Useless Junk; Overcoming Materialism and Clutter to Improve Creativity and Reduce Stress.

On a whim, I decided several months ago to move to Los Angeles with a friend. Though I haven’t moved yet (my house is still on the market), the entire process has created a whole new set of value-based questions and answers. Most notably, this has been in the area of materialism, junk and the actual value of possessions which I own.

My Story

As soon as the decision was made, I knew I would have to purge as much as I could in my house. At the time, my brother and I lived together and generally “acquired” whatever others offered to us, and I ended up buying a whole lot of junk that I just didn’t need. Some of this came from drunken-eBaying, some from impulse, and some from just having too much money to spend and not enough responsibility.

Within a week, I had gone through both attics, all of the rooms in the house, and the garage. We were able to get a 17 foot box truck (like you’d rent at U-Haul), and WE FILLED IT UP.

After taking furniture, several very old computers, broken appliances, and other useless junk to the junkyard, I figured I was pretty much done with that process.

Not even close to true.

Since then, I’ve tossed about a dozen very full trash cans worth of stuff and I have half of my garage full of stuff to donate or give away.

And I’m not done. Each week, I find a new way to reevaluate my materialism, and make new decisions about which possessions are now useless and which aren’t.

Through this, I’ve redefined the value I place on my things, redefined the my priorities and values, and ended up with a new perspective that has cleared my head in a way I never thought would be possible. I’m more relaxed, calm, and more focused. While all of this is not due solely to my reduction of useless junk, it has had a significant effect and continues to do so.

Less Stuff = Less Distractions = More Focus

The fact is, the more stuff you have, the more draining it is of your energy. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, it becomes exhausting. Keeping track of things in your head, having to regularly clean everything that’s out, and whatever memories are attached to things around your house…it all comes back around and takes up brain space.

When you have so many “things” to look after and take care of, not to mention the materialistic mentality of “what am I going to buy next?”, your attention and focus is taken from your main goals, desires, purpose, whatever you want to call it.

So, if more stuff = more distractions = less focus, then:
Less Stuff = Less Distractions = More Focus.

The Materialism Battle

Man, I love to buy things. I’ve been called (both endearingly and snidely) a clothes horse, materialistic, obsessive, etc. I can hardly go into Banana Republic without spending a couple hundred dollars. I saved over $250 with my Barnes and Noble card last year. You generally save 10% with the card, so I’ll let you do the math on the amount I spent on books and magazines last year. I spent over $2,000 on domain names alone last year - “I’ve got this idea for a business…”

The point is, buying “things” is not a problem for me. And it’s generally not a problem for most people. If this concept is confusing to you, find any girl in the mall and ask her if she likes buying things and why. If it’s still confusing, go to Best Buy and ask a guy in the home theater section the same thing.

Especially here in America, we’re bombarded with messages declaring and trying to convince us that there’s something else we need. And if we get it, we’ll be much happier. Makes sense, right?

All the while, as we’re buying up all of this “stuff,” we’re spending our hard-earned dollars to acquire these things, spending our valuable attention keeping up with it, and spending our time trying to figure out what we’re going to acquire next.

To have these things, we “spend” a lot, and that is the battle we face: The desire to possess vs. the cost of possessing.

Why Do You Value Possessions?

This will likely be very different for everyone, though I would imagine that your reasons fall under some of the following areas:

  1. You wish to increase your social value: Increasing your social value means playing by everyone else’s rules. In a material world, your car, your clothes, your home, and the things that you do and own have some affect on your perceived social value. “A Breitling watch? This guy must be worth a lot…” When people talk about materialism in a negative manner, this is usually what they’re referring to.
  2. You have placed sentimental value on it: Sentiment is a very powerful emotion. Yet, at times, sentiment can hold you back from moving forward. The important distinction to make here is to understand which sentiments you have attached to possessions help you and which ones hurt you. Do I need 500 copies of the same rave flyer? Probably not. Toss ‘em.
  3. It might have some value/utility in the future: I love to cook. I love to cook so much that I have tons of cooking utensils and appliances. Do I really need the bamboo steamer that I’ve never used? After all, I might need it one day, or might be able to use it one day? Do I need it? Probably not. There are other ways to steam vegetables anyway.

