Does procrastination have a stranglehold on your dreams? If so, use this 12-step process to free yourself, once and for all.

Look at the following:

• If you had started taking piano lessons three years ago, today you’d be able to play Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”.
• If you had taken that online start-up course when your friend did, and taken action based on what you learned, right now you’d be earning a nice side-income, like she is.
• If you had taken those French lessons when your boss encouraged you to do so, you’d be able to apply for the higher paying position that just opened up, which has “Conversational French” as one of its requirements.

But, you kept putting these things off. In other words, you allowed procrastination to get the better of you. So, you still can’t play a musical instrument, you can’t travel as much as you’d like to because you don’t have the money to do so, and someone else got the promotion you wanted. The good news is that there are ways to fight back and beat procrastination. In this post you’ll discover a 12-step process for overcoming procrastination, once and for all.

I’m going to use my own experience in overcoming procrastination in order to take up weight lifting as an illustration throughout this post.

Although I’ve now been strength training for a little over a month, it was something that I procrastinated on for a while. However, since I’m a procrastination expert—I’ve even written an eBook on overcoming procrastination—I decided to follow my own advice in order to get myself to the gym.

Here’s what to do:

1. Eliminate Obstacles to Getting Started. One of the main reasons why people procrastinate is because there are obstacles standing between them and the goal that they wish that they could get themselves to start working on. And the bigger the obstacle, the more likely it is to lead to procrastination.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I work from a club that I belong to. I go Monday through Friday, and sit in a cabana-like structure that’s next to the pool. The club has a separate building that has a gym.

At the beginning of the year, I started telling myself that I wanted to take up weight lifting. All I had to do was to start going to the gym in the building next door. However, I couldn’t get myself to do it. I was procrastinating; big time.

Finally, I asked myself what was the biggest obstacle that was keeping me from going to the gym. I concluded that it was having to change into exercise clothes. Going to the gym meant that I would have to take a bag to the club with my gym clothes in it, change in the locker room, and then change back once I finished exercising. That was just too much of a hassle.

I began brainstorming ways to overcome this obstacle. That’s how I found a solution to the problem I was facing.

I went on Amazon and found some Champion workout Capri leggings, along with Champion tees that I could wear both to sit by the pool and work, and to exercise at the gym. I ordered several of the leggings in black, and several tees in different colors. When they arrived I started wearing them to the club every day.

The biggest obstacle to going to the gym had been overcome. I was now dressed in a way that, at any moment, I could simply get up and go to the gym.

2. Increase Your Motivation. I decided that in order to get myself to take action on my goal of adding weight lifting to my exercise regime I needed to increase my motivation. After all, the less motivated you are to do something, the more likely it is that you’ll procrastinate on getting it done.

I did some research on the benefits of weight lifting, and came up with the following:

• Lifting weights helps you to burn more fat than you would burn by doing cardio alone.
• Both cardio and weightlifting are good for your brain. However, more neurogenesis—or brain growth–occurs when you add strength training to your workout instead of just doing cardio.
• Weight lifting protects your bones and helps to ward off diseases such as diabetes.
• You can slow down the aging process by increasing your strength.
• Lifting weights helps you to release stress and improves your mood.

With this information I felt more motivated to get to the gym, making it much more likely that I would do so.

3. Make a Fresh Start. Another major reason why people procrastinate is because they can’t get themselves to say, “OK, this is the day I’m going to start”. The best way to overcome this hurdle is to identify a fresh start. As I wrote in my post “Birthday Bucket List: 25 Things to Do Before Your Next Birthday”, “fresh starts” are temporal landmarks.

They can be major landmarks, such as New Year’s or your birthday. However, they can also be smaller landmarks, such as a new season, a new month, and even the start of a new week.

Tackling a goal during a “fresh start” increases people’s chances of getting started on working toward achieving that goal. So, identify a fresh start and mark it down as the day on which you’re going to start working on your goal. I decided to make my fresh start on a Monday, exactly three weeks before my birthday.

4. Take Tiny Steps Toward Your Goal. My “fresh start” Monday arrived. I was sitting next to the pool in my exercise clothes, typing away at my computer, making great progress on my latest eBook. I kept telling myself that once I had finished writing the next paragraph, I would get up and go to the gym. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get myself to do it.

Finally, I managed to talk myself into taking one tiny step toward my goal of lifting weights. I had never been to the building that the gym is in, and I wasn’t sure how to get there. Therefore, I called over a club staff member and asked him for directions. He pointed out the path that I had to follow, and I thanked him. I decided that this tiny step was enough for that day.

Here’s how I finally got to the gym:

• On Tuesday I walked over to the building that houses the gym. However, I didn’t go in. I just walked to the entrance and then turned around and went back to my regular spot next to the pool and kept working on my eBook.
• On Wednesday I walked to the building, went in, and asked what floor the gym was on. I was told it was on the fifth floor and was pointed toward the elevators.
• On Thursday I actually got on one of the elevators, went up to the fifth floor, and walked out into the gym’s reception area. From the reception area I could see the gym through a pair of glass doors. I took a look, and left.
• On Friday I walked into the gym. I glanced around quickly to see how it was laid out, and then I made my way to one of the Stepmaster machines. I got on the Stepmaster, exercised for about ten minutes, and then left.

