Note: This is a guest post by Vlad Dolezal of An Amazing Mind.

Once upon a time, a poor peasant heard that the princess of his country was looking for a husband. The old king was getting very old, and the kingdom was starting to desperately look for a heir.

So the peasant set out to ask for the princess’ hand in marriage. When he arrived at the palace, he found out he will have to compete with several other peasants to prove his worth as the next king.

The night before the competition, he went to buy some food.

“You look worried young man.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow, I’ll be competing for the princess’ hand in marriage. Of course I’m worried. When it’s done, then I’ll be able to relax.”

And the next day comes, and the peasant competes with the others, in a long day of traditional disciplines, devised to test his worth as the next king. The disciplines include such gems as throwing pitchforks into moving targets, and taming an angry boar with only his bare hands and a length of rope.

(That’s quite a ridiculous way to choose the next king, but hey. It’s tradition.)

And the peasant emerges victorious, and everybody celebrates, the princess rewards him with a kiss, and they retire into the princess’ private chambers.

“You look worried, my dear.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What’s wrong? You just won my hand in marriage!”
“Yeah, I still can’t quite believe it’s real. When we’re standing together at the altar, a week from now, and say our vows, then I will finally believe it and be able to relax and be happy.”

A week passes, the marriage takes place, and the newly crowned prince retires into his private chambers with the princess.

“You look worried, husband.”
“Yeah. I would really love to help the people of this country, your old father is no longer able to rule properly. But my hands are tied. I can’t do anything while he’s still alive. When he dies, then I will be able to help our people, and I will be happy.”

A few months pass. The old king dies. The whole country mourns for a week, and then goes about its business as usual.

“You look worried, my lord.”
“Yeah, there are unrests in the border regions. When I’ll dealt with those, then I will be happy.”

So he deals with the unrests. And then a dragon attacks the country, and the new king bravely fights him off. And then plague comes, but the king smartly manages to contain it and cure his people. And then there’s drought, and then floods, and fires and storms, locusts, invading armies, ingrown toenails…

Eventually, the king finds himself on his own death bed. The royal scribe comes to see him.

“You will soon die, my lord. Do you have any parting words of wisdom you would like to share with the next generations?”
“It’s about bloody time. My whole life has been one catastrophe followed by another. When I die and enter the afterlife, THEN I will finally be happy…”

***

So many people focus on happiness ever _after_.

“After I get my degree, then I will be happy.”
“After I start earning $100,000 a year, then I will be happy.”
“After I retire, _then_ I will be happy!”

And like the peasant in the above story, they end up chasing the ever elusive “after”, but never actually reach it.

There is no happiness in the after. The happiness is in the NOW! As the old saying goes:

“Tomorrow never comes. Because when it comes, it’s today again.”

Don’t make the same mistake as the peasant. Stop looking for happiness in the future, and instead savour everything you already have. Happiness is already with you. You just need to tap into it.

Pause to smell the proverbial roses along the way (although here in the city, the only things along the road I could pause to smell are… well, let’s just say you wouldn’t want to smell them.)

Errrm, as I was saying… think of roses.

Right now, just slowly breathe all the way out, and take a deeee-ee-eep slooo-ooo-oow breath in. Then breathe all the way out, through your nose, even slower than you breathed in.

Good!

And I’ve got a quick exercise you can do right now to get really happy! I call it “3 Simple thing I love about…”

Just pick an area of your life. Any area of your life. Could be your work, or your family life, or your car, or the room you’re in right now. Then simply make a mental list of “3 Simple Things I love about [blank].”

Here’s my example:

3 Simple things I love about living in the UK

1. The bus drivers – I’ve never seen such happy and satisfied bus drivers before. It’s probably got to do something with the fact that over here, we always greet the bus driver when we get on the bus, and thank with for the journey when we get off. It’s great to see such people as bus drivers enjoying their jobs.
2. The non-smoking bars and clubs – I love being able to go out with friends for a night out and return home with my clothes still smelling fresh.
3. The awesome British and Irish accents – ’nuff said.