Redefining the Value of Your Possessions

In order to truly win the battle we face against materialism and “having things,” we must ultimately understand the root of the issue. Thus, it is our “desire to possess” which must be addressed and reframed.

For myself, the importance that I placed on possessions mostly fell into the first and third category above. Thus, in order for me to move from this frame of mind, I needed to replace those frames with new ones that better served my purpose. I needed to understand what my new purpose was in order to decide why I was making these changes, and in order to determine how far to continue down the road of simplicity.

In this case, I felt tied down to what I owned. My things owned me instead of me owning them, and it was keeping me from moving to LA faster, keeping me from having a more clear mind, and furthered a sense of complacency. Thus, I defined my purpose as being to ultimately “live a more simplified life for the sake of being able to explore more valuable opportunities and experiences.”

With this purpose defined, reframing the first and third examples above becomes easy:

  1. My social value is not increased by material possessions. I can increase my social value through my actions, character, and influence.
  2. The extent with which future utility should be valued stops at 6 months. In other words, if I will definitely use it in the next six months, keep it. If not, toss it.

Are you seeing a similar process to The Process of Manifestation?
Final Thoughts

How do you place value on your possessions? Are they helping you achieve your goals and live your purpose, or are they holding you back? Do you need the things you have, or do you want the things you have? Better yet, do you want the things you don’t have more than the things that you do have? Are you compensating for a lack of something, within yourself, through the possessions you have or want - What do they fulfill for you?

Tynan, Herbal from The Game, took it to the extreme of selling almost everything he has except for a couple boxes and is loving every minute of the added clarity. (As a side note, if you haven’t read his blog, you need to. Not only for the value of entertainment, but also in its utility and application to everyday life, he’s certain to stretch the way you think about a lot of things.)

With regard to unnecessary possessions, check out this picture of my office in December last year. 4 computers, tons of books, too many papers and files, and trash everywhere. No wonder I could hardly focus last Winter. Since then, I’m down to core books that are relevant in my life now, one laptop, one computer, most of my drawers are empty and I have one filing cabinet. Not only is it cleaner, but it’s a LOT easier to focus. And yes, the white boards came down. Again, another constant, unnecessary distraction.

I ended up getting rid of about a dozen large trash bags of clothes and reduced everything to about 6-8 trash bags worth of clothes that I’m going to keep. With this new frame of viewing possessions, I’ve been toying with the idea of taking it even further to wearing only solid colored shirts, jeans, shorts, and keeping one suit. After all, if I don’t have to think about what I’m going to wear, that opens up additional time for me to think about other things, right?

I’m even taking a look at the necessity of the 50 gigs of music I have - is it necessary?  What about the 2,000 vinyl records I have from DJing and friends/family?  What about my king-sized bed?  What about my CDs - especially since I have an iPod and can play that in my car?  What about my old sports equipment?  Surely I need my wall pictures…don’t I?  What about my plates/bowls, etc - do I need three sets like I have?

Take this idea as a tool for your life. Push the limits with it and explore it.

Posted on: June 18, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

FWC#01, Part 2: Rapid Muscle Growth, Day 10 of 28

This is the second part of a four part series of this month’s Four Week Challenge.
Click here for an explanation of the Four Week Challenges.
Click here for Part 1, and an overview, of this Four Week Challenge.

Review of Methods

I’m taking weight measurements every day, physical measurements every Monday, nutrition information every day, and rep/weight measurements for every workout on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The main keys to this regimen are two workouts a week for maximum recovery time, completing one set of each exercise to failure, and eating very large amounts of protein.

The Data Thus Far, Day 10 of 28

Weight and Nutrition Data:

Date Weight Calories Protein Carbohydrates
06/04/07 159.5 1,592 211 127
06/05/07 158.5 1,692 216 146
06/06/07 158 1,887 220 180
06/07/07 155.5 800 102 70
06/08/07 157 1,902 254 146
06/09/07 158.5 n/a n/a n/a
06/10/07 158 1,715 222 106
06/11/07 157.5 1,802 200 152
06/12/07 157.5 1,732 220 147
06/13/07 157 1,735 229 136

 
Body Measurement Data:

Measurement 06/04/07 06/11/07
Body Fat % 13.13 12.81
Neck 15 1/16 15 1/ 4
Chest, Nipples 36 7/16 37 1/ 4
Shoulders 45 3/ 4 46
Thigh 22 1/ 2 22 1/ 4
Calf 13 13 1/ 2
Upper Arm 13 13 1/ 2
Forearm 11 11 1/ 2
Waist, Bellybutton 32 1/ 2 31 3/ 4
Hips, Buttox 37 37

 
Weightlifting Data:

Until I can come up with a better way to graph all of this, which I will by the end of the experiment, I’ll give some increases that I’ve seen.

