Motivation Spirit

by Sjef Van De Laak

From the moment we were born, we have been taught by grown up people how to live our lives. Our parents, family, teachers, our religion, they all have been teaching us how to behave, what is “good” and what is “wrong”, due to which we are actually copies of all our “Teachers”. We look at our life through the eyes of all those others.
The more we have been limited in our own free expression during the growing up period, the more frustrated persons we are now and the more we hear the voices in our head tell us what to do and what not to do. They keep telling us that life is and should be a struggle, and only the very lucky few have luck and fortune. Some of the standard rules we have been taught were for example:
- you have to fight to get lucky in your life
- security is more important than happiness
- your karma is what determines your life and what you can not change
- you have to guard yourself against all the dangers in the world
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by Mac Mcmann

The purpose here is both complex and simple, like life itself. The simple part is this: to be a voice for a dying point of view. It is a voice that is not politically correct, a voice whose very owner has somehow willingly given it away.
There used to be this voice, in the world, strong, authoritative, and clear. It was occasionally short sighted, and even sometimes wrong. Yet it stood for something, it was a compass to guide you through the woods, it was a rudder in stormy seas, and then starting around 1970 or so the hacking away at this voice began. Like many social movements, what was once necessary, like emancipation, continued to grow uncontested until it became nonsense like affirmative action.
What I am talking about, is the male opinion, the male way of doing things, the male way of thought. The male point of view, men don’t possess it anymore. It is now passé, it is now wrong, doltish, simplistic, your father’s Oldsmobile. It is the era of smoking jackets, letterman’s sweaters and crew cuts, of Mrs. Olson’s coffee, Calgon, and the GTO. At best it is quaint, at worst a suffocating relic like the hangman’s noose. It is the cause of the trouble on the planet, and the cure for none of it.
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by Pushpa Pal Singh

Excellence is something which is achieved when something great is done or achieved. It only falls into the lap of a few people who have managed to solve the puzzle of life and became ultimate masters. Excellence has often been the result of true human potential and what is considered as paramount when in comparison to other human beings. The marvelous magic of excellence lies in every human being believe it or not but very few follow the specified path which leads them to realize the true excellence in them.
Be as creative as a child- This is the very first lesson of excellence, you can not achieve excellence without being creative enough to come up with thoughts and let your creative self take over and be in charge of things. Children are the best example of creativity, since they know very little about the world they are not scared to try and are not afraid to be proven wrong. Our society has made us to build mental walls which block our creative thinking but the few who have managed to go beyond these walls have done a deed of greatness and achieve excellence. Therefore you should learn to be as creative as a child and let your thoughts flow freely without any limits of worrying about the outside world.
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by Craig Harper

The thing with us Personal Development types is, we’re always talking about creating our best life.
Success.
Whatever that is.
We know that success is represented by different things for different people, but society teaches us that success is typically about money, position, attractiveness, power and influence.
Some more evolved souls have philosophies like:
"We make a living by what we get, We make a life by what we give" (Winston Churchill)
Over the last few months I have done some work with a bloke, who by most people’s standards, is considered to be incredibly successful. I can’t be too specific for obvious reasons, but I can tell you that, despite his significant commercial success, he is, in most areas of his life, a self-confessed failure. For the purpose of this little chat, we’ll call him Subject A.
Over the last thirty-three years I have had a relationship with another bloke, who happens to be my best friend in the world and, I guess by society’s standards, he’s your typical Aussie lad. No high-flyer; just your meat and potatoes ripper bloke. We’ll call him Subject B.
Let’s take a snapshot of each bloke:
Subject A
Early 50’s.
Stinking rich.
Miserable, unfulfilled.
Stressed, anxious.
On wife no.4, a bunch of kids, step kids and ex-step kids.
Five houses.
Triple by-pass in his forties.
Lots of medication.
Unfulfilled, lonely, insecure.
Kind of scared about his future (tough to admit but true).
Got everything and nothing.
Subject B
43.
1 wife, 3 kids, 1 dog.
A nice house in the country on a few acres.
Works on an oil rig, 7 days on, 7 days off.
Like all of us, has tough days, but if he was a dog, he’d be a Golden Retriever;
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by Matt Ryan

The largest hurdle many people stumble over in their journey to attain their goals, be it financial or personal or whatever, is they lose sight of the goal. Once the goal is no longer visible, it sets in a tone of negativity that leads to the thought that it’s not attainable.
Keeping yourself motivated is the most important key to achieving success in whatever it may be you want to succeed in. Get started my identifying the exact goal or achievment you want to reach, be as specific about this as you can. It’s much easier to stay focused on a black dot in the middle of a white wall than it is the entire wall.
After you’ve driven this topic down to as small a chunk as you can, write that small chunk on a piece of paper. You don’t have to write down the process you are going to take to get there, just write down the most exact end result you can see. Take your time, you don’t want to put pressure on yourself to get this done as it will possibly lead to frustration and put a negative light on your goal from the very start.
Now that you’ve recognized your goal and know the end result of the work you’re doing to get there, take that piece of paper and put it somewhere you can access easily. I actually have a copy in my wallet, a copy I carry in my back pocket and one beside my bed.
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by Pushpa Pal Singh