The “3 Simple things I love about…” is a great quick exercise if you ever find yourself bored, like in traffic or in the checkout line at the grocery store. It instantly annihilates the boredom, and fills your life with happiness.

Do it right now! Pick one area of your life, and list 3 Simple things you love about it.

There’s no happiness in the “after”. So enjoy the now!

Check out Vlad’s blog to get even more happiness in the now! It’s got psychology, personal growth, and a crapton of attitude!

One big mistake that I have made many times and I guess others do too – many might even do it on a daily basis – 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 in your daily life. Which of course makes a huge impact on your overall life.

Should I stay at home or just go?

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”. 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.

Or there might be a party this weekend. But you are hesitant to go because you will only know one other person there. Maybe no one will to talk to you. Maybe it will be awkward. You may tell yourself “Well, it’s better to just stay home and take it easy”. But then you go despite those uncertain feelings and small disaster scenarios in your head. And you have a great time and met a new fun friend that is into the same things as you are.

If you go with your inner voice and what you are feeling right now you will miss out on a lot of stuff. And when it comes to your personal development you will be wildly inconsistent.

Be consistent, be awesome.

People will often not get the results they want. A part of that comes from advertising that tells us over and over that we can get what we want much faster than is really realistic. This leaves us disillusioned. But another part of this lack is because people don’t apply the actually very helpful pointers and advice they get in a consistent manner.

If you want to lose fat on your body you have to go and workout consistently. You can’t just do it when you feel like it. Like maybe a few times a month. You have to monitor what you eat and think before you stuff things into your mouth. If you go with what you feel you may want to reward yourself a bit too much with treats. Or think that you will just work off that extra sugar when you go to the gym. But as I understand it at least the very most important factor for fat loss is about consistently eating less calories than you use.

Now, I don’t want to paint a bleak picture where you have to behave like a robot and can’t have one single ice-cream this summer. And I am not saying that you shouldn’t trust your intuition or gut in life and when it comes to big things and decisions.

But I have come to understand that my mind doesn’t always want what I 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 or party.

And the thing is if you start to not take what you feel or think right now too seriously and do the right thing anyway you can not only get much better results than you may have before. You will also feel a lot better about yourself right now when you do what you know deep down is the right thing to do.

I don’t know what the best tip is to increase your productivity but here’s a personal favorite of mine. It’s my favorite not just because it helps me to get more things done but also because it’s very simple, a great way to brighten your mood and to build an awesome day.

Plus, you can apply the same tip in other areas of your life too. And use it to build confidence in your own abilities, raise your self-esteem and face small or big fears.

What is it?

Start each day with doing the hardest/ most important/ most uncomfortable thing first.

That’s it.

Maybe you have an important call to make that you also fear might be uncomfortable. Maybe you know you have gotten behind on answering your emails and have big pile to dig into. Maybe you have the last five pages of your paper to finish. It’s often something that is hard to do and also kinda unpleasant.

Whatever it may be, get it out of your way the first thing you do. If you don’t then you may build it up more and more in your head and a call that you may be reluctant to do now grows into this big nightmare in your mind where your boss yells at you and everything is just terrible.

If you let it go so far then it’s also easy to wind up in place where you just put off for tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. As you walk around with vague negative feelings hanging like a gloomy raincloud over your head.

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

You can use this “get a good start to your day” tip a bit similarly in other areas of your life too. Besides using it to increase your productivity you can also use it to:

• Improve your social mood. If you start your day by feeling social then you’ll feel like being consistent with that for the rest of the day. If you start out by being closed off and feeling guarded then it becomes harder and harder to break out of that shell as your day progresses. You can get yourself off to a good start by for instance assuming rapport. This means that just before a meeting, you just think that you’ll be meeting a good friend. Then you’ll naturally slip into a more comfortable, confident and enjoyable emotional state and frame of mind. This works surprisingly well even if you don’t feel that social in the morning.
• Increase your energy levels. If you work out early in the day you’ll feel energized for the rest of the day. This can be crucial on days when you feel tired and zombie-like.

