make it hard to let go of it.

When you are being envious you may not take chances or go into the unknown. You just judge people that have taken the chances from the safety of the sidelines.

Feeling envious can also make you feel like a victim. Such a mentality may sound very unattractive for anyone to want.

But in reality it brings you attention and validation because you can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out.

And you don’t have to take the sometimes heavy responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just heavy sometimes.

When you are ready to let go of that safety and those somewhat strange upsides it will be easier to change how you act and how you think about things.

Get a life.

Simple and perhaps the best tip in my opinion.

If you find yourself sitting around too much and not having enough to do then it’s very easy to feel stuck and to get stuck in thought loops and go into a downward spiral.

Simply by filling your life with more fun activities and people and the things you want out of life you won’t have time or a reason to be envious. Other benefits of getting a life are that you become a lot more relaxed and less prone to overreacting about the little things.

So spend less time analyzing life and more time living and exploring it in whatever way you’d like.

Image by Florencia Cárcamo (license).

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“The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.”
Theodore Parker

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all.”
Henry David Thoreau

During the summer I often spend much time in a chair in the sun and just relax and read.

So I thought it may be a good idea to share some of the best books on personal development that I have read so far. In case you also want to spend some time in the sun over summer and don’t know what to read next.

Here is a top ten of my favorite books – in no particular order – out of the 100+ books in this niche that I have read.

1. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

For 20 years Napoleon Hill traveled around the US and interviewed 500 of the most successful people. This book, released in 1937, was the result and has since then sold over 15 million copies worldwide. A good place to start if you are interested in personal development as it covers a lot of time-tested advice.

I wasn’t as enthusiastic as many others about this book when I first read it. But over the last few years I have become a bigger and bigger fan of it since I have discovered for myself that much of what it says works very well. And Hill sure does a fine job of explaining the ideas in a simple and inspirational way.

2. Pulling Your Own Strings by Wayne Dyer.

Dyer is one of my absolute favorite personal development people and Pulling Your Own Strings is probably my favorite out of all his books (so far at least).

This book deals with who is pulling your strings and how to improve relationships by increasing your own personal power and for instance becoming more assertive. Simple and easy to follow ideas for better relationships and better self esteem.

3. The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

The book that helped me to really understand what self esteem was and how it works. I like how Branden breaks down self esteem into six pillars, that makes it easy to understand how you can increase your own self esteem and to see what pillar that may be weak in your life. An awesome book.

4. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

It’s hard to choose one book from Eckhart Tolle to recommend since many of them are really good (Stillness Speaks is another one I like very much and Even the Sun Will Die is a long and fascinating interview).

But A New Earth is probably the best one for clearly explaining his ideas (I found it easier to understand and apply than The Power of Now). Ideas that have helped me to simplify my life, improve my social skills, find a lot more inner peace, to live right here right now. And so on.

5. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

One of the best and most popular books ever (15 million copies sold) on improving your social skills. A must read.

6. The Psychology of Achievement (audio) by Brian Tracy.

Like most of Brian Tracy’s products it’s packed with small nuggets of practical gold and very little fluff. The book covers a lot on how to develop a top achiever’s mindset and improve your life in any area really. A fine place to start if you have just discovered an interest in personal growth.

7. Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon that became interested in the self image and how it can be changed. He wrote this book about his findings. Contains tons of practical exercises and advice for improving your self esteem, self talk, minimize self sabotage and achieving the success and positive changes you want in your life and in yourself.

Perhaps the book on this list that has lead to most lives being actually changed in real life since it’s so grounded in changing your habits and thought patterns in a way that,I at least believe will work for a lot of people.

It also helps that it has sold over 30 million copies since it was first published in 1960.

8. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

I guess most of you have already read this much talked about book with the tagline “Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” that was released a few years ago.

I remember that I found it very inspiring when I first got my hands on a copy and it has certainly been a great motivator and source of practical tips as I have grown this blog and my own company over the last few years.

9. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.

Once upon a time the there was personal secretary in England named James Allen.

During his lifetime he never achieved great fame or wealth. At the age of 38 he retired. He and his wife moves to a small cottage in Illfracome of Devon in England.

During the next decade he produced nearly 20 books. In 1912, at the age of 48, he passed away.

But the same year he retired he also published one of the most inspiring books – well, I guess it is an essay – on personal development I have ever read. Together with Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”, James Allen’s “As a man thinketh” is probably the most well-known of what might be considered old school books on improving yourself and your life.

The book is in the public domain, so you can read it for free at Project Gutenberg for example.

10. The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz.

Another super best-seller. Another book on how your thinking and ideas control your life and success. Another must read and together with Psycho-Cybernetics perhaps the book I most often revisit when I am in need of some motivation or just need to get my positive and constructive thinking going again.

What is your favorite personal development book that you would like to recommend to the other readers?

