Personal Development

Get Organized. Stay Motivated. Enjoy Life.

You are here: Home / Personal Development Blog

Personal Development Blog

Creative Habit Naming – Part 1

by 11 Comments

I’ve recently acquired yet another healthy habit – doing ab crunches just before my morning shower. I’m so happy with my results that I just have to share with you some of the methodology used in the process of working this habit out. Particularly, I would like to talk about the art of creative habit naming, which I personally find incredibly rewarding.

Everyone faces a moment where a particular habit stops being attractive up to the point of giving it up. There are obviously different reasons for ending up like this, but mastering your habits can get a whole lot easier by employing a very simple yet useful technique: creative habit naming.

I haven’t seen anything written on this topic, and so mostly I had to try different approaches myself. If you know of any author covering the topic of creative habit naming in a book or a blog, please let me know.

The idea is pretty simple: when you’re working out a particular habit, every little helps to stay motivated and interested enough. When it comes to mastering habits, creative habit naming is a very effective way of making your life easier.

By picking a thoughtful name for your new habit, you can dramatically improve your chances of mastering it, simply because every time you come back to thoughts of the habit, you will reiterate the motivational name you gave it and automatically gain benefit from this.

Naming a habit may not seem terribly important, but it actually means a lot and holds a key to your success. What I offer you is not a revolutionary new approach which will make your habit feel easier to master, but it will make it seem easier and appear more attractive, which will help you stay on top of things.

I’ve identified three main directions in creative habit naming: motivation, progress tracking and positive affirmations.

Today, I’m going to cover the first topic – getting motivation through naming your habits wisely and creatively.

You can’t have too much motivation. No matter what you do, you and your positive outcome will only benefit from any motivation you find in and for the process.

I find it very easy to name my habits in such a way that they become quite motivational. This helps me benefit from the habit even more, and generally makes my experience of working out a habit a much easier and more pleasant process.

Here are the three most useful ways to name your habit and get additional motivation from doing this:

Goal Statement

This is one of the easiest way to stay motivated: always remember your goal. If it’s an impressive enough a goal, you will get additional pleasure in repeating it every time you work on your habit, trust me!

It really is up to you to decide what your habits naming style is going to be, you can be funny, serious, playful, cheerful – you name it. Anything goes, as long as you’re clearly stating your goal.

Here are just a few examples of using goal statements in naming a habit:

  • Enjoying life on a daily basis, no matter what.
  • Becoming a better father to your kids
  • Getting fit in an easy and healthy way

Major focus

Another aspect of naming your habits for motivation is maintaining a focus. In many cases, it’s too subtle a difference from stating your goal, but you can actually use your habit’s name to serve both of these purposes. For example:

  • Becoming indecently rich while not killing yourself with work.
  • Meeting new people while not forgetting about the friends you already have
  • Building a better relationship with your partner by paying more attention and keeping your own promises.

Benefits and value

This is the last highly motivational way of naming a habit I want to cover today. It is aimed to remind you of why your habit is so cool and what exactly you are getting from regularly committing to it.

Here are just a few examples:

  • Learn a new language so that you can enjoy talking to natives when travelling.
  • Getting fit to enjoy a healthier and therefore longer life
  • Read more books to grow personally and gain knowledge

Have I left something out? Please leave your thoughts on this topic in comments area, I would live to learn your approaches to creative habit naming. Thanks in advance!

It Takes Ten Failures To Succeed Once

by Leave a Comment

A friend of mine suggested I read one of recent posts by Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert.

It’s a very interesting and motivational read for anyone who feels how fear of failure keeps them from trying new things and ideas. Scott was never afraid to try his best in any area of his life, no matter how remote from his talent or knowledge it was. The post is called In Over My Head, and it’s a wonderful story of his life so far, aimed to teach us once more: don’t be afraid to fail, cause every time you do – you get one step closer to your success.

In fact, he gives you a formula he had worked out himself over the past years:

… I must confess that I fail miserably about ten times for every one success. (That’s an accurate estimate. I’ve literally kept score.) But interestingly, the failures always involved activities that seemed entirely feasible. I was completely qualified for all of the things that failed. Ironically, I couldn’t even “keep my day job.”

and at the same time, he teaches us to never fear of trying something new:

I mention these stories because over the course of my life, every time I try something different or unlikely, someone says the equivalent of “don’t quit your day job.” When I venture into areas clearly outside of my expertise, I hear “You’re in way over your head.” You’ve probably seen some of those comments in this blog.

Somehow I have to square that seemingly good advice with the fact that I’ve so often been successful against long odds, especially when I’m in way over my head. In fact, that’s when I do my best work. I gave you several examples, but trust me when I say there are plenty more.