What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. In our minds we have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. Use that to your advantage. Access the best parts of yourself by starting your day in a better way.

Try this tip out for a week and see how much this simple little thing can improve your life right now.

Image by CielChen (license).

My favorite new TV-show is The Mentalist. One of my favorite little interests over the last year or so has been to try to figure out why some people stand out, why they are charismatic.

Now, if you have seen the Mentalist – a show about a former fake psychic who is really good at reading people and helps the police out with solving a weekly murder case – then you have probably seen how charismatic Simon Baker is in the lead role.

And even if you haven’t, this article just draws some inspiration that show. Many of these qualities are those one may find in many other people that are often considered charismatic like George Clooney, Bill Clinton or just some friend you might have.

Also, I think being charismatic is about being a better you and bringing out more of yourself with less self-censoring. So these are just some general things many charismatic people seem to have been in common. There are many variations to being charismatic.

Find your own variation by exploring yourself. But also by experimenting and trying things you may not normally do.

Big changes do not come from just staying in your comfort zone and telling yourself “Oh, that’s just not me”. Big changes pretty much always start with feeling awkward at first.

1. Smile.

Yes, this sounds really obvious. But you have to do it too. If you actually try smiling more you’ll discover how the world treats you changes a lot. People generally react to how you treat them. And emotions are contagious.

Charismatic people often seem to smile a whole lot. So does Simon Baker on the show, a 1000 watt smile like the one in photo above, probably a dozen times in each episode.

Positivity and enthusiasm are also emotional and mental headspaces that are associated with smiling and they make other people feel good. This is probably the simplest of the tips here, and the one I would start implementing first.

And, even if you don’t always feel like smiling do it from time to time anyway (not all the time though of course, that’s just weird).

Because it works backwards too. Try forcing yourself to smile for thirty seconds right now. By making yourself smile, no matter how you feel, your body will start to release all those wonderful chemicals that make you feel happy.

2. Be interested, open and curious.

Here’s a classic tip from Dale Carnegie:

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.”

Or as a woman said after having had dinner with two English statesmen Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone:

“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.”

Now, you may think; “people aren’t always that interesting”. Sure, that may be the case. But this is also a belief and you tend to see what you want to see. If you make the effort to actually be genuinely interested in people you often find interesting things.

Openness is very important here. People want someone to communicate with and listen to them without judgement. So there will be a resistance towards someone who is judgmental and people may hold back or even avoid that person if it becomes too much.

On the show, Simon Baker often has an almost childlike curiosity that is warm and charming. When you are curious you become more open, positive and naturally interested in people and all kinds of stuff.

How do you become more curious?

One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you discover and experience. And then to work at it.

Curiosity is a habit. The more curious you are the more curious you become. And over time it becomes more of a natural part of you.

3. Be fully present.

This is one of the qualities people often mention after having met charismatic people like Bill Clinton or Oprah. They are fully there. Centered and with the intense focus that being present creates. People aren’t used to that and feel special.

So listen fully to the person as an equal no matter who it is. Keep the eye-contact without staring (and don’t forget to break it sometimes).

Also, presence tends to make you more open and curious in a natural way. When you are present things and people just tend to become more interesting.

Here are two quick ways to center yourself and reconnect with the present moment again:

• Focus on your breathing. One way to quickly become present is to take breaths with your belly – this calms your body too – and just focus on your in- and out breaths for about two minutes.
• Focus on what’s right in front of you. Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel.

4. Be assertive.

This is a very important point and something I think is perhaps often missed by people who want to improve their social lives.

They may think “well, I have been so nice towards everyone for the last few months but it doesn’t seem to have changed their behavior towards me much”.