Image by Darwin Bell (licence).

Image: kalandrakas (license).

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anais Nin

Today I’d like to share a few of my favorite timeless tips for improving your social life.

Here are six of them.

1. Be wary of building walls.

“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.”
Joseph F. Newton Men

The ego wants to divide your world. It wants to create barriers, separation and loves to play the comparison game. The game where people are different compared to you, the game where you are better than someone and worse than someone else. All of that creates fear. And so we build walls. But putting up walls tends to in the end hurt you more than protect you.

So how can you start building bridges instead? One way is to choose to be curious about people. 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.

Another way is to start to see yourself in other people. To get that there is no real separation between you and other people.
That may sound vague. So one practical suggestion and thought you may want to try for a day is that everyone you meet is your friend.

Another thing you can try is to see what parts of yourself you can see in someone you meet. Try it out and see what you find.

2. Your relationships are in your mind.

“As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind. Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts. Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind. Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts. For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior. Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.”
Wayne Dyer

“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”
Epictetus

How you choose to interpret people and your relationships makes a huge difference. So much of our relationships may be perceived to happen out there somewhere.

But as mentioned in tip #1 in this article, your underlying frame of mind – do you build bridges or walls? – will determine much about your interactions both new people and people you know.

So you really have to go inside. You have to realize that your interpretations from the past are interpretations. Not reality. You have to take a look at your assumptions and expectations and thought habits. Find patterns that may be hurting you (and others). This isn’t easy. Or always pleasant. You may discover that you have had some negative underlying habits of thought for many years.

But to change you have to do it. Instead of just keep looking at yourself as some sort of unmoving and objective observer of the world and reality. A change in you could – over time – change your whole world.

3. Avoid being boring.

“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.”
Voltaire

Don’t prattle on about your new car for 10 minutes oblivious to your surroundings. Always be prepared to drop a subject when you start to bore people. Or when everyone is getting bored and the topic is starting to run out of steam.

One good way to have something interesting to say is simply to lead an interesting life. And to focus on the positive stuff. Don’t start to whine about your boss or your job, people don’t want to hear that. Instead, talk about your last trip somewhere, some funny anecdote that happened while you were buying clothes, your plans for the summer or something fun or exciting.

4. Focus outward, not inward.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
Dale Carnegie

A lot of people use the second, far less effective way. It is appealing because it’s about instant gratification and about ME, ME, ME! The first way – to become interested in people – perhaps works better because it makes you a pleasant exception and because the law of reciprocity is strong in people. As you treat people, they will treat you. Be interested in them and they will be interested in you.

5. Don’t get stuck in the questions.

“I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.”
Yogi Berra

If you ask too many questions the conversation can feel like a bit of an interrogation. Or like you don’t have that much too contribute. One alternative is to mix questions with statements. Just say what band you are really into instead of asking what band they are into. Or say what you think about local sports team’s chances of winning the next game. Or, while using common sense, just what you are thinking about what is happening around you right now.

And then the conversation can flow on from there.

So open up and say what you think, share how you feel. And if someone shares an experience, open up too and share one of your experiences. Don’t just stand there nodding and answer with short sentences. If someone is investing in the conversation they’d like you to invest too.

And like in so many areas in life, you can’t always wait for the other party to make the first move. When needed, be proactive and be the first one to open up and invest in the conversation.

6. Genuineness is awesome.

“Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyse your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.”
Leo F. Buscaglia

I think that one of the most important things in a relationship of any kind is to be genuine. Few things are as powerful as genuine communication and letting the genuine you shine through. Without incongruence, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

It’s you to 100%.

It’s you with not only your words but you with your voice tonality and body language – which some say is over 90% of communication – on the same wavelength as your words. It’s you coming through on all channels of communication.

Being your geunine self – the one where you build bridges and are open and giving – will give you better results and more satisfaction in your day to day life because you are in alignment with yourself. And because people really like genuineness.

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PS. Just thought I’d give you a quick update and tell you that my new ebook will be out and for sale on the blog next week. It is called the Power of Positivity and contains 22 chapters on how to improve your life in areas such as productivity, social skills, attitude, motivation, self-esteem and thought habits.

I am very excited about it and about getting it out there. So be on the lookout for that.

”The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein

“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
William Shakespeare

“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”
Voltaire

Your thoughts are incredibly powerful. This can be an awesome thing.

It can also be a thing that cripples you, paralyses you, causes much suffering and gets you stuck instead of getting you to move forward towards a better and more positive life.

In this article I’ll explore 10 common mistakes I have made many times – and still do from time to time – and what I have done about them to improve the way I use my mind.

1. You overthink.

I used to be a chronic overthinker. This makes taking action very hard, you analyze small things until they become big and scary in your head and in general overthinking things always leads to a negative view of those things.