The human mind is the master computer which controls your body and your actions. It’s like an empty hard drive therefore you’re affected by whatever you install into it. The functions you install can be either positive or negative. You are bombarded with different thoughts, sounds, people, and images all the time. The human mind is such that it takes into account everything that’s around you. What you truly need to learn is how to program this master computer to ignore the negative thoughts and only concentrate the positive ones. Therefore what are the steps to controlling this master computer? Read on to find out.
The emotional killer - Negative emotions can truly destroy a normal man and convert him into a devil. Negative emotions are like a virus which can destroy your master computer which you mind which in turn affect your body actions. Negative emotions constitute emotions such as anger, guilt, fear, aggression, hate, jealousy. Therefore if you suffer from any of these than be rest assured your master computer which is you brain is under virus attack and needs a clean up. Some of the worst decisions and acts through out time have been taken under the influence of negative emotions. All the wars, fights, losses, diversities are mostly the result of some person’s actions under the influence of negative emotions. Therefore you need to track and control your emotions.
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by Nelson Jenstad

Many of us who have been working and living for many years, run the risk of falling into hypnotic routines. Often times I have made the observation that a big comfy reclining chair in your den is one of the most dangerous things mankind has ever invented. The safety and repetition of our routines in life, are very much like that big comfy chair. It’s normal to feel tired after day at work, and often we do deny ourselves many small luxuries and comforts and then come home feeling like you just want to collapse.
At college age, did you ever dream of traveling around the world seeing foreign cities and places? Exploring and learning things you may have never guessed existed in the world? Yes, you do see a little slice of the world from that big easy chair in front of the TV, but you’re not seeing something that somebody else has already taken a production crew and trampled all over it. You need your own experiences!
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by Hans Bool

Some call it the problem of procrastination, a personal organizing problem; You leave the tough stuff for the latest moment.
But it could also be a disciplinary problem. It is about finding the right balance in work. The right balance in selecting the difficult issues, the one’s that cost you energy rather than those that provide you some energy in return.
To start with the former, these are the activities you are good at. The activities that could provide you a flow, which is a state of mind in which you forget that it is already four o’clock in the morning and you are still working. You ought to rise and shine at seven again (probably to confront less challenging activities).
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by Matt Ryan

While many are looking for a simple and easy cure for procrastination these days, the honest truth is there is no simple secret, magic, or hypnosis to just instantly cure procrastination. But don’t be overwhelmed or alarmed, we do have some very helpful tips of helping cure procrastination.
What overwhelms and distracts us from the task itself is not the task. But, it’s the doing, the hard work, the hours you know it’s going to take to complete that task. It’s the mindset that this is going to be horrible, hard, and a miserable time completing. It’s the thought that it’s never going to go away and continues to grow and increase each day. It’s the idea of trying to hide it, push if off and hope that it will go away or be assigned to a coworker or just magically disappear.
An old Chinese proverb once in a fortune cookie stated "A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step." This single step is a very important step that gets you going in the right direction. It will promptly begin achieving that goal and shortening the distance that you have to go. It will make you feel closer towards your goal and better about yourself.
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by Dan Goodwin

It slowly slips inside you, takes you over and kills your creativity before you even realise it’s struck, disappearing again with as little commotion as when it arrived.
It’s because of this ability to do so much damage silently that procrastination is so dangerous.
Here are 7 of the favourite disguises of procrastination and how they manifest themselves inside you:
1. Housemaid: Suddenly you feel compelled to hoover, dust, polish and wipe down anything that needs it in your home. And a few things that don’t, just for good measure. Even though you did the same thing when you came to create yesterday.
2. Librarian: Many creative people have a great love of books. Procrastination Librarian says that this week they must be reorganised into the order you purchased them. Next week they’ll need to be reorganised by colour and the week after that by publisher. Just so you know they’re in order.
3. Champion Research Assistant: The internet is amazing, there’s so much information it’s mindblowing. That perfect article/ book/ website on how to be more creative – that secret you’ve been looking for for so long – could be the next website you visit. So keep researching!
4. TV Addict: Your favourite soap opera is on tonight. There’s only another 17 episodes this season though, then you’ll spend that time creating. Oh once that OTHER home improvement show had finished. And after you’ve watched your 42 DVD box set of your all time favourite comedy drama again. Then you can create.
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