Getting tired with life... reviving the dreams, and aspirations of yester-year

It seems that there are natural peaks and troughs to life... Sometimes, everything seems so wonderful, you can be on such a high, that you can't imagine things getting any better...

Well, I've been living through what appears to be one of those yo-yo periods of late...

One minute everything is inspiring, and compelling, the next, it's all just a short step away from driving you insane, at just how little progress is really happening - people turning around after saying one thing, and saying another... It just makes you wonder, what is it that makes people respond in such a way...

It seems I've been consciously creating the experience a number of times in my life now... I think it always happens around those times when I'm trying to be 'overhelpful' - and people just don't need my help, or support.

I wonder how much of the world we create reflects our true nature? Some people use the perspective that everything is a reflection of you, others that everything is out of your control - and you only get to live the experience of it. What does life really look like from each perspective?

For a period of time, I was a strong believer, in being the creator of everything, and that I was responsible for everything in my life - and then I started to experience the frustration, some people might feel when things are spinning out of control.. How can I be creating something that isn't in my control? Why would I do something like that? Asking those age old questions, of what's really happening - where is this reality coming from? If I create it, myself, alone, and everyone lives with that perspective, then it becomes a little too wierd, if everyone is individually responsible for the world they created, yet our worlds appear to overlap - and if I'm creating my world, but involving other people in it, then how can I be solely responsible for the reality that I create? Equally, if other people are involving me in their world - how can they be solely responsible for the reality they create?

One possible answer to this is, to take away the objective perspective in the universe, and agree that the only perspective, is the perspective of the individual, and that is the only one of any consequence. This way, at the very least, whilst the events themselves may involve many people, the experience of the event, is subjective, and coloured by the perception of each individual - it's the thoughts that people have, that makes these things have any meaning.

However, now that scientists are starting to consider the possibility that consciousness is stored, electronically, in the information, in the particles that make up our being - energetically, then what does that mean? The truth is, we don't really know for sure...

One article I've read talks about how a mobile phone network potentially mimics the communication that's occurring at the electron level within atoms in the universe. Since mobile phone networks reflect ongoing two way conversations between two people, then what information is perhaps being passed from electron to electron?

What is the universe communicating? And since we are composed of the same electrons, where does this communication come into our sphere of reality? Well, I don't claim to have all the answers, and I certainly won't continue to ask further questions, I can already get a sense of how it's possible to start asking pointless questions and getting no-where....

So instead, let's bring the focus back to us, and our realities... If we accept that in some way, our being informs the world we live in, and consciously in some way creates it, in accordance with whats in harmony with our choices and the choices of others, then what do we do when we don't know which direction to turn in?

I'd suggest, in those times, it's important to uncover a creative outlet, that allows you to express yourself, without judgement, with no others meaning, but your own, and with the ability to just be, without need nor reprimand from another. When we don't know which way to turn, it's usually because we've disconnected from our own self-navigation system. The answer to which is to go into stillness in the mind, and allow our "selves" and our "cells" to take over, without so much as knowing the reason why... It's amazing when you do that, because even in stillness, it's possible to find your own direction and purpose in life. It's just that sometimes we need to learn to see the onslaught before it's happening, and be able to switch from being actively engaged by life, to letting life engage ourselves. Without the balance between time for ourselves, as well as time for our work, we lose sight of who we really are, get lost in other peoples dreams... So be sure to take some time each day, to just be with yourself, by yourself.

For in this blessing, you will discover, unearth, and tap back into the essence of life, the purpose, the dream, the passion that is worth living for...

The plot thickens... as illness takes over...

Hmm... it's interesting when a person gets ill... I recently just spent a few days in bed, with the flu - couldn't really do much, just rest. Could hardly eat anything, and had such a sore throat... I didn't know what else to do - so I ended up dozing in front of the tele, despairing at the abysmal quality of UK programming (don't worry, I know US programming is even worse, but in some countries, such as Switzerland, it seems they know how to mix culturally interesting content, with something that captures the interest... Or maybe it just sounded better in French!)