This is the “nice guy/girl” problem. S/he is very nice but there is no assertiveness.

There is no changed feeling within about how you feel you deserve to be treated. You may still be nice just to get approval from other people. You feel the craving need. And people who crave approval the most tend to get it the least.

We do to a large extent choose how we want to be treated. How you expect people to treat you can have a big effect on how you allow yourself to act and how people around you view and treat you.

Charismatic people are often seen as leaders of some sort.

Simon Baker is assertive in a relaxed way on the show. Although he isn’t the boss officially he often gets to do things his way. And although that’s just a TV-show, I think it works a bit like that in real life too. You have to be a leader in some way, but it doesn’t have to be in an official way.

5. Be confident.

Like smiling, this one is pretty obvious too. You can’t really be that charismatic if you aren’t confident.

So what is the number one way to increase your self confidence?

I’d say, face your fears. I think that if you want to experience better self confidence on a deeper and more fundamental level you simply have to have experiences where you face your fears. There is no way around it.

Also, it’s only when you face your fears that you discover the thing that billions of people throughout history have discovered before you. Failure or making a mistake won’t kill you. Nor will being wrong. The sky will not fall down. That’s just what people that haven’t faced their fear yet think.

But facing your fear isn’t always easy though. Here are two tips to make it easier:

• Be present. If you are present and in the moment when you are taking action to face your fear you don’t get so nervous and stuck in negative thought loops about how everything will go wrong.
• Be curious. When you are stuck in fear you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people. When you shift to being curious the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear.

6. Be amused.

This may sound like an odd tip but I have seen charismatic people do it quite a bit.

Baker does it a lot on the show, he is constantly amused by what happens as the plot twists and turns. You can also see on DVD:s with Eckhart Tolle, a third of his seminars seems to be about him being amused by something and laughing. George Clooney does this a lot too in interviews and movies.

And I get why. Being in an amused headspace is one of the best ones you can be in. You so relaxed and having fun. You feel light. And the things you do feel lighter too.

How do you do it? By not taking everything so seriously. By keeping a light and positive attitude. By having an abundance mentality.

7. Be socially free and authentic.

This may be the hardest part.

On the show Baker really don’t care too much about what people think of him. He just does what he wants. Of course, in reality you have to be a bit more careful.

But when you are overly concerned about what other people may think then you often act in reaction to what you think they might say or do. And so you can’t be your most genuine and best self.

Here are three tips that can help you increase your inner social freedom:

• Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, 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.
• Increase your self confidence. The more confident you become, the more you have faced your own fears the less you care so much what other people may think. Over time you become stronger and more centered in yourself.
• Focus on what you can control. Here’s a great way to look at things from the ancient scripture Baghavad Gita: “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” To me it means 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. So 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.

Final thoughts

It seems to me that a lot about being charismatic is about making the other person/people feel good. And you inspire that and transfer that into them by being more free and genuine socially, by being fully there, by being positive and open and confident etc. yourself.

So being more charismatic is mostly about bringing out more of these or other positive qualities in yourself. They are already there to some extent. You just have to practice and have the courage to make them stronger and bring them out more consistently.

“Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility.”
Albert Einstein

“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”
Sophocles

“A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.”
Denis Waitley

What is one of the most boring and tiresome words ever?

Like discipline, responsibility is one of those words you have probably heard so many times from authority figures that you’ve developed a bit of an allergy to it.

Still, it’s one of the most important things to grow and to feel good about your life. Without it as a foundation nothing else here or in any personal development book really works.

So today I’d like to explore personal responsibility with the help from some timeless thoughts on the topic.

1. There is always a price to pay.

“Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
George Bernard Shaw

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
Unknown

Not taking responsibility may be less demanding, less painful and mean less time spent in the unknown. It’s more comfortable.

You can just take it easy and blame problems in your life on someone else. But there is always a price to pay.