Alternating Pullover: From not even 10 straight reps with 15 lbs, to 10 reps at 25 lbs.
Wide-Grip, Incline Bench Press: From 10 reps averaging 62 lbs, to 8 total reps at 111 lbs.
Drag Curl: From 10 reps at 44 pounds, to 7 reps at 89 pounds.

All of this was accomplished from 06/05/2007 to 06/12/2007.

That’s 8 total days between the first day of exercise and the last set of exercise.

I can’t wait to see how the rest of the progress goes and will update you next on Monday.

Posted on: June 14, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Negative Emotion Doesn’t Exist in Objective Reality; How you’re fooling yourself into being upset.

Have you ever found yourself giving advice to a friend, that you didn’t take when that same advice had been given to you before? You probably also thought in the back of your mind that you knew your friend wouldn’t take that advice, just as you didn’t take it the first time around.

Have you ever experienced a great amount of worry about a situation, only to go through the situation and realize it wasn’t 10% as bad as you thought it would be? Afterwards, you might have joked about it with a friend over a beer and a game of pool - and hopefully your friend gave you a load of crap for worrying so much, “just like he told you not to.”

Both of these are prime examples of when we get caught up in our own negative emotions, distorting the objective reality of a situation. This distortion, we’ll find in this post, prevents us from being able to move forward in many situations in all areas of life, be it work, family, relationships, or personal development.

By learning how to create a habit of purposefully eliminating unnecessary negative emotion, we learn a very important step in being able to control our own lives and therefore move with more powerful intent through our lives.

Disclaimer for the semanticists:

I want to clarify that I intentionally chose the language of “purposefully eliminating unnecessary negative emotion.” There are times when negative emotion does serve a purpose which allows you to move forward, such as in the process of grieving. The emotions discussed here do not fall into this category.

Rather, what we are discussing here are emotions of anger, guilt, frustration, insecurity, anxiety, worry, etc. While you may find that those emotions can serve a purpose in the discovery of one’s values and sense of self, my hope is that this article will allow you to find a more purposeful distinction between unnecessary negative emotion and necessary, or beneficial, negative emotion.

Negative Thought Does Not Exist in Objective Reality

The first, and most important thing to understand, is that negative thought, negative emotion, negative belief, etc, does not exist in an objective reality.

That’s right, you’re very often getting upset at things that you have invented and do not exist. You’re making a fool out of yourself, to yourself. You’re getting all worked up, suffering the negative health effects of stress and high blood pressure, putting yourself into a negative and defensive state, and are essentially removing your ability to intelligently and efficiently progress toward your goals. In effect, you are now enslaved to the emotions that you have chosen.

I want to be able to tell you that you are not fooling yourself by getting upset at many things that you are creating in your head, but I would be lying and it would impede you from certain areas of growth if you believed that.

Now that I’ve effectively pissed you off even more, if you need to, take a few deep breaths and allow the feeling of wanting to destroy my face with a pair of brass knuckles and a baseball bat subside before you continue reading.

Ready?

Great. Because the good news is that you can change that. The better news is that it’s easy. And the best news is that it’s free.

What is Objective Reality?

In order to find the objective reality in situations, you must remove the biases you place on the world around you from the situation at hand. This is much easier said than done, but I’ve come across a very simple exercise which gets straight to the point.

I came across this idea in a great book about choosing growth in work and life called Play to Win. In it, objective reality is communicated as how a camera might see a situation.

So, when you interpret someone’s driving in traffic as them cutting you off, the objective reality is that a car went in front of your car. It’s as simple as that. Any other interpretation you have has been invented in your head.