I had made it to the gym! And I got there by taking tiny steps.

5. Identify Specifically What Action You’re Going to Take. Not knowing what to do is another reason for procrastinating. After all, if you don’t know what to do, how can you be expected to do it?

Once I started going to the gym I was doing some cardio, but I still wasn’t lifting weights, because I didn’t know what to do. Therefore, I once again went on Amazon (it’s amazing how many problems you can solve by going on Amazon).

I did some research on the best books on how to lift weights, and I ended up buying The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises. It contains lots of exercises, with illustrations, and clear instructions on how to carry out each one.

6. Don’t Get Stuck at the Preparation Stage. Once I received “The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises”, I looked through it. Then I started thinking the following:

• Maybe I should read the book carefully from cover to cover before actually trying these exercises at the gym.
• It would probably be a good idea to get a few more books on weight lifting. That way, I can get more than one expert’s opinion on what to do.
• I should also look at YouTube videos for each of the exercises that I’m planning to try, just to make sure that I understand how to do them the right way.
• Getting a DVD would probably be a good idea, as well.

I was clearly in danger of getting stuck at the preparation phase. Endlessly preparing, instead of taking action, is procrastination in disguise. You think that you’re working on your goal—after all, you’re preparing—but you’re really not.

The best thing that I could do to learn how to weight lift was to take the book to the gym and try out the exercises. After all, the most effective approach is to learn by doing, instead of planning and thinking about doing. I made the decision to take action.

7. Chunk It Down. “Lift Weights” was still too big of a goal at this point. The book that I got contains 619 exercises and hundreds of workouts. I felt overwhelmed, to say the least. Therefore, I decided to chunk it down into manageable pieces. Here’s how I chunked it down:

• Identify three exercises for the chest, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Monday.
• Identify three exercises for the shoulders, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Monday.
• Identify three exercises for the quadriceps, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Monday.
• Identify three exercises for the biceps, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Wednesday.
• Identify three exercises for the triceps, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Wednesday.
• Identify three exercises for the glutes and hamstrings, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Wednesday.
• Identify three exercises for the upper back, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Friday.
• Identify three exercises for the lats, and do three sets of 8 repetitions for each, on Friday.

And, there we go. I had chunks I could work with. (I’ve since modified this routine, but this is the routine that got me started.)

8. Make Time For Your Goal. Stop telling yourself, “I don’t have time to work on my goals”. If a goal is a priority for you, you have to make time for it. The most obvious way to do this is to eliminate, or cut back, on something you’re already doing.

My plan was to workout at the gym for an hour, three days a week. That meant that I had to find a way to free up three hours a week. At the time I was running outside for an hour, four days a week, and I was walking for an hour, two days a week. I decided to cut back my running from four to three times a week, and cut out my twice weekly one-hour walks altogether.

By this doing I freed up three hours a week, which I could then use to lift weights at the gym.

9. Put It In Your Schedule. In order to start going to the gym on a regular basis, it wasn’t enough to write “go to the gym” on my to-do list. I had to identify the day and time that I was going to go to the gym. That is, I had to schedule it. I decided to schedule going to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

10. Overcoming Fear and Self-Consciousness. The next obstacle I had to overcome was mental. The people lifting weights at the gym—mostly men—all seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

In the meantime, I was going to walk in–with my book–, sit down on one of the exercise benches, and clumsily leaf through the pages looking at the exercises, reading carefully how to do each one. I was going to look like an idiot.

And what if I did the exercises wrong? What if someone corrected me? Then I’d be standing there, with everyone looking at me, while I was told to bend my knees and to stop rocking my upper torso back and forth (this actually did happen to me).

I overcame my fear of making a fool of myself at the gym, as well as my self-consciousness, by feeling compassion for myself. Studies have shown that there’s a correlation between self-compassion and procrastination. The less self-compassion you have, the more likely you are to procrastinate.

Therefore, I practiced the following self-talk:

• Everyone starts out by not knowing.
• It’s OK if I make mistakes.
• I need to cut myself some slack; I don’t have to be perfect.
• If someone does correct me, I won’t feel bad. They’re just trying to help.
• Going to the gym is about my health and well-being; it’s not about trying to impress other people.

11. Start Small. I’ve already said that you should take tiny steps toward your goal, as well as chunk it down, in order to make sure that you stop procrastinating and that you get to work on achieving your goal. In addition, you have to start small. Are you noticing a theme?

Getting too ambitious when you first start working on a goal will almost guarantee that you’ll drag your feet, instead of doing what needs to be done. In order to beat procrastination, you have to think small.

How do you start small when it comes to weight training? You start with really small weights. I started with the five pound dumbbells (and they were yellow, not pink, thank you very much).