Well, anyways, at first, I thought, this is just a challenge, to see if I can fight it - and I thought, maybe I should take the hint my bodys trying to give me, and take the rest - and then I realised, well if I take the rest, then perhaps I'm going about trying to encourage self-discipline in my life the wrong way... Whilst I really think highly of Steve Pavlina's blog's I do feel like he seems to offer a 'brave' way, or perhaps a more challenging perspective... and today, I happened across an article that like everything in life, timely illustrated what I was trying to get at.

That is that it's possible to accomplish something without effort... Marc Allen's interview by Steve Pavlina really brought home to me the effortless part that I was desperately moving away from... Being a success, without working hard, that was what I wanted in my world, and was the only way I wanted to manifest it - yet it seemed as if I was starting to go against my own inner sense of right and wrong, without realising it. Perhaps - or perhaps I was just resting, and my body was de-toxing a lot more gunk that it could finally let out, after taking really powerful nutritional supplements. Having a lymphoedema for a while now, I've been supplementing with USANA supplements, and whilst I know it's making a huge improvement to my long term health and well being, I know that my leg hasn't yet recovered easily and effortlessly, but as the swelling reduces gradually I go through a phase of 'detox' and my body shuts me down, whilst it takes over, and instigates corporate rest, ahead of any other activity for a few days. Normally, the onset of such rest is accompanied by pivotal points of pain, and specific signals that my body knows it's about to go down.. and I didn't get any of those this time round.

So another part of me thought perhaps it was my body trying to tell me to stop going the way that I was going for the moment, and to go at it in a different way... An interesting proposition, which I was starting to concern myself the least with, until just now!! Now I see it - all relaxed, and carefree - there's the answer to my dilemma - I was trying too hard, to make it big, the hard way... When I could have just done it the easy and effortless way...

I know the theory, and I even have the practical experience, I just haven't been very good at doing it... Well, I picked up something really important today, persistence. And now my whole theme of self-discipline looks like it's really a discovery into persistence. Since with persistence everything eventually is successful. And if you have that persistence, that just keeps you going, well, you know, sooner or later, if you don't give up - you get there in the end.

I guess Self Discipline and persistence may be parts of this same puzzle, but for me - the key to Self Discipline conjures an image of hard work and toiling, whilst with persistence, its possible to be really really lazy, and persistent, and eventually, you're bound to succeed. With Self Discipline, it seems almost like you're forcing yourself to pick up the speed, work harder, and motivate yourself into doing it. With persistence, it doesn't feel anything like that at all. All you need is to be consistent, and to keep your actions regular. Build up habits maybe even... but without necessarily the tough guy approach, of you have to start hard and fast, and keep pushing yourself. You could even not push yourself at all, and still be a huge success, as long as you were persistent. So on that note, I'm going to start a weekly meeting. I'm going to schedule it every Monday, with myself, and I'm going to come up with some maximum number of hours that I want to work - and then make sure I never work more than that!!

I suppose one of the biggest steps that does need to change though, is the 'persistence' part, for building up my businesses. If I'm persistent with my intentions, then that's all that really matters - I just have to have very clear intentions that manifest the wealth I choose consciously, instead of living as if it's out of my control...

Time to start designing my ideal way of engaging my intentions on a daily basis... and I'll share more of that once I'm ready... Till then, don't be so self-disciplined, if you don't want to be - imagine getting the desired outcomes you want, easily, and effortlessly, for the highest good of all, in perfect time, and in absolute gratitude.

Self-Discipline for the sake of Self-Discipline

Having consciously lowered my standards for waking up early from a daily 5am start, to a daily 6am start, I'm starting to find myself wondering what am I doing it for??

What typically happens is that I'll wake up at 6am, and then start to think of what I might do with the extra time, and in doing so, drift back to sleep.

It started me thinking - why do I really want to wake up? What is that compels me to desire to wake up early? That's when it starts to get a little more interesting... Initially, this got me thinking maybe there isn't a reason to wake up early... and yesterday, when I woke up early, but was highly unproductive in the morning, before meeting a friend, and consquently turned up late, I thought perhaps there isn't really any point to setting a morning wake up time..