Negative Emotion and Reaction is a Choice

It is when we interpret that situation through our own world view, based on our personal experiences, prejudices, interpretations, and understandings, that you might interpret that you “have been cut off” - a distinctly negative reaction. The emotions that follow are usually anger and frustration, and you may even take retaliatory action by flipping the other driver off, cutting him off, or honking.

It is all of that, that you have chosen to create as your reality of the situation. It is you who has chosen to respond negatively to a reality which does not exist.

Now, you may be countering that idea by saying that you know, for certain, that the other person’s intent was malicious by their body language, etc, and to that I have three responses:

  1. Have you ever cut someone off, intentionally, to avoid putting yourself and another driver in a potentially more dangerous situation?
  2. Have you ever cut someone off, by means of accident, distraction, or otherwise unintentional behavior?
  3. Have you ever cut someone off, intentionally, because you made a decision that you had an emergency to deal with that was excusable enough to possibly drive slightly unsafely?

If you didn’t answer yes to all of these questions, you’re either being dishonest with yourself, or you’re quite possibly the most passive driver on the face of the planet and should probably look into racing school.

Taking these possibilities into consideration, it makes it quite easy to see how unreasonable, unfounded, and unnecessary the choice to react from a position of negative emotion becomes.

Finally, it becomes even more absurd, especially in situations like this, when you factor in the longer-term response that you ultimately impose upon yourself. In this sense, you’re unnecessarily making yourself miserable which results in negative physiological changes such as higher blood pressure, negative psychological changes such as carrying a continual negative frame with which to view the world around you (like those days when it’s “just a really bad day” and it’s not even 9am yet), and the way that this negativity affects those around you as well.

Interpretations of Objective Reality

In spiritual, social, and cultural senses, we see various interpretations of utilizing objective reality in a way that is more beneficial to our goals.

In Zen and Buddhism, an objective exists to separate the self from the mind and to therefore see the world around you in its truest sense.

In Christianity, it is often said that there is a reason for everything and that reason is often under God’s control or a part of His plan. In this sense, the message is intended to offer a more calming and understanding perspective of situations.

In psychology and sociology, the mind is interpreted in order to provide explanations for peoples’ actions, therefore bringing relief and calm through understanding and explanation.

We see indicators, conventional wisdoms, and advice given which all ultimately come back to the same place, which is that purposeless and unnecessary negative emotion should be eliminated for the sake of understanding the objective reality in order to move more powerfully through our lives.

Where to Go from Here

I don’t usually like to provide a viewpoint that removes something without replacing it with something else. In this case, if you haven’t considered removing your negative emotions in this way before, you will likely find it more beneficial to kick this idea around in your head before determining which action to take from here.

I encourage you to experiment with this idea of objective reality and how we choose to create our own beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Are there more intentional ways that you can utilize your emotions for the purpose of your goals?

That said, there will be a follow-up post to this next week which will discuss positive emotion and objective reality. After all, if negative emotions don’t exist, then positive emotions shouldn’t exist either, right?

Posted on: June 14, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Four Week Challenge #01: Experiment in Rapid Muscle Growth, Part 1

This month’s Four Week Challenge, the first Four Week Challenge, stemmed from a blog post by Timothy Ferriss, master of efficiency and author of The 4-Hour Workweek.

His post, “From Geek to Freak, How I gained 34 lbs of Muscle in 4 Weeks”, gives a vague outline, with impressive results, of his 4 week fitness experiment after intensive research into muscular hypertrophy. Here’s a quote from his blog post:

I weighed 152 lbs. for four years of high school, and after training in tango in Buenos Aires in 2005, that had withered to 146 lbs. Upon returning to the US, I performed an exhaustive analysis of muscular hypertrophy (growth) research and exercise protocols, ignoring what was popular to examine the hard science. The end result? I gained 34 lbs. of muscle, while losing 3 lbs. of fat, in 28 days.

Now, I’m not a big guy by any means. In fact, in high school, at 5′ 9″ and 145 lbs., I had pretty much accepted that I was genetically predisposed to not being able to build muscle mass, despite playing hockey year-round for 8 years, often on 2-3 teams at a time. I’ve made feeble attempts at rigorous nutrition/fitness regimens and never stuck to them. I’ve been rock climbing for two and a half years now (with about 8 months off last year), but even still, rock climbing doesn’t build very much muscle mass, though it does tone your shoulders and back.