Here are some more examples of starting small:

• If you want to write a novel, start by writing short stories.
• If you want to learn to speak French, start by learning how to pronounce the French alphabet.
• If you want to run a marathon but are completely out of shape, start by jogging for one minute, followed by nineteen minutes of walking, five days a week.

12. Learn to Tolerate Discomfort. Every time you tackle a new goal, it’s very likely that you’ll have to step out of your comfort zone. And stepping out of your comfort zone is uncomfortable. However, instead of giving in to the discomfort, you have to learn to tolerate discomfort.

As I said in one of the previous points, the activity that I substituted with weight lifting was walking. It’s a lot easier to walk than it is to lift weights. That’s particularly true when you’re pushing yourself to lift weights that make you feel the burn.

Although I started out by lifting five pound dumbbells, I’m now up to the twelve pound dumbbells (and I plan to gradually push myself to lift heavier weights). I feel some discomfort when I lift the twelve pound dumbbells, but I tolerate it. After all, nothing worth doing is easy.

Conclusion

I can guarantee that the 12-step process that I explained above works, because I applied it and managed to defeat procrastination and get to work on my goal of lifting weights. What important goal are you going to start working on by applying this process?

Live your best life by overcoming procrastination and getting to work on your goals.

Related Posts:

• 18 Powerful Tips For Overcoming Procrastination
• 12 Tips for Defeating Procrastination and Gearing Up For Action
• Stop Procrastinating Tip: Practice Discomfort
• 65 Procrastination Tips That Will Shift You Into Action Mode

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”  – Charlemagne

I speak three languages:

• My native language is Spanish—since I’m from Panama, which is a Spanish speaking country.
• Then, when I was seven years old my family moved to Stamford, Connecticut, USA, for a two-year period. Since learning a new language at a young age is incredibly easy, I picked up English right away.
• I learned to speak my third language, Italian, because I took a year off between college and law school and spent it in Florence, Italy.

I should speak a fourth language–French–but I don’t. I took French in middle school—in Costa Rica– and it was the only course in school that I didn’t do well in. This, although I was also taking French lessons at the Alliance Franϛaise after school. In high school I stopped taking French, and today I don’t even speak beginner’s French. However, I’ve made the valiant decision to once again make an attempt to learn French.

Since I know that learning a foreign language is on most people’s bucket list, I decided to share with you the best tips that I’ve found while researching how to best tackle my goal of learning French. Here, then, are 21 tips and hacks for learning a foreign language:

1. Stop Arguing Against Yourself. Lots of people say something like the following to themselves: “I’d love to learn a foreign language, but I’m too old”, or “I’m just not good at languages”. If this sounds like you, you need to stop arguing against yourself.

In order to succeed at a goal, you have to believe that you’re capable of achieving it. If you try to learn a foreign language while you tell yourself that it’s hopeless, you’ve practically doomed yourself to fail. While it’s true that some people are better at learning languages than others, with the right strategy and with dedication, anyone can learn another language.

2. You Need Passion. Learning a new language takes a lot of hard work. That’s why, in order to succeed, you need to be passionate about speaking a foreign language. This consists of two different parts:

• First, you have to really want to learn another language.
• And, second, you have to be excited about learning the language that you choose. For example, you may really want to learn a romance language, while the thought of learning a Slavic language makes you cringe (or the other way around).

When I was in middle school I had absolutely no interest in learning French. Taking French lessons was something that my parents were forcing me to do. And I resisted with a vengeance. I paid little to no attention in class, and did the bare minimum of work to get a passing grade.

On the other hand, when I was in college I became obsessed with living in Italy for a while once I graduated. I don’t remember why, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with an art course I was taking at the time. I took two semesters of Italian as part of my college course work, and I did very well. Then, I moved heaven and earth to travel to Italy and live there for a year.

Once I was living in Florence, I took an Italian language course. I studied the language on my own, and I spoke Italian to everyone I could. When I left Italy, I spoke the language fluently (since I look Italian, I was often mistaken for a local).

What was the difference between my attempt to learn French, and my attempt to learn Italian? The main difference was passion. I was passionate about learning Italian and could not have cared less about learning French (which I now regret, but live and learn).

When learning a new language, make this your new mantra: “I will do whatever it takes to learn this language.”

3. Consider Learning Esperanto. If you’re monolingual, you should consider making Esperanto your first foreign language. This is a strategy recommended by Benny, the Irish polyglot. In case you’ve never heard of Esperanto, it’s the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Why would you want to learn Esperanto, when there are very few people who speak it? Here are three reasons:

• Since it’s an easy language to learn, learning Esperanto will give you confidence in your ability to learn another language. And confidence can go a long way.
• The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn the next one. For example, Italian is between Spanish and French. So now that I know Italian, I can use it as a bridge that will make learning French easier for me. Esperanto can act as a bridge, or a stepping stone, from your native language to the language that you want to learn.
• As Tim Morley explains in his TED Talk on Esperanto, most people learn to play the recorder in school, although it’s not an instrument that most people will continue to play after they’ve graduated. Why do schools teach the recorder? Because the recorder is a simple instrument, which means that it’s a simple way to learn music theory. Much in the same way, learning Esperanto is an easy way to learn language theory.