But then, it started to dawn on me, perhaps the many things that I didn't do in the morning, were a reflection of where I'm at in my own readyness to wake up??

I know that had I been clearer in what I wanted to accomplish with my morning, I could have done a lot more with it... And this morning, it's got me thinking even more. I started writing this entry for the blog yesterday, but I didn't have the time to finish it, so this morning, as I started thinking of how I wanted to orient my day, I thought, let me complete this. In thinking about how I might finish this entry, I started to become aware of just how many things in my life right now are "incomplete". It's like an epidemic almost... Unable to find the discipline to keep my attention on any one thing long enough to complete it, I'm surrounded by a myriad of uncompleted tasks. Opportunities that I haven't yet capitalised on, and each day that goes by, I watch my financial situation, not yet reflecting what I know one day I will be earning.

So what to do?? How to change this sorry state of affairs?? Well, to begin with, I definitely have to ensure that my daily routine supports the aims I have in life. I started out wanting to wake up early - but I didn't decide on what I would wake-up to.
My vision of my world, of my future, isn't compelling enough, to inspire me. But I guess that's more a function of my preparedness to move on in life. I've already realised that when everything in my environment represents the success that I know is coming my way, then I'll start to manifest that external success in my world too.. To that end, a Treasure Map is definitely going to be useful to start creating... And I've been thinking about making one too... I suppose the easiest way to do it, will be to perhaps run a workshop, and get lots of other people involved too... Even if it's just 15 or 20 others, it will be enough to make it worth doing, and give me a real clear focal point, to help manifest that in my own life.

Sometimes, I find it easier to do something when it's for others, rather than for myself. Which is cool - almost everything in my life, is focussed towards being of service to others. The aim being, that the more I serve others, the more I change the world I live in.. And in return, when I am serving others, I will be taken care of. It's like the way that I was recently introduced to the principle of tithing, by Topher Morrison... If you see yourself, as part of everything that is, then when you tithe, you're actually giving yourself an extra 10 percent. As you give away an extra ten percent, for the betterment of humanity, you go an receive an extra ten percent back, since you too are a part of humanity..

So for now, I'm going to end this entry with a clear intention that today I will begin molding my perfect world. Day by day, the self-discipline to wake up, will be only a small part of a greater vision of creating my perfect reality... The contribution to which will result in a world more worth living in. Now in order to take my responsibility to myself, to my family, to my community, and to my society, I have to decide to start being responsible for the results I create in my life. So I begin with the results I currently have. I chose these results. I manifested these results. And now, I choose to create different results. Using intentions, (something which to some people might seem almost magical - the ability to manifest a world, merely be thinking about it!!, which is cool - I can play the role of Harry Potter too!!) and
being very clear in what I want to accomplish with my life, I now create a space in my current world, for me to change, and in changing, start creating an upward spiral of change, fuelled by my self-discipline, driven by my motivation, and enthusiasm, which is brough to life, by my vision of how the world can be.

I invite you to create a world that inspires you, and motivates you, and to make you wake up in the mornings, feeling great-full for being alive, and once you have a vision of your perfect world, I invite you to share that with me... and together, let's create our perfect world! You can email me your visions of the future at visions[at]magitam[dot]co[dot]uk.

Day 5 - of a life of Self-Discipline

OK, so 5am, was a little overly optimistic for me, to wake up at, on a Friday morning, when I had to go to work the next day, and went to bed real late, the night before, since I was spending time with my sister and brother-in-law visiting from Canada.

But what I did do, was set my alarm for 6am, and as soon as the alarm went off, I jumped out of bed, welcomed the new day, with a huge smile on my face, and started to get ready for my day of work.

I'm slowly letting go of the reigns of my IT career, and so I have to tie up a few loose ends that would otherwise be left dangling, in the wind. That means going onto the customer's site, and being more in control than the customer. I suppose one of the reasons why the job isn't finished yet, is because I wasn't taking 'charge' of the situation. Allowing the customer to throw new requirements into the mix, at every given opportunity, and judging by the importance of these tasks for the customer jumping from one task to the other like a kangaroo, bouncing about all over the place.