So, naturally, when I came across Tim’s post, methods, and evidence, I was intrigued.

Understanding the Method Tim Used

If you’ve read his post by now, you’ll notice that he gives some, but not very much, information on how he gained this muscle mass. He outlines these key factors:

  1. Follow the recommendations from The Colorado Experiment with slight changes. Ultimately: two workouts a week, perform each exercise in one set and go to muscle failure, 3 minutes of rest between exercises.
  2. Perform each rep with a five second up and five second down cadence.
  3. Focus on no more than 4-7 multi-joint exercises
  4. Eat large amounts of protein. One day a week, drop calories by 50%. Another day a week is your free day to eat whatever you’d like. If it’s lots of sugar, etc, even better.
  5. Record your workouts and nutrition in detail.

The Structure of This Four Week Challenge

Given those guidelines and some additional research into building muscle mass that I completed, there are still a couple of pieces that I feel are important to add here.

First, Tim’s method has a focus on eating carbohydrates with a low glycemic index. To be honest, I’m not well versed in nutrition, though I do know that the glycemic index has gained significant reputability in the past few years. If I continue this even further (which I plan to take a month off from it after this first month, then come back to it in an adjusted manner for another month), I will be researching this more and incorporating it into my regimen. For now, I’m removing the consideration, even though I may already be following it.

Second, he doesn’t elaborate on a specific detail of The Colorado Experiment that I have made certain to incorporate into this regimen. That is…

The order of exercises is extremely important here. In order to bring a muscle group to “failure” in only one set, it’s important to use a complimentary, compound exercise directly following the first exercise. For example, if you are working your chest, you may perform a set of flyes. Directly following that set, you would want to consider another exercise that utilizes your chest muscles, but also makes use of additional muscle groups to help continue exercising your chest. In my workout, for example, I follow flyes with a wide-grip inclined bench press. This not only works the chest, but also makes use of the shoulders to help push the chest muscles even further. Following this exercise, you might consider performing a set of an exercise that makes use of the shoulders and the back, for example.

Finally, The Colorado Experiment recommends making use of resistance machines in a certain manner to increase the intensity of the workout. If you have access to resistance machines, then I would definitely fully interpret and undertand this principle of the system. I don’t have access to resistance machines, so I used my home gym which consists of a barbell, ez-bar, and dumbbells. For the sake of the publicity of this experiment, I think that using equipment that’s generally more accessible to people will make the challenge more within people’s reach.

Nutrition and Fitness Metrics

Fitness:
Again, I’m documenting this as much as is reasonable for the average person at home. I picked up a MyoTape Body Tape Measure and Accumeasure Fitness 2000 Body Fat Caliper with Fat % Chart to record my measurements on a weekly basis. My workouts are on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Also, since I am doing this to ultimately help my rock climbing (I boulder, for those who are interested), I am climbing on Mondays, Tuesdays before workouts, and Fridays before workouts. This schedule allows me to still climb a fair amount while not compromising my recovery periods which are essential for this fitness regimen.

Nutrition:
Every day, I record my intake of calories, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fat, and saturated fat. The reason I chose these is because they *seem* like the best metrics to record. Very scientific. I know. The main measurements I really keep an eye on, however, are calories, protein, and carbohydrates. Again, this is for simplicity, accessibility, and to see how aggressive I want to take it if I decide to move forward with it. The only day that I do not measure this intake is on Saturdays, my day off. On Thursdays, I cut my calories by 50%.

Nutrition and Fitness Regimen Details

Fitness:
To keep things simple, I spent a lot of time designing a single workout routine to be used throughout the four weeks. This routine takes me one hour to complete. I also highly recommend using the book I found best for designing my workout system, Men’s Health Home Workout Bible. I wanted a book that went straight to individual workouts, their benefits and with a great organizational structure. This book fulfills on all of that in ways that others just don’t.

You’ll notice that there are no leg exercises in my regimen. This is solely due to the desire for this to impact climbing. As a climber, extra mass in your legs only hurts. Keeping this in mind, this does not bring my entire body into “maximum hormonal response.” That said, after this 4 week challenge, I will be adding regular cardio to a modification of this regimen.