Truly, an amazing man and a great story. Go on, read the full story here!

Personal Development Carnival – November 5, 2006

by 5 Comments

Hi everyone, and welcome to the November 1, 2006 edition of the Personal Development Carnival!

To thank you for your participation and recognize the effort you put into writing articles, I have added all of your websites to the Personal Development Sites Search, and thanks to your websites, there is now a total of 48 websites searched!

There were 36 submissions this week. Not sure whether this counts as our new carnival record, but very impressive in any case!

Here are all the submissions:

Peter Kua presents Product innovation: Revisiting the formula of product leaders posted at RadicalHop.com.

Alexandra Levit presents Be Your Company’s Best Ambassador posted at Water Cooler Wisdom.

Jack Yoest presents 6 Reasons Not To Show Up For Your Radio Or TV Appearance posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “Woody Allen once said that 80 per cent of success is showing up. And to succeed in business as well as show business: you must show up. Your Business Blogger was observing (and trying to stay out of the way of) a radio and blogger row a few weeks ago at the Family Research Council Briefing. We were lucky — guests and hosts seem to link up with minimal scheduling challenges. But this is becoming somewhat more unusual. Your Business Blogger is seeing a most disturbing trend: Guests who don’t show.”

Steve Olson presents Achieving Greatness posted at Steve Olson.

Travis Wright presents CG Podcast #004 – Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success Podcast Series #03/16 – Self Confidence posted at Cultivate Greatness, saying, “This is Lesson 3 – Self-Confidence in the Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success Podcast Series from CultivateGreatness.com | Personal Development Blog”

David Thomas presents Blinded by Ideas posted at GlitteringMuse, saying, “Skills learned from the Alexander Technique can improve mental as well as physical attitude.”

Kate Hudson presents What Society Teaches Us posted at Kate Hudson’s Blog.

Alexander Becker presents WOW: The Pareto Principle vs. the Necessity of the Unnecessary posted at WOW, saying, “Comparison determines quality.”

Amit presents The Driving ‘Ologies Part 3 – Universal Sat Nav! posted at Amit, saying, “Never get lost with your Universal Sat Nav!”

Wenchypoo presents The College Conundrum (L-O-N-G) posted at Mental Wastebasket.

isabella mori presents falling down – weakness and strength posted at change therapy, saying, “thanks for doing this!”

Steve presents The Human Puzzle posted at Poetic Pilgrimage.

Daniel Brenton presents A Lesson from the Devil posted at The Meaning of Existence (and all that): The Odd Little Universe of Daniel Brenton, saying, “Lyman — Thank you for the opportunity of submitting to your Personal Development Carnival. I went though a very harsh time in my life in my early twenties, and during this time I learned some very valuable things in probably the hardest ways I could. But, as they say, “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” During this time I learned a very important secret from one of the most evil people I’ve ever met, and I share this secret in “A Lesson from the Devil.” Hope you enjoy it. Again, thanks. Daniel”

Joseph presents How to attain success posted at help with everything.

Manny presents Success Methodologies: Obsession posted at Success Books, saying, “Obsession is good for the soul (and perhaps underrated).”

Conan Stevens presents A Practical Guide To Success And Personal Development » Blog Archive » How To Ask The Right Question To Get The Right Answer posted at Conan Stevens – successful at many things talking about life, saying, “Often people get ‘stuck’ in their lives and don’t know how to get out – the first thing is to set yourself the right questions to ask before you can find an answer”

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Contending With Time posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog, saying, “Self-help humor about time management”

John Hill presents Setting Your Intentions posted at Universe Of Success.

Asher Lewis presents Rid Yourself of Procrastination Goblins Once and for All posted at asherlew.com, saying, “”Like a spooky creak in the attic, once you identify the source, you will no longer be frozen in fear, and will begin to see procrastination for what it really is … “”

Chris presents Thoughts on Being Funny posted at How to be Cooler.

Raymond David Salas presents Jason Winters Tea posted at ZenChill.com – Power Tools for Mind, Body, and Soul.

Andy presents Don’t Act Like A Victim (Even If You Are) posted at ThoughtfulConsideration.com – Get Your Think On, saying, “Overcoming difficult circumstances when you aren’t to blame.”

Bill Perry presents How to quit your job and never look back posted at Financial Freedom Library.

Shamelle presents Enhance Life: 7 Ways – How NOT to annoy people posted at Enhance Life.

Erek Ostrowski presents The One Way Street posted at Verve Coaching.

Henrik Edberg presents 18 ways to improve your body language posted at Henrik Edberg.