Well, funnily enough, since starting my day, with a clear sense of what I was going to set out to accomplish, I spent the whole hour and a bit journey getting to the customers site, seeing the end in mind. I saw exactly what I was going to complete, and by what time, using the creative visulaization, to allow myself the luxury of finishing the job, and walking out of the clients office early. Arriving at the client's site, it seems I arrived just a little too early, and there was no-one there!! Still, by the end of the day, I hadn't finished, and instead of continuing in a manic way, as I would have done in the past, I set a very clear boundary, and needed to be back home, for a friends wedding, and decided that it was time to leave, and said I'll just return another day. In the past, I would have tried to stay a little longer, a little longer, all in the hopes of getting the job done, and not having to return, and the stress of that would mean that less would actually be completed.

But instead, this time, I was very clear on what I was going to do, and when it was impractical to keep going. I can't directly connect this sense of clear boundaries with waking up early, or the decision to start using my self-discipline. But it does feel like it's a lot easier for me to make a decision, compared to before. I guess a part of me feels like, I decided to wake up in the morning at 6am, and I did - and even though it wasn't the 5am start I wanted to have, it was a more pragmatic solution given the situation of my life at home, and at work, at the moment.

Perhaps, at work, I started to use a similar approach. I certainly didn't waste anywhere near as much time 'chatting' or socialising as I used to. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Part of it, definitely has to be to do with a sense of responsibility to get the job done, and with a need to stay focussed on what I'm working on. In the past, I would have very easily wasted a huge portion of the day socialising, and whilst it would be great for building rapport with the customer, the payoff was that I wouldn't have the job done. And I'm starting to appreciate how as I work with people, especially clients, whilst the rapport is critical to my success, if I don't start to engage with the issues at hand, I won't get very productive results.

Another side effect of giving myself an earlier time to wake up at, in my opinion has been to help me start being a little more organised. In the past, if I went to bed, and clothes were left lying around, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But now, it's kinda like I have to tidy up a little before I can let myself rest. I guess at a certain level, I've become very clear on what I'm going to set out to accomplish, and part of that success is going to require being on top of things. It hasn't meant that my room has restored itself to a perfectly organised neat and tidy living space, yet, but it's already starting to look better, with space to put things, and piles of clothes starting to disappear a little.

In fact, as part of an exercise in 'branding', one of the suggestions from Thomas Power from Ecademy yesterday, at a Blackstar Openday was that it's wise to have a consistent 'image' so that people can remember you, recognise you, and be able to start to recognise the brand of 'you'. That's got me thinking more and more, as I've already been doing, on how I want to present myself, what image I want to portray, and how I want to start to have a consistent image, whenever I'm 'working', or networking, so that it's easier for people to be able to remember me, and associate me with the work I do.

Well, times cracking on, so I'll give my abridged version of my experience with self-disciplining myself so far...

Saturday morning was a very late return to bed, and with a day that had no need to wake up early, I decided to just rest (and at least get some catch up sleep). Sunday morning, I kicked the day off late again, allowing myself to get woken up naturally, especially since I had no 'commitments', and another late night! Monday morning, I finally hit the alarm button - but needing some rest (after going to bed at 3am), decided 6am, would be ok - but I would make sure I was really looking forward to it - which I was!!

Then this morning, I set the alarm for 5am, decided I had to go to bed early last night, and nodded off, till this morning, where I woke up, bright and early, giving myself a whole hour to meditate, before deciding I'll blog a little this morning, to keep a track of my progress. So aside from the benefits of getting more done in my mornings, I'm working on the idea that once I establish the discipline to introduce a new routine into my life, and become adjusted to my new routine, I'll be able to start building on that, and get into some other fresh habits too.

It's an interesting balance, having routine and regularity, compared to being spontaneous, and in the flow. You could almost say, it's like living in two completely different worlds. But without the regularity, and systematicness, I can't see myself having available the resources to be able to completely be spontaneous, and in the flow.

Perhaps, like a Zen Buddhist monk, once I become accustomed to the daily cycles of life, then I will be able to be in a constant state of flow, a moving meditation through life... We shall see where this goes...