Nutrition Targets:
Calories: Because I’m also trying to lose body fat percentage, my caloric intake is usually between 1600-2000 calories. Just under the recommended daily value.
Protein: Almost every bit of research into gaining muscle mass that I’ve come across recommends at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight in order to build muscle. My protein intake is generally around 200+ grams, or 1.3 grams per pound of body weight. This is 400%+ the recommended daily value.
Carbohydrates: Because I’m focusing on lean meats, protein shakes, egg whites, and lentils as foundations for most of my meails, carbohydrates intake has naturally been reduced to around 150 grams, or 50% of the daily recommended value.

Baseline Measurements

Finally, here are my baseline measurements as taken on Monday, June 04, 2007, the day I began this regimen:
Weight: 159.5 lbs
Bodyfat %: 12.9%
Neck: 15 1/16″
Chest, Nipples: 36 7/16″
Shoulders: 45 3/4″
Thigh: 22 1/2″
Calf: 13″
Upper Arm: 13″
Forearm: 11″
Waist, Bellybutton: 32 1/2 ”
Hips, Buttox: 37 ” (I have a nicely protruding ass.)

All measurements, other than measurements around the nipples and the bellybutton, were taken at the widest point of that body part.

Desired Goals

The first thing that intrigues me about this Four Week Challenge is that I want to see what it’s like to actually stick to a rigid fitness and nutrition regimen for one month. I don’t intend to make this a strict habit, especially as I really enjoy new food, though I could see the workout habit continuing and evolving.

I am also interested in seeing how much muscle mass I can gain. Referencing changing beliefs as being critical in The Process of Manifestation, I am looking for specific evidence that I can gain significant muscle mass. I know I can, and now I want to see how much.

Finally, I’m looking to lose body fat percentage. Because muscle mass in your legs and waist has negative benefit in climbing, I want it off. Narcissistically, I’ve never looked great and am toying with the idea of trying to achieve that.

Aggressive goals, yes, so we’ll see how it goes.

Finally, if you’ve been considering a fitness regimen and/or a nutritional program, I hope that this helps to make the idea much more of a reality for you and hopefully incites you to find a system that works for you or follow along with this one. I did start this last week, so I’ll have a “Week 1″ update shortly, and will have a progress update every Monday through July 02.

Posted on: June 12, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Understanding the Process of Manifestation

Up until a few months ago, I would have stubbornly disregarded almost everything that I’m about to put down in this post. I personally think that’s great because I’ve rigorously beat this idea to death and back in an attempt to strengthen my own understanding of it so that you may also experience the benefit of understanding it as well.

Part of the reason I hesitated to believe it is because up until recently, I hadn’t come across consistent models/frameworks/processes/whathaveyou that really captured what was happening in the process of manifestation. I would have written everything off as new age psychobabble because, well, I consider myself to be very, very logical. (Which is debatable. Just ask any one of my exes.)

What I soon discovered was that I began seeing this model very consistently throughout research in which I had absorbed myself. From texts on psychology and motivation to finance and wealth creation, I kept seeing this more, and more, and more. Continually seeing this model in various publications by authors whom I respected, I began giving the idea more consideration and testing to ultimately come to believe and leverage the tools in this post.

What is the Process of Manifestation?

The Process of Manifestation is a roadmap of how and why you get the results that you get in your life. In short, this is the answer to “Why is this happening to me?” questions.

Through pattern recognition and rigorous hindsight, the Process of Manifestation withstands most critiquing and allows for a solid reference to a formerly interpreted “new age psychobabble” idea.

The process is this:

Our…
Beliefs lead to our…
Thoughts lead to our…
Feelings lead to our…
Actions lead to the…
Results that we get.

Breaking it Down

The first, and most powerful, thing you may notice is that you can begin changing the results that you get in your life by changing your beliefs, thoughts, feelings, or actions.

You may also predict that by changing your actions, without changing your beliefs, thoughts and feelings, that your results will feel incomplete and lacking.

You may notice that you don’t have to change each of those things to change your results, and that you can achieve different results in your life by changing your beliefs.

Since you’re a pretty smart guy, you’ve also probably asked “Well, what about situations when someone is about to die? I can’t just believe that they won’t die and therefore they’ll live.” Correct, there are things that are beyond your control. But, that which is beyond your control is a LOT less than you would imagine, and may just be within someone else’s control and that person may be open to your influence in changing their beliefs.