I have however successfully reduced or almost eliminated overthinking in my life. It did take time, but on the other hand you are in the company of your mind each day so you might as well start working on a better relationship between the both of you.

What to do about it: How did I do it? The most important thing was that I focused a big part of a year in my personal development on reading/listening to books by Eckhart Tolle like Stillness Speaks, A New Earth and The Sun Will Also Die and establishing a habit of being in the present moment.

I listened to those books over and over on my mp3 player while out walking, while riding the bus and so on. This had two big benefits: I was very focused on his advice and it popped up in my head during the day which made it easier to stay aware of though patterns and Tolle became a sort positive influence in my weekly life. Just like a friend can influence you with his/her positive, negative or ambitious attitude and vibe.

Practice being present and it becomes a lot easier to minimize overthinking and to use thinking as a tool rather than letting thoughts control you.

Set short deadlines for decisions. Another tip is to start using deadlines. Instead of thinking about something for days, tell yourself that you have – for example – 30 minutes to think. Then you will make a decision. I also use even shorter deadlines for smaller, daily decisions. I don’t sit around thinking about decisions like if I should exercise, make a phone call, try some new food or anything where I may feel a bit of resistance from within. Instead as soon as I think about it I make a decision to do it within seconds and start moving.

I have found this to be a good way to become more decisive instead of falling into the paralyzing trap of overthinking.

2. You see things in black and white.

Instead of seeing life as it is, somewhat messy, you see things in black and white. You are right and someone else is wrong. This way is good and that way is bad. Things are either this way or that way and there no exceptions or gray areas.

This makes it harder to make sense out of things, to take action in the right way and can be a way of thinking that makes you more and more inflexible as time passes. You get stuck and you put barriers in your mind and life and this creates a lot more unhappiness and suffering than necessary.

What to do about it:

Try to understand the other side. It’s easy to stick to your point of view. But you can gain powerful insights about the other person and yourself too by trying to understand their point of view. This also tends to decrease harshness and negativity and can make it easier to reach an understanding where both parties feel more satisfied with the solution.

Be aware. Like with any mistake in this article, just being aware and paying attention during your normal day can help you to discover and reduce these thought patterns by stopping that thread of thought and then changing what you focus on.

Be OK with not having to be so smart and right all the time. It won’t kill you but can instead in my experience be the more helpful choice in the longer run. You tend to become more relaxed and feel better about yourself and your world if you make that choice.

3. You think the world is revolving around you.

You fall into the trap of worrying about what people may think and let that paralyze you from taking action. Or simply become too self-conscious or too focused on yourself in conversations and relationships.

What to do about it:

Be aware. Perhaps use a post-it on your bath room mirror or fridge to remind yourself each morning.

Act as you would like to feel. Use this when you feel self-conscious and like everyone’s attention is focused on you. In such situation or on such days act as if the world doesn’t revolve around you and people don’t care that much about what you do. After a while and after taking action you will actually start to feel that way for real because experience hands your mind proof that this is indeed the truth.

Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will make you feel better about yourself and help you to reduce that self-centered focus.

4. You generalize yourself and your world.

You may tell yourself: “I’m this and that person just because I’ve done this. Or failed at that.” Just because you’ve failed with your 30 day challenge to exercise each day doesn’t mean that you can’t be a person who succeeds with that.

Maybe a few people in the real world don’t get along that well with you. They may not like you. It’s important to not let those few people dictate how you view what others think of you.

Or you may generalize because of one event or action. But what other people say about you or to you is often more of a reflection of them rather than you. Maybe they are having a bad day, week or year. Maybe their pet was run over. Maybe they are having a conflict with a family member or friend. You don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives. But since we tend to be a bit self-centred we may interpret what someone is saying as being about us and that this one action or event represents this person.

What to do about it: Realize that the past is the past and just because you weren’t that good at something in fifth grade doesn’t mean that it is the person you are now or that you couldn’t become good at that thing now. You may find that parts of your self-image that you thought were accurate are just based on a few things that you did or that happened to you in the past.

When you examine those beliefs you may realize that they aren’t really that well-grounded as you had imagined. They are more like a house of cards rather than a house made of bricks. Just because you’ve failed a few times or made a few mistakes doesn’t mean that you are such a person. It is just stuff that happened.

And again, try putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. Remember that one event or action is not always the full picture and try to understand and form a more complex picture. And don’t make too big of a business out of a few people that you don’t see eye to eye with. That’s OK and just life.

5. You look for problems even when there are none.

This is a weird one. I have found myself looking for problems even when there are none really. I think in part comes from snapping back into your old mindset. I used to be much more negative and see problems everywhere for many years. So the mind is conditioned to operate that way and so used to it. So on some days you sit around and suddenly realize while thinking that you are looking for a problem in a situation or area of your life where there are none.

What to do about it: I have written “There is no problem” on my white board on my wall to remind me each day.

If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.