Have a wonderful, awe inspiring, uplifting, motivationally charged, wonderful day! And if you can't manage all that - at least have a nice day :)

Building Self-Discipline

It seems self discipline is a theme or a topic that has been appearing pretty regularly in my periphery these days, what with seeing it on tv on Morgan Spurlocks 30 days of being a muslim , and reading about it in Steve Pavlina's Blog on How to Become an Early Riser.

Now, I'm going to slowly start building my own 'self-discipline' muscle... though what am I going to build with it? I suppose a start will be to wake up each morning at a fixed time of day. 5am seems early enough to allow me to start my day, on a regular basis, so I'm going to focus on doing one thing consistently, and then slowly start adding things to my daily routine, that I stick with consistently.

Clearly it's all a matter of seeing what happens to my self-discipline, when I start to push myself, and reach those challenging borders in life, that make you want to go back to your old way of doing things. But when you want to build towards a specific goal in your life, then it makes it a lot easier to start with something simple, and specific, and to accomplish it.

Often, to have a measurable goal makes all the difference between training yourself to have the self-discipline to behave in a particular way, or to have the laxness that many people seem to have in life, simply because that's the way that life is. I suppose it goes back to that old argument about allowing things to happen naturally and making things happen.

When you just sit back and watch, life happens to you. When you step forward, and take action, you create your reality. That subtle difference also reflects in the way in which people experience life - is it in control of you, or are you in control of it? Sometimes, people like to imagine that life is in control of them, so that they can be the victims, and claim that something else is responsible for their daily traumas or challenges in life. But truth be told, what's the really empowering state to engage with? One of cause or effect?

Thanks to a great teacher, Topher Morrison, I learnt a fundamental difference between being the victim, and being at cause. The victim state means that I'm not responsible for what happened to me, I can't do anything to change it, and the only way that I can change this state is when the external circumstance changes.

The cause state, where you put yourself at the cause of the world you've created, means that you see the exact same situation, but from the eyes of someone who's responsible for the reality that's been created. That means that you created the results that you're experiencing, and in order to change your results, you have to change the behaviours, or your actions in order to change the outcome. Imagine being able to then choose when you change the world you live in. It puts you slap bang in the centre of everything you've created, and it will change just as easily, as you're willing to allow your behaviours, or actions to change.

I know which state I would rather live out of - imagine the feeling of a blade of grass being blown by the wind, and imagine that same wind current lifting an eagle up high in the sky. I think the eagle inspires me more, to soar, than that blade of grass, and so I'm going to choose to fly, instead of be blown about.

The difference between knowing how to fly, and learning to fly is a seperate matter. It's like a skydiver, learning to get more airtime from his drop, by being able to slow down his descent... But like the sky diver, if you don't choose to get on the plane, you're not going to know any difference between jumping off a plane, and jumping off the ground!

So I invite you, today, to decide for yourself, who has created the world that you live in... and in doing so, make the decision to start exercising your muscle of self-discipline. It might be challenging, it might be tough, and you may find yourself falling back as you move forward. But it's only when you start to move forward that you'll be able to experience the challenge of a setback. So embrace it, learn from it, and then continue to keep trying. It's only when we stop trying to accomplish something in life, that we ultimately start dying, since if we're not creating, and not moving towards living, then clearly we must be doing the opposite, which is moving away from life, or dying. The only reason I say this, is because one universal constant that I've learnt to recognise is change. It is never certain what the change might be, or in what direction it will take you... but change is inevitable, in every moment of life. So accept it, rejoice in it, and harness it for the constructive creation of the world you choose to live in today.

Now let me go set that daily alarm for 5am, and start building my own self-discipline muscle!

Living the life of your dreams

It occurred to me, that I didn't really have a 'perfect' vision of the life of my dreams. Instead, I'm constantly taking on board other people's dreams, and allowing them to sidetrack me from what I want to do.