If you truly want to make change in your life, you must first believe the change that you wish to experience is real, possible, and achievable by you.

Understanding the Process of Manifestation

Is there a time in your life that you can look back on where you were extremely confident and things just continued to fall into place? How about a time when you were extremely depressed and things continued to fall out of place? Did the feeling of greatness or helplessness come first or last? Maybe it came in the middle? After the feeling of greatness or helplessness, did things seem to accelerate and become augmented by your belief?

Use this process of hindsight to ask these questions and see how your beliefs affected the outcome in situations that you found yourself succeeding or failing in achieving your goals.

I can think of nights where I’ve been out on a Friday or Saturday night and just feeling like my game was spot on made it even better. I’ve been in business situations where certain changes were an uphill battle that would not have succeeded without a firm belief in their integrity. Or, how is it that when you’re in Love, that everything seems right in the world? (We’ll discuss neuroscience and emotion in another lesson, class.) Likewise, those days where “nothing seems to go right” always seem to stay that way throughout the entire day. The moment a relationship seems to befalling apart is the moment it seems to get progressively worse until the end.

Yet, we see every day that great businesses begin dying from internal disbelief. Relationships are turned around for the better because the people believe that it can be better. People spend more on clothes or food because they believe it’s more valuable than a lesser expensive brand of equal quality. In all of these kinds of situations, when they’re looked at from an objective and honest point of view, we see that the root of the results achieved have stemmed from the belief of those involved.

Leveraging the Process of Manifestation

In religion, you may have the act of prayer. In personal improvement or social solidarity (business, sports, politics, volunteer organizations, etc), you may define your goals as aggressive and achievable. These are also examples of where a belief is being set forth, committed to with full intent, and followed through with thoughts, feelings, and actions to get the desired results.

To make change, you must first believe that change is possible. It is when all steps of the Process of Manifestation come together that it is most powerful, and is able to be leveraged toward the goals that you declare.

When you truly believe that what you wish to achieve is possible, everything else in the Process of Manifestation becomes easier. (This is not to confuse it with being easy.) It’s for this reason that I recommend that people really spend time understanding and improving their confidence and openness to ideas so that they may create more powerful beliefs to be manifested throughout their lives. A stronger psyche and consciousness will also help you to strategically adjust your actions as needed.

When moving forward with a new goal or objective, consider framing it with this process. Think about what you would have to believe for a certain change to occur. What thoughts would you continually hold if you believed that this change could occur? What feelings and emotions would carry the most value through this change? What will your actions be in order to achieve this goal or change?

I encourage you to play with this idea and see how powerful it can become for you.

Start with something that can be accomplished this week that you currently feel is just beyond your ability to get done and immediately change your belief on how long it will take to get done. With focus on this process and your goals, you’ll find some other things in your life changing, and most likely for the best.

Start small if needed. Are you shy? What would it take to meet one new person this week? Are you overweight? What would it take to lose two pounds this week? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? What would it take to spend 10% less than your salary this week? Are you upset at the world pretty often? What would it take to be happier with the world around you?

And, if it works enough for you to commit to a larger goal, consider applying it to The Four Week Challenge and gain more momentum toward your goals.

Posted on: June 11, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The Four Week Challenge

Have you ever said to yourself “I know I should make x change in my life, but I just don’t have the time.” Or maybe it’s that the timing “wasn’t right.” Or maybe it was because you didn’t “know what kind of commitment was going to be involved.”

Or, maybe, you were delaying what you inevitably knew you should be doing for any number of reasons from fear of failure to it legitimately being difficult, or, *gasp* because you were just too lazy.

The reality is that you made a decision to deny yourself something you truly want. (or think you want)

This is where the MensImprovement.com Four Week Challenge comes in.

What is The Four Week Challenge

The Four Week Challenge is a commitment to try something for just four weeks. During that time, whatever the challenge you set forth for yourself, be it to quit smoking, to use your planner daily, to spend an extra hour a day with your family, to stick to a certain diet or workout schedule, etc, you commit 100% to that effort and/or goal.

Why is The Four Week Challenge Needed?