Steve Peters presents How To Improve Anything You Do posted at Steves Goal.

Travis Farnes presents I don’t do jobs! Be an avid job avoider. posted at Self Improvement with Travis Farnes.

Patricia presents 4 Steps To Make It Happen, Every Time posted at Patricia.

Erich Jaeckel presents How to Read People – Part 1 of 3 posted at LifeTraining – Online.

Jerry Lopper presents If You’re Serious About Growth Get a Coach posted at Purposeful Growth.

Nneka presents Something’s Calling Me posted at Balanced Life Center, saying, “Gleb, thanks for hosting this week.” You’re always welcome, Nneka!

David Maister presents Squeezing the Stress Sponge posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Rick Cockrum presents Why We Sleep (Part III) posted at Shards of Consciousness, saying, “This is the third article in a three part series on why we sleep and how to get the most out of sleep.”

Rheanni Lightwater presents Sacred Cow Tipping – Making a Difference posted at Intuitive Learning Circle Blog, saying, “An online consciousness raising game perfect for empowerment and getting out the vote.”

Vishal P. Rao presents Your Greatest Source of Strength – Yourself! posted at Relishing Life.

Thank you for your participation! Submit your blog article to the next edition of Personal Development Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

As for the next edition of this carnival, it is going to be hosted by Lyman Reed at his Creating a Better Life blog.

Personal Development Ideas Community Search

by 46 Comments

Google has just announced a great new feature which allows anyone to enjoy a fully customized search engine. The main advantage is that it allows you to search many sites instead of one, and you can specifically search through only their pages and not the whole Web. I just cannot resist to such an opportunity, and that’s why I present you our very own Personal Development Search.

I have made many friends in the past half a year of my involvement with personal development, and I would really like you all to join this search page and make it easier for anyone to find your great articles. Our community around Personal Development Ideas grows slowly but surely, and I see this search page as a great opportunity for us all to grow and make this project a more useful resource for all.

So, if you want me to add your website to the Personal Development search, please leave URLs in comments to this post, and I’ll post an update as I make progress adding them to the search. Of course, you’re also more than welcome to email me directly or use the contact form.

At this stage, I don’t want to take my chances by adding your websites to the search myself, and so I would really like you to share your URLs in a comment to this post. After the initial submission period is over (I expect it to be two weeks or so), I will start adding more websites to the search myself.

I’m telling you, I’m really excited about this – something tells me this is going to be a great search page for everyone interested in personal development, motivation, productivity and time management.

Thanks in advance for sharing your links!

Support the Personal Development Ideas project

by 3 Comments

Updating my Amazon’s wish list to keep track of the next few books to buy and read, I’ve decided to put a link to it in the sidebar of this blog. A few more things came to my mind, and that’s how they all quickly grew into a separate Support this site section.

I’m really happy with the progress of this project so far, and I benefit from it in many ways. At the same time, I always feel there is more to be learned and shared, and I notice myself spending increasingly more time doing research, finding new people to talk to and learn from, exploring software and reading books.

I can definitely use some help to make Personal Development Ideas an even better place for all of us, and here’s what YOU can do:

Share your knowledge and help me grow

I find your emails and advices to be most useful, and I would love to get more of them as they keep me motivated and help me grow. Please feel free to do any of the following:

  • share your personal advice (just use this contact form to send me an e-mail)
  • point me to an article you find relevant and interesting (your own ones are most valued ones for me as they come from your own experience)
  • suggest me a book I should read. If you feel particularly grateful for some article of mine or just want to be generous – please buy me a book from my Amazon wish list.
  • suggest a software you think is useful. If you’re an author of a software package – please send me a copy of it. If you want me to review it (and post a summary of it here on my pages), just ask!
  • suggest me an audio program – there are so many around, that I could definitely use your suggestions and friendly advices

Help PersonalDevelopment.ie grow

I wish I could spend even more time working on this project, but even at its current pace I see it finally shaping up. I’ve got many more plans and ideas for it, but your opinion is always valued, so please let me know if you want to help:

  • link to Personal Development blog main page or any article you found useful on my site (PLEASE tell me if you do it without using trackbacks, so that I have a better chance of noticing and thanking you for this) from your websites. I don’t have a link exchange block setup just yet, so I can’t promise a permanent link back to you, but I can certainly suggest your website in one of my Saturday Links weekly posts
  • suggest my website to your friends which could benefit from it (if you feel like nobody will really benefit, please tell me why and I promise to fix the situation!)
  • bookmark my pages in your social bookmarks service (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, digg and anything else you use)
  • take time to leave a comment to this post
  • let me know what you would like to see changed/improved about this site (you might find the feedback form to be most useful for this and I’ll be sure to continue our email conversation)