It got me thinking about asian culture in general... Since we have such a strong culture of respect for our elders, we often get forced into being pigeonholed into a particular job, or role, or profession, based on what our parents think is best for us. What if we don't want to? Well often, the case in the past has been that our parents have always been considered to be "looking out for our best interests", knowing better than we do, about what is to come in life.

That has always rubbed me up the wrong way, and at times I've wondered, how exactly can my parents know better than me? It's not as if they're living my life? Well, it's times like these, that I've had to remind myself, that what I want out of life, and what my parents want out of life are two different things, which paradoxically are the same. They want the best for us, and we want the best for us. But if what we imagine is the best for us, is different to what they imagine is the best for us - then we can start to engage with some real conflict. It can even be a real challenge for us, who wanting to appease our parents may engage with something which is clearly not the best thing for us, but will definitely make our lives easier, in our relationship with our parents.

The downside to this, is that we start to live out another's life, and lose all passion for what really drives us, and motivates us... Unless that happens to be keeping the parents happy - though usually, it's a consequnce of us looking for that approval, that we get when we do something that makes them think they're happy.

The sad part, is that this happiness is only ever imaginary, and never really real. Whenever we relate our happiness to something external to ourselves, we lose control of that happiness, and consquently, we can never choose if we want to be happy or not. Ironically, whilst we might appear to be reliant on anothers happiness, it is really when we choose to be happy, that we allow ourselves to see our experiences in life as taking us towards or further away from our happiness and joy. A child exploring their world can make us happy, for the child, or we can be unhappy, because the child isn't doing what we tell it to do. That conditional happiness will never really last - and to be able to be happy, requires the ability to find the joy, regardless of the external environment. It just depends on what you're looking at, what you're putting your attention to. They say that one man's joy is another man's sorrow - does that mean that for everyone that's happy we have to have people who are sad? I'm pretty sure that isn't the point - but rather that each person has their own special understanding of happiness, and discovering that key helps unlock each individuals secrets to happiness.

Time for an update...

It seems there can always be "something to do", and one would never finish anything. I guess the only really successfully way to get everything done, is perhaps do one thing at a time, and then keep going...

I have to admit, since completing my NLP Training, I have gone as far as finding a clinic, from which to base my practice. Now I have to work on the very real issue of generating an income, from many directions, and fairly quickly too...

Looks like it's time to invest my time more wisely, if I want to start generating a nice healthy income. In trying to get myself 'set up', I've been trying to find the best way to manage my contacts information, my calendar, and my to-do lists... and I think I've found the perfect solution - netvibes - a neat little website, running on AJAX, which lets you create your own 'portal' onto the internet...

Well, I've known about netvibes for a while, but never really considered it, practically, until after I'd discovered 30boxes.com a simple, neat easy to use online calendar. Then, as I added my 30boxes, I noticed 1GB of free web storage, so I had to have that too! It was one of those things that I was just thinking about how do I go about getting, or doing... and it's done!!

Now that I have a calendar, and my addressbook online - I need to sort out the laptop, get all the pics online, so that I can trash them from my hardrive, finally (My Mac never was made for storing lots of pics, and then using iphoto to load all thousands of them...), and then once I've deleted all the pics, hopefully the laptop will stop responding so frigging slowly, and I'll be able to get some real work done - like building some websites, and making an e-shop... Excuses I know, but I'm gonna go at it one step at a time... I guess I just need to be sure of which steps I do when, so that when I get offtrack, I know what to do, to get back on track!

Time to get back to my to do list, and make sure I start to follow it.

As for the NLP stuff, I've got my certificates as Practitioner, and Therapist, and I've got a nice little clinic in Fulham, that have let me use them as my 'base' - so I'm going to just put the word out, and see what happens. Problem, as usual is, as soon as I start talking to people, I need to update their contact details, and then tidying my addressbook becomes the priority, so I'm going to lay off the addressbook over the weekend (well, I might use it a little, so that I can get some of the scraps of paper lying around out of the way!)... And I desperatly need to find something better than del.icio.us - it's too slow - in fact, painfully slow, that it hurts sometimes...

well that's all from me for now, I'm going to work on that to-do list, to make sure I get everything I need to do, done!

ciao