Too often, we absorb and get wrapped up in the simple mind games we play with ourselves. Instead of focusing on the fruits of our labor or results of our goals, we end up focusing on the difficulty of the task at hand. This simple difference in perspective is almost always the reason why we do not do, or put of doing, something we wish to achieve.

The Four Week Challenge is geared to assist you in giving yourself another, more positive, less threatening perspective to focus on, thus making it easier to begin moving forward and gaining momentum toward your goals.

Why Four Weeks?

You may have heard that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Have you heard that it takes 10-21 days? What about 28 days? Do you know where any of these numbers come from?

The number is actually 21 days and comes from research by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. First published in 1971 in his book Psycho Cybernetics, he saw a pattern in the amount of time it took before amputees would stop feeling phantom sensations in their amputated limbs. Since then, 21 days to habit formation has become standard language and is very often presented in conjunction with habit creation and cessation.

Without getting into the debate of the science of habit formation, four weeks ultimately is an amount of time that is more conducive to creating habits, is an amount of time that can be easily and flexibly introduced into a new schedule, and is enough of a commitment to, in the end, make an educated decision based on experience of how to continue toward your goal.

Best Utilizing Your Four Week Challenges

Ultimately, four weeks becomes enough to prevent someone from saying to you “Well, have you ever tried it?” Also, for your own gratification, there really is nothing more believable and understandable than your own experience.

At the end of the four weeks, you will know with certainty how you wish to move forward toward that goal. You may also decide that your desire has changed and no longer pursue that goal or lifestyle. Or perhaps you find that the benefits were orders of magnitude greater than you could have imagined and decide to pursue this change even further.

Either way, you will have gained true experience-based knowledge toward improving yourself.

MensImprovement.com 4 Week Challenges

The challenges on MensImprovement.com are here for you to decide how you wish to use them.

You may not have fully commited to one of the challenges on this site and wish to read the commentary and insight before deciding to pursue your own similar challenge. Perhaps these challenges are both timely and relevant in your life and you wish to commit to them alongside me and go through the experience together.

Either way, these Four Week Challenges are here for you to learn from. To take the principles and practices and decide how to best apply them to your life.

How they’re done here is only one way to implement these changes and your questions and feedback will only help you, me, and others reading this website to improve our lives. I encourage you to participate and share your experiences with myself and others so that we may all benefit from the level of knowledge that can only be gained through experience.

Four weeks. 28 days. It’s easy.

Right?

Posted on: June 11, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Suggest an Article for MensImprovement.com

[CONTACT-FORM]

Posted on: June 11, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off

Ask Your Questions Here

[CONTACT-FORM]

Posted on: June 11, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off

Contact MensImprovement.com

[CONTACT-FORM]

Posted on: June 11, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off

Welcome to MensImprovement.com

First, I want to say thank you for coming to MensImprovement.com. It’s a great honor to be able to serve you by helping you find high quality information to help improve your life.

Your World is Changing

Your world is changing more and faster than ever. To think that a century ago, weight training was just beginning to acquire respect, feminism was barely gaining traction in the United States, psychology was just being born and capitalism’s principles were beginning to permeate through society in a positive light.

Every day, you’re faced with new challenges as a man that have not been faced until recently. Which weight training, diet and fitness regimens are right for you? Should you buy her a drink at a bar? What’s the psychological process of change and how can you leverage it in your own life? How can I succeed in my career while still affording and living the lifestyle I wish to live?

Now is quite possibly the most exciting time in the history of human civilization. With efficient access to more information, and easier access to leisure, you now have more choices than ever before to live the life you wish to live. Unfortunately, the best choices for the task at hand are often muddied by too much, not enough, or just plain incorrect information.

MensImprovement.com’s Commitment to You

Here at MensImprovement.com, you will find straight-forward information for how to improve your life in a relevant and timely manner. From better understanding women to understanding the benefits of various fitness regimens, and from success psychology to social dynamics, we’ll explore all facets of how men everywhere can enrich their lives in ways they may not have known were possible. Best of all, this information will be presented in ways that you understand; thorough research and data, pragmatic logic, and practical advice.

This may be your first step, or a part of your continuing self-education. Either way, I hope it is one of many on your way in the ongoing process of becoming your best self.

Posted on: June 9, 2007
Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

« go back — keep looking »