I also think this can come from thinking a bit too much about personal development and working on that. You become so accustomed to looking for solutions that your mind wants to find problems that it can solve. This personal development stuff is awesome. But read about and think about it in moderation and not all the time.

6. You are addicted to your comfort zone.

If you are always thinking about how to feel and be really, really safe then making a positive change will be impossible. The unknown and change is uncomfortable and scary to the mind because it tends to want your existence to be stable and continue to be as it has been so far.

What to do about it:

Be curious. When you are stuck in a bit of fear, when you get stuck in your comfort zone then you are closed up. Curiosity on the other hand 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.

Do it in small steps. What holds us back in our zone of comfort is often a fear or that facing that fear head on might be overwhelming. Doing things in small steps allows you to stretch your comfort zone and slowly making it less uncomfortable and frightening.

Focus on the positive past. Realize it can be fun to get out of your comfort zone despite what your mind and feelings might be telling you before you get started. Think back to the previous times when you have broken out of your comfort zone. Focus on the positive memories, when you got out there, when you took a chance. And you will probably remember that it wasn’t so bad, it was actually fun and exciting and something new to you.

Accept that it will be uncomfortable. Even if you do the things above it can still be uncomfortable to step out of your comfort zone. If that is the case, accept it. That discomfort will be temporary and you can always take action and just do it even though you may not fully feel like it. The thing is if you accept that the discomfort is just there then it tends to become smaller or not so significant.

7. You think about yourself as a victim.

One big problem a lot of people have is that they slip into thinking of themselves as victims that have little or no control over their lives. In this headspace you feel sorry for yourself, the world seems to be against you and you get stuck. Little to no action is taken and you get lost in a funk of sadness and self-pity.

What to do about it:

Know the benefits of a victim mentality. There are a few benefits of the victim mentality.

You can always get attention, validation and good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action and then you don’t have to risk for example rejection or failure. Taking responsibility for you own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just heavy sometimes. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to feel like a victim and not take personal responsibility. And when you feel like the victim and like everyone else – or just someone else – is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings.

In my experience, by just being aware of the benefits I can derive from victim thinking it becomes easier to say no to that and to choose to take a different path.

Be ok with not being the victim. So to break out of that mentality you have to give up the benefits above. You might also experience a sort of emptiness within when you let go of victim thinking. You may have spent hours each week with thinking and talking about how wrong things have gone for you in life. Or how people have wronged you and how you could get some revenge or triumph over them.

Now you have to fill your life with new thinking and that may feel uncomfortable because it is not so intimately familiar as the victim thinking you have been engaging in for years.

Take responsibility for your life. Why do people often have self-esteem problems? I’d say that one of the big reasons is that they don’t take responsibility for their lives. Instead someone else is blamed for the bad things that happen and a victim mentality is created and empowered. This damages many vital parts in your life. Stuff like relationships, ambitions and achievements. That hurt will not stop until you wise up and take responsibility for your life. There is really no way around it.

8. You think that what you feel now is just how it is.

One big mistake that I have made many times is to think what you feel right now is kinda permanent. That it is how you really feel about things and will feel in the near future too. However, it is really hard to predict how you will feel just an hour or 15 minutes from now. The mind fools you as you identify with the emotions you are feeling right now. This can really hold you back.

What to do about it:

Use and strengthen your discipline muscle. You may for example not feel like going to the gym today. Your mind might say “It’s ok, you don’t need that anyway, you were there three days ago”. And so you lie back on the couch. But you can also say to yourself “No, today is workout day and I will go even though I don’t feel like it/don’t think I need to right now”. And so you go. And after you have been there for maybe 15 minutes you start to enjoy it and you’re glad you went.

Just be aware that your mind doesn’t always want what you know is the right thing to do. The mind often tries to get us to choose the easiest option in our daily lives. It makes it seem like what you feel now is reality. Even though emotional states are fleeting and you can change them around in just a few minutes or hours by going to that gym.

9. You compare yourself to other people.

One thing that can cause quite a bit of low self-esteem, frustration and unhappiness is comparing yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on.

What to do about it:

Be kind. The way you behave and think towards others has a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge people more and you tend to judge yourself more. Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself. You become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

Just realize that you can’t win. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.

Compare yourself to yourself. Instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done. You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.

10. You think you already know how things work.

If you think that you already know something then your mind will not be open to actually learning it. Whatever someone is telling you, your mind will sort through based on what you think you know. You’ll only hear and learn what you what you want to hear and learn.

What to do about it: Whenever you want to learn anything it may be a good tip to disregard as much as possible of what you think you know. Keep your mind as open as you can. In my experience this makes it easier to pick things up and not disregard important stuff.

Of course, the ego often wants to jump in to meddle and strengthen itself by making you think that you already know whatever you’re about to learn. Be careful in trusting that somewhat arrogant inner voice.