Donate

If you feel like making a small donation, please use any of this to do so, and be assured that all your help is greatly appreciated:

  • send me a book on personal development you’ve already read yourself
  • use the PayPal donation button on the sidebar
  • send me your software package and give me a registration key
  • buy me a book from my Amazon wish list

Are you still reading?! Incredible! You must be one of my loyal and regular readers, which makes you one of the most important and valued visitors to go through my pages. THANK YOU for all the help and attention, your continuous support means a lot to me.

pS: if you’re not a regular reader yet, this is even more impressive that you’re still reading these lines. THANK YOU too! Please come back again, I’ll be sure to have something interesting ready.

3 Golden Rules of Goal Setting

by 12 Comments

Have you ever had a goal which you never managed to achieve? Can you think of how attractive and real something seemed to you for a short while, yet as time passed by you couldn’t achieve it? Then this article is for you.

I would like to share with you the three basic rules of goal setting, and while I totally agree that success of your goals is largely based on your personality and relevant skills, I also want to make sure that you know these rules of the game before you try playing it.

The bottom line is this: If you’re aware of these rules, they make goal setting a much easier process, and greatly increase the probability of your success.

Rule 1: Make sure your goal is valuable

It is very important for you to realize how valuable to you and to others a particular goal is. You need to be absolutely clear about this rule – it will save you from going after many irrelevant or useless goals in your life.

Just think about it: how successful anything can be if you’re not really interested? Without proper motivation, you will be limiting your productivity to only a tiny portion of your true potential.

In goal setting, each of your goals has to be valuable and important. And even if you think you know what the value is, please take some time and write it down. Write as much as you can, and do it in a fashion you’d use if you had to explain why your goal is important to someone else. Use all the arguments you have, and don’t go further in your goal setting process until you have a list of positive outcomes which achieving a particular goal is going to give you.

Rule 2: Make sure your goal is an absolute necessity

If you think you can go on without having a certain goal, this is probably true. And it’s therefore a very good sign that the goal you’ve chosen isn’t real or isn’t important for you. Unless your goal is something you absolutely must do, there is no point even trying – because anything you think you should be doing has practically no chance of ever being realized to its potential, compared to things you know you must do.

If some goal seems like a good idea to you, just collect it – write it down and get back to it regularly when doing your goals review (surely you have such reviews now and then, don’t you?). Make sure you check back on it sometime later to confirm whether it’s important and critical enough for you to make it a real goal.

Don’t make something your goal just because it seems like a good idea – because this will save you a frustration few months down the line when you review your goals and realize you haven’t done anything about some goals.

Timing is very important in goal setting, because if you make something your goal too early, you may get disappointed very quickly, and never come back to it, thus losing yet another chance to succeed. If there is not enough urgency, and if you don’t see why you absolutely must make something a goal, this usually means that it’s not a goal for you yet.

Rule 3: Achieving a goal is a process, not just a result

This rule is something most people tend to neglect. They set new goals, and spend their time and efforts trying to achieve them, but never really take time to realize that achieving a goal is a process they’re supposed to enjoy. If you keep this rule in mind, you can easily review each of your potential goals to see how good they are going to be.

Just ask yourself a few questions like these:

  • How do I see the process of achieving this goal?
  • Am I going to enjoy achieving this goal?
  • How long am I going to be trying to achieve this goal? Am I going to be motivated and interested enough over this period of time?

I’ve once mentioned that goals are much easier to achieve if you treat them like outcomes. This way, you know you’re going to achieve the goal, because you can’t do anything without some kind of outcome. It could be a success or a failure, but it’s definitely going to be an outcome.

That being said, it is really important to make sure you will enjoy the process of achieving the outcome. You don’t want to set goals which will mean long months or even years of physical exhaustion, lack of sleeping hours and other deprivations just for the sake of a really good outcome.

No goal is going to work for you if that’s the case. Setting a long-term goal must take into account the fact that you will want to maintain your life standards. If it’s anything long-term, you have to be thinking of subtle changes to your lifestyle which will mean the desired outcome in long-term, and not some inhumane methods which you will not be able to sustain anyway.

If you put any goal of yours in a long-term perspective, and it seems too hard for you to accomplish, the chances are that it is going to be even harder when you try it, and this means you have to restructure or even reconsider your goal.

There you have it. These 3 rules are the very basic requirements for your goal setting. Look at them as both your guides and your guards . They have the power to lead you towards success and keep you away from unnecessary failures. Learn to use these principles in your goal setting, and I’m sure you will enjoy the success you deserve.