4. Plan Your Language Learning Strategy. When you’re taking an essay test, what’s the first thing that the teacher tells you? They tell you to plan your answers before you start writing. Likewise, before you start studying a new language, you should take some time to plan your language learning strategy before diving into the deep end.

One way to develop your language learning strategy is by using the book, Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, as a guide. Other strategies include doing research online and asking people you know who can speak more than one language for advice.

Keep in mind that it’s important not to get stuck at the planning stage. Once you’ve spent some time doing research, and you have a good idea on how to proceed, get started. Then, simply apply a process of trial and error and make corrections to your language learning strategy as you go along. Keep doing whatever works, and discard any approach that doesn’t work for you, even if lots of other people swear by it.

Say the following to yourself: “Not everyone learns in the same way, and I will use the techniques that work best for me.”

5. Move and Get a Private Tutor. Maneesh Sethi–owner of “Hack the System”–wrote a post for the popular blog Zen Habits titled, “How to Learn a Language in 90 Days“. He indicates that in order to learn a language in 90 days you need to move to a country that speaks your target language for three months, and hire a private tutor for the first month that you’re there.

Of course, this is the ideal language learning strategy. Unfortunately, most people can’t follow this strategy due to monetary and time constraints, as well as having other obligations. However, this doesn’t mean that you should give up on your goal of learning another language. It just means that it’s going to take you longer than 90 days to achieve your goal.

6. Start With High Frequency Words and Phrases. You may be surprised to learn that, for most languages, there are 300 to 500 words that make up the bulk of the written and spoken language.  Therefore, you should start by learning those words.

In addition, if you’re about to take a trip to a country that speaks your target language, you can add Dr. Paul Nation’s Survival Travel Vocabulary to the list of words and phrases that you’re going to learn first.

7. Focus On Language Content That’s Relevant to You. Once you know the high frequency words, focus on language that’s relevant to you. You’re more likely to learn vocabulary that’s related to your interests, than you are to learn the names of kitchen utensils (unless you happen to love kitchen utensils) and other stuff that you don’t care about.

Look at the following:

• Do you want to learn Italian so that you can understand opera? If so, then concentrate on words and phrases that you would hear in Puccini’s operas.

• Do you want to learn to speak Mandarin so that you can communicate with your business partners in China? Then focus on learning words and phrases in Mandarin that are related to business.

8. Set Specific Goals. Learning a new language is a goal, and we all know that goals should be specific. The goal “Learn to speak French”—or whatever language it is that you’re trying to learn–is too broad. You need to narrow it down and make it more specific. Here are some examples of specific goals:

• To learn to say the 100 most common phrases for travelers.
• To be able to understand simple instructions and directions.
• To be able to exchange basic greetings and pleasantries.
• To learn 50 food items and be able to order them in a restaurant.
• To be able to understand very basic phrases in my target language when people speak slowly and clearly.

As you achieve each of your specific goals, create new ones so that you progress step by step toward the big goal of “Speak French” (or whatever language you’re trying to learn).

9. Listen. Chris Lonsdale is a psychologist from New Zealand who runs a company in Hong Kong. He gave a TED Talk in which he explains his approach to learning a new language. Lonsdale explains that one of the first steps to learn a new language is to listen, a lot.

He calls this brain soaking. Lonsdale argues that it doesn’t matter if at first you don’t understand what you’re listening to. You’re listening to recognize patterns, words that repeat, and things that stand out. In addition, you’re listening to the rhythm of the language.

You have to continually listen to the sounds of the language that you’re trying to learn in order to train your brain to let in the new sounds. You can start by looking for podcasts in your target language, as well as scouring YouTube for interesting videos that will allow you to listen to the language that you’re trying to learn.

10. Study Pronunciation. For every sound, in any language, there’s a specific part of the mouth or throat that we use in order to achieve that sound. In order to make the sounds of a foreign language you have to move your mouth, tongue, and facial muscles—and use your throat–in the same way as native speakers do when speaking the language.

Fortunately, there are lots of resources to help you with this. For example, the most difficult sound for me to make in French is the “r” sound. The French “r” is completely different from the “r” in Spanish and the “r” in English. It’s something that I definitely need help with.

I’m learning how to pronounce the French “r” by watching videos on YouTube. As an illustration, this video explains that to pronounce the French “r”, you place the tip of the tongue against the back of your bottom teeth, while making a growling sound that comes from the back of your throat. (I still don’t have it down, but I’m getting there.)

11. Start Speaking As Soon As You Can. As soon as you can, start talking to native speakers in your target language (or people who speak the language fluently and have good pronunciation). Unless you want to learn a language in order to read great literature written in that language, or to write documents in that language, you need to speak the language as often as you can.

A great site for finding natives you can talk to is iTalki, which lets you hire online language speakers, as well as schedule a language exchange via Skype with someone wanting to learn your language.