When you don’t take responsibility for your life you give away your personal power.

2. Build your self-esteem.

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.”
Brian Tracy

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion

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.

And the difference is really remarkable. Just try it out. You feel so much better about yourself even if you only take personal responsibility for your own life for day.

This is also a way to stop relying on external validation like praise from other people to feel good about yourself.

Instead you start building a stability within and a sort of inner spring that fuels your life with positive emotions no matter what other people say or do around you.

Which brings us to the next reason to take personal responsibility…

3. Give yourself the permission to live the life you want.

“When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.”
George O’Neil

By taking responsibility for our lives we not only gain control of what happens. It also becomes natural to feel like you deserve more in life as your self-esteem builds and as you do the right thing more consistently.

You feel better about yourself.

This is critically important.

Because it’s most often you that are standing in your own way and in the way of your success.

It’s you that start to self-sabotage or hold yourself back in subtle or not so subtle ways once you are on your way to the success you dream of.

To remove that inner resistance you must feel and think that you actually deserve what you want. You may be able to do a little about that by affirmations and other positive techniques.

But the biggest impact by far comes from taking responsibility for yourself and your life. By doing the right thing.

4. Taking action becomes natural.

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is often said that your thoughts become your actions. But without taking responsibility for your life those thoughts often just stay on that mental stage and aren’t translated into action.

Taking responsibility for your life is that extra ingredient that makes taking action more of a natural thing. You don’t get stuck in just thinking, thinking and wishing so much.

You become proactive instead of passive.

5. Understand the limits of your responsibility.

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
Epictetus

Taking responsibility for your life is great. But that is also all that you have control over.

You can’t control the results of your actions. You can’t control how someone reacts to what you say or what you do.

It’s important to know where your limits are. Otherwise you’ll create a lot unnecessary suffering for yourself and waste energy and focus by taking responsibility for what you can’t and never really could control.

6. Don’t forget to take responsibility in everyday life too.

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
Helen Keller

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Abraham Lincoln

Life consists of each day. Not just the big events sometime in the future.

So don’t forget to take responsibility for the little things today too. Don’t postpone it.

Taking responsibility for your life can be hard and taxing on you. It’s not something you master over the weekend. So you might as well get started with the it right now.

7. Aim to be your best self.

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”
Henry Ward Beecher

“Peak performance begins with your taking complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you.”
Brian Tracy

This is of course not easy. But it’s a lot of fun and the payoff is massive.

• You are not trying to escape from your life anymore. Instead you take control, face what’s going on and so the world and new options open up for you.
• You start taking action not just when you feel like it. Improvement isn’t about short spurts once in a while. Consistent action is what really pays off and can help you achieve just about anything.
• You build your self-esteem to higher levels. And may discover that many smaller problems you experience regularly such as negative thinking, self-defeating behavior and troubled relationships with yourself and others start to correct themselves as your self-esteem improves. You gain an inner stability and can create your own positive feelings within without the help of validation from other people.

So how do you take responsibility?

Well, it’s simply choice that you have to make.

Reviewing the reasons above and also the awesome quotes is for me a powerful way to keep myself in line. Though it doesn’t always work.

Doing the right thing in every situation is hard to do and also hard to always keep in mind. So don’t aim for perfection.

Just try to be as good a person as you can be right now.

When you know those very important reasons above it becomes a lot easier to stick with taking responsibility. And to not rationalize to yourself that you didn’t really have to take responsibility in various situations.

That doesn’t mean that I beat myself up endlessly about it. I just observe that I have hurt myself and my life. And that doesn’t feel good. And so I become less prone to repeat the same mistake.

Also, two habits that I think are essential to be able to do the right and often hard thing and take personal responsibility are the ones I wrote about a few weeks ago: increasing your energy levels and learning to be present.

Without the extra energy and the presence it becomes more difficult to take action and to not create extra resistance and negativity within yourself.