12. Learn New Vocabulary Efficiently. Learn vocabulary items with plenty of audio-visual reinforcement. In addition, use image association. As an illustration, the French word for flip flops is “les tongs” (the flip flops). The word “tong” sounds like the English word, tongue—as in, the tongue in your mouth. If you look at a picture of flip flops, they looks like tongues.

Therefore, when I want to remember the French word for flip flops I see an image of flip flops in my mind, and I think the following: They look like tongues. The word for flip flop in French is “tong”.

13. Use Flash Cards. Let’s face it, learning another language involves a lot of memorizing. And one of the best ways to memorize things is by using flashcards. The old fashioned way to do this is to use index cards. Take a stack of cards and, on each one, write a word that you’re trying to remember on one side, and the English translation on the other. Then, every so often, look through your flashcards.

However, a much better approach is to use spaced repetition flashcarding.  You can use a free online tool called Anki. It works as follows:

• The Anki web site shows you a word in your target language.
• When you see the word, you try to remember what the word means.
• Then press “Answer” and it will show you the translation.
• There are buttons for you to choose how easy, or hard, the word was for you to remember.
• If the word was very difficult for you to remember, then it will reappear within a few minutes. However, words that are easy for you to remember will reappear in about a month’s time.

Here’s a good explanation of how Anki works.

14. Use the Lexical Approach. The lexical approach was created by Michael Lewis. It involves thinking of vocabulary words as lexical units, or chunks, instead of memorizing words in isolation. A lexical chunk is any pair or group of words which are commonly found together, or in close proximity.

One example of this is learning the gender along with the noun (“la porte”), and the plural along with the singular (“les portes”). Another example is to learn the feminine form of adjectives, as well as the plural for both masculine and feminine. A third example is to include the preposition that is usually associated with the word that you’re learning.

In addition, vocabulary items should be learned along with other words that frequently co-occur with them—these are called collocations. Here are some examples of collocations in English:

• Brush your teeth.
• Commit a crime.
• Do the cooking.

Learning chunks instead of learning words in isolation will give you more bang for your buck. After all, chunks are the building blocks of language.

15. Learn Words in An Authentic Context. This is similar to the lexical approach described above. Instead of simply learning words in isolation, learn words in their authentic context. That is, learn phrases you’re likely to use for that word. For example, instead of just learning the word for “summer” in your target language, learn phrases such as the following:

• I’m going to the beach this summer.
• Last summer I traveled to Spain.
• I love the lazy summer months.
• They put on plays in the park during the summer months.

16. Learn Cognates. A cognate is a word that was borrowed from another language. Here’s a great quote on this by James Nicoll:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

This is good because it means that English speakers will be able to recognize words from many other languages. One such language is French. And we can all thank William the Conqueror for this.

You may recall from your high school history class that in 1066 William the Conqueror–the Duke of Normandy–invaded England. As a result, many French words entered the English language. In fact, more than a third of all English words are derived from French. It’s estimated that English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words.

In addition, this relationship between words doesn’t just apply to English and French. There are many languages that share words. Take advantage of this to build up your vocabulary.

17. Use the Diglot Weave Technique. The diglot weave technique is a vocabulary learning method. It involves inserting foreign words into a sentence of a language you already know. As an example, I went to visit my sister yesterday, and as I stood in the lobby of her building waiting for the elevator, the elevator doors opened and an elderly gentleman walked out. He was wearing flip flops.

I looked at him and thought to myself: “Oh, look. That man is wearing les tongs (flips flops in French).” I inserted a word that I’m trying to learn in French into an English sentence. As another example, I sent out the following tweet to my followers on Twitter:

I just finished writing a 3000-word blog post. It’s schedule to be published a minute after minuit (midnight). I hope people like it.

— Marelisa (@Marelisa) June 3, 2015

Here’s evidence that this technique works.

18. Get Creative. In point 5 of this blog post I said that the best way to learn a new language is to move to a country that speaks that language for three months and, while you’re there, hire a private tutor. Of course, not everyone can do this. However, this doesn’t mean that you should give up on your goal to learn another language. Instead, you need to get creative.

For example, even if you can’t move to a country that speaks your target language, you can still immerse yourself in the language. How? Here are some ideas:

• Download TV series and movies in your target language.
• Read books in your target language (even if you start off with children’s books).
• Listen to music in your target language.
• Frequent restaurants where you can order food in your target language.
• Read newspapers from your target language online.
• Label a few objects in your home with their names in your target language.
• Try making friends with people in your town who speak the language and hang out with them whenever you can.

19. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes. One of the biggest obstacles that you’ll face when trying to speak a new language is your fear of making mistakes and sounding stupid. However, know that no one speaks a new language perfectly from the get-go. You need to relax and stop being so self-conscious. Allow yourself to be someone who’s learning, making mistakes, and moving forward, one step at a time.

20. Be Patient. Although the internet is full of bloggers promising to show you how to learn a new language in a few weeks, a few days, and even in an hour, the truth is that learning a new language will take time (here are some general guidelines on how long it takes to learn a new language). However, rest assured that it takes time to learn to do anything well.

One of the keys to being patient is to stop putting all of your focus on the big goal of becoming fluent in your target language. Instead, set smaller goals along the way. Each time you achieve one of your smaller goals, it will give you the motivation to keep moving forward toward your big goal of fluency.

21. Be Consistent. You will never be able to learn a new language unless you study that language consistently. Set aside one-hour-a-day for language practice. Day by day that one-hour-a-day will add up, and soon you’ll have a good number of study hours under your belt. Then, watch in amazement how you start to communicate effectively with others using your new language.

Conclusion

Learning another language has many benefits, including giving your brain a good workout, improving your memory, gaining greater understanding of your native language, expanding your job opportunities, and making you more worldly.

Use the 21 tips and hacks above and get to work on acquiring a second, third, or fourth language. Live your best life by learning a foreign language.

Related Posts:

• 12 Things to Stop Doing If You Want to Be Happy
• 8 Ways to Release the Ghosts of the Past and Be Happy In the Present
• Five Powerful Ways to Forgive Those Who Have Wronged You
• 21 Ways to Create and Maintain a Positive Attitude

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The choices you make today will determine where you find yourself 10 years from now. Are you making choices that you’ll regret?

Regret is a negative emotional state that involves feeling sad over a choice made in the past. It’s often accompanied by a sense of loss and leads to self-blame. When we regret having done something–or failing to take some action–we wish we had done things differently, when we had the chance.

The pain of regret is summed up nicely in these three famous quotes about regret:

• “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘It might have been.’” ― Kurt Vonnegut
• “Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.” –  T. S. Eliot
• “Go to the effort. Invest the time. Write the letter. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it. The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret.” – Max L. Lucado

What’s the point of thinking about regret? Thinking about the things you may regret ten years from now can help you to make the choices today which will allow you to sidestep those regrets in the future. Below you’ll find ten choices you’ll regret in ten years:

1. You’ll Regret Making the Choice Not to Take Charge of Your Life. If you don’t choose to take control of your life, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret choosing to wait for a lucky break, instead of going out there and making your own luck.
• You’ll regret choosing to wait for someone else to take a chance on you, instead of taking a chance on yourself.
• You’ll regret choosing to wait for permission to go after what you want –from your parents, your teachers, your boss, your spouse, and so on—instead of giving yourself permission.
• You’ll regret choosing to allow others to make decisions for you, instead of taking the reins and making your own decisions.

2. You’ll Regret Not Making the Choice to Be Financially Free. If you don’t make the choice, today, to put your financial life in order, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret choosing to go into debt, instead of being more selective with your purchases and living within your means.
• You’ll regret choosing not to set some money aside, instead of opening a savings account and depositing some money in it every month.
• You’ll regret choosing not to learn how to invest your money, instead of reading a few well-selected personal finance books and applying what you learned.
• You’ll regret choosing not to take steps to increase your revenue, instead of using your weekends to start a side business or setting aside one-hour-a-day to create additional sources of revenue.

3. You’ll Regret Making the Choice to Give In to Fear. If you don’t make the choice, today, to face and conquer your fears, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice not to ask for the promotion because you were afraid you would be turned down, instead of giving your boss evidence of your value to the company.
• You’ll regret making the choice not to go on that trip because you were afraid to travel alone, instead of packing your bags, getting on the plane, and going on an awesome solo-adventure.
• You’ll regret making the choice to end that relationship because you were afraid they would eventually break your heart, instead of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and trusting the other person.
• You’ll regret making the choice not to compete because you were afraid to lose, instead of giving it your all and competing like the best of them.

4. You’ll Regret Not Making the Choice to Take Care of Your Health. If you don’t make the choice, today, to follow a healthy lifestyle, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to eat highly processed foods containing lots of fat and sugar, instead of eating healthy meals filled with all the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs to function optimally.
• You’ll regret making the choice to lead a sedentary lifestyle, instead of taking 10,000 steps a day and hitting the gym to lift weights on a regular basis.
• You’ll regret making the choice to continue smoking, instead of giving up cigarettes and finding other ways to release stress.
• You’ll regret making the choice to abuse alcohol, instead of drinking in moderation.

5. You’ll Regret Not Making the Choice to Spend More Time With Loved Ones. If you don’t make the choice, today, to make your relationships with the most important people in your life a priority, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now  . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to blow off your friends, instead of making time to hang out with your tribe — people who support your dreams and want the best for you.
• You’ll regret making the choice to neglect your spouse and taking them for granted, instead of making them your number one priority.
• You’ll regret making the choice to skip your kids’ recitals and sporting events, instead of being present for all of their important milestones.

6. You’ll Regret Making the Choice to Postpone Happiness. If you don’t make the choice to be intentionally happy, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now. . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to hold off on being happy until you arrived at your intended destination, instead of enjoying the journey.
• You’ll regret making the choice to make your happiness contingent on having achieved certain goals, instead of accepting and being happy with yourself as you are.
• You’ll regret making the choice to demand that everything go your way in order to be happy, instead of learning to be happy with what is.

7. You’ll Regret Not Making the Choice to Be a Life-Long Learner. If you don’t make the choice to become a habitual learner, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice not to develop a career plan, instead of continuously updating your job skills and keeping abreast of industry trends and changes in technology.
• You’ll regret making the choice to remain unilingual, instead of learning another language.
• You’ll regret making the choice not to take those piano lessons, instead of making the effort to learn to play an instrument.
• You’ll regret making the choice to ignore all of the learning opportunities available on the internet, instead of following up on your interests by watching videos and taking online courses.

8.  You’ll Regret Making the Choice to Dwell On Grudges. If you don’t make the choice to let go of your grievances, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to waste your time thinking of the past and the people who have hurt you, instead of planning for a better future.
• You’ll regret making the choice to spend your time blaming others for your problems, instead of spending your time looking for solutions to those problems.
• You’ll regret making the choice to refuse to forgive and allowing anger and hatred to drain your energy, instead of harnessing your energy and moving on.

9. You’ll Regret Making the Choice Not to Pursue Your Passion. If you don’t make the choice to do what you love, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to settle for a job that pays the bills, instead of pursuing a vocation you love.
• You’ll regret making the choice to give up chasing your dreams in the face of obstacles, instead of looking for ways over, under, or around the obstacles.
• You’ll regret making the choice to put security above all else, instead of taking risks in order to follow your bliss.

10. You’ll Regret Making the Choice to Conform. If you don’t make the choice to be yourself and follow your own path, today, you’ll regret it. Ten years from now . . .

• You’ll regret making the choice to adhere to the rules created by others, instead of making your own rules.
• You’ll regret making the choice not to try new things to avoid looking foolish and being mocked by others, instead of doing your own thing and refusing to allow the opinion of others to deter you.
• You’ll regret making the choice to blend into the crowd, instead of allowing yourself to step into the spotlight and shine.

Conclusion

What will your life be like ten years from now? It depends on the choices you make today. Make sure that those choices don’t fill you with regret ten years from now. Live your best life by refusing to make the ten choices outlined above; that is, don’t make choices that you’ll regret.

Related Posts:

• 12 Things to Stop Doing If You Want to Be Happy
• 8 Ways to Release the Ghosts of the Past and Be Happy In the Present
• Five Powerful Ways to Forgive Those Who Have Wronged You
• 21 Ways to Create and Maintain a Positive Attitude

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Confidence is the key to happiness and success.

What would your life be like if you were more confident? For starters, the following would probably be true:

• You would feel better about yourself.
• You would be happier.
• You would have healthier relationships.
• You would take action in order to live up to your full potential.
• You would be more successful.

If I were to ask you, “Where does confidence come from?” a lot of people would answer something like the following:

• Confident people are tall and slim, with perfect skin and symmetrical features.
• Confident people come from wealthy families.
• Confident people have high IQ’s.
• Confident people have degrees from the best learning institutions in the world.

Fortunately, confidence doesn’t come from any of the things listed above. Confidence isn’t about looks, money, or the diplomas hanging on your wall. Instead, confidence is an attitude and an approach to life. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin, and being at ease with yourself and your surroundings.

All this means that confidence is something that you can cultivate, even if you’re shorter than you’d like, your net worth is currently in the red, and you got your degree from a community college.

You can make your confidence soar by fine-tuning your attitude. Below you’ll discover twelve ways to do this.

1. Start Feeling Confident Right Now.

Stop waiting for something to happen before you allow yourself to feel confident. Many people say the following to themselves:

• “I’ll feel confident when I’ve lost twenty pounds.”
• “I’ll feel confident when I’m in a relationship with someone who loves and respects me.”
• “I’ll feel confident when I get my degree.”
• “I’ll feel confident when I start earning more money.”
• “I’ll feel confident when I have the right car, and I’m wearing the right clothes.”

Stop waiting for something to happen, or for some external signal of validation to take place, in order to begin to feel confident. Instead, start feeling confident right now, regardless of where you are in life or what may be going on around you at the moment.

After all, as Eckhart Tolle teaches, the now is all there is. Therefore, if you don’t feel confident in the now, you’ll never feel confident.

In addition, you may notice the following paradox:

• When you allow yourself to feel good about yourself, even if you’re currently in a situation that’s less than ideal, you’ll start to act in ways that will help you to create the situations that you’re hoping for.
• But if you tell yourself that you can’t feel good about yourself until a certain situation or event takes place, you’ll act in a way that will prevent those situations from taking place.

You first have to be confident, then you’ll behave in a confident manner, and then you’ll experience the positive situations that come into the lives of those who are confident.

2. Put Yourself In a Resourceful State of Mind.

Paul McKenna, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading hypnotists and Britain’s most successful self-improvement author. In his book, I Can Make You Confident, he explains that most people work themselves into an unresourceful state of mind right before doing something important. They do this through their thoughts, feelings, and physiology.

Here are three examples:

• Right before they walk into their boss’s office to ask for a raise, they tell themselves, “I’m not going to get a dime out of her.”
• Before giving an important presentation they’ll slouch their shoulders and start to fidget.
• If they want to approach someone they find attractive, they’ll talk themselves out of it, out of fear of being rejected.

McKenna goes on to say that confident people do the exact opposite: before taking any action that involves uncertainty and risk, they practice putting themselves into a resourceful state of mind. Resourceful states of mind include the following:

• Excitement;
• Enthusiasm;
• Determination;
• Compassion; and
• Playfulness.

Again, they do this through the mental images that they run through their mind, their feelings and emotions, their breathing, and their posture.

3. Pretend That You’re Confident.

A while back I came across an interesting anecdote involving the Spanish Surrealist painter Salvador Dali. Dali came to be known as one of the most extroverted and gregarious personalities of his time. However, his biographer, Ian Gibson, reveals that this was not always the case. In fact, while he was at the Madrid Art Academy, Dali was morbidly shy.

That’s when he received the following piece of advice from his uncle: he should pretend to be an extrovert. Dali followed his uncle’s advice. Every day he went through the motions of being an extrovert. Soon, he became what he was pretending to be. Do the same as Dali: in order to be more confident, pretend that you’re confident.

4. Act “As If”.

Exactly how do you pretend to be confident, if you’re not? You act “as if”. Ask yourself the following:

• If I were confident, how would I move?
• If I were confident, how would I be sitting?
• If I were confident, how would I dress?
• If I were confident, what sorts of things would I say?
• If I were confident, what would my mental chatter sound like?
• If I were confident, where would I go and what would I do?

Then, take your answers and begin applying them. Do this consistently and, pretty soon, you’ll forget that you’re acting.

5. Move Toward Self-Confidence by Taking Small, Consistent Steps.

In the first point of this post I asserted that you need to feel confident right now, regardless of where you are at the moment. However, this is often easier said than done. The truth is that the best way to feel confident is to take action.

• Imagine that there’s another version of you standing or sitting at your side. This version of you is slightly more confident than you are.
• Now ask yourself what you need to do in order to be able to step into that more confident version of yourself. Do you need to be more assertive? Do you need to break your goals down into smaller chunks so that you can start taking action in order to achieve them? Is there a skill that you need to develop? Start doing these things.
• Once you’ve started taking steps in the right direction, imagine once again that there’s an even more confident you sitting to your right. This version of you is even more self-assured, more charismatic, and more resourceful. What do you need to do in order to step into that version of yourself? Do it.
• Keep imagining versions of yourself that are just a bit happier, more enthusiastic, more passionate, and more determined than the version before. Keep taking action in order to keep stepping into these better versions of yourself, until you feel yourself overflowing with confidence.

6. Take Better Care of Yourself.

Confident people excel at self-care. Follow their lead by doing the following:

• Eat healthy, nutritious meals.
• Get some sort of regular exercise.
• Have “me time” during which you meditate, read novels by your favorite authors, or participate in some other activity that you enjoy.
• Stop over-extending yourself.

When you take care of yourself you’re sending yourself the message that you consider yourself to be important, and worthy of care and attention. And, at the end of the day, your self-confidence depends on what you tell yourself about you.

7. Paint Yourself In a Favorable Light.

The other day I was reviewing a college application for a friend’s daughter as a favor to my friend. The girl had written down in the college application, among other things, that she had lived in Turkey and that she spoke French. Here’s why there was a problem with this:

• First, the girl’s mother lived in Turkey when she was pregnant with her, but she returned to Panama to give birth to the girl, and the girl herself has never been to Turkey (being in a country for a few months as a fetus in your mother’s womb does not count as having lived in that country).
• Second, the girl does not speak French. She simply enrolled in French lessons a week before filling out her college application.

Clearly, this girl is rather delusional. However, at the other end of the spectrum are all those people who refuse to give themselves credit for what they do. Here are some examples:

• I knew one woman in Costa Rica with great taste. Her friends were always asking her to help them re-decorate their homes and she always did a great job. However, she refused to take her decorating skills seriously because she hadn’t gone to design school. The truth is, this woman was better at interior decorating than a lot of people with degrees from fancy interior design schools.
• I know someone else who refuses to write down in her resume that she speaks three languages just because she’s not 100% fluent in one of them.
• Yet a third person I know refuses to call himself an entrepreneur just because his small side business isn’t making much money yet.

These three people need to start giving themselves more credit.

Take a good hard look at what you know how to do, and what you’ve done, and paint your skills and your life experience in the most favorable light that you can (obviously, without telling any lies). Then, allow yourself to feel proud and confident of who you are, what you know, and what you’ve done.

8. Be Prepared.

One of the best ways to feel confident in any situation is to do your homework ahead of time and be fully prepared to do what’s expected of you. For example, if you have to give a presentation at work, do the following:

• Make sure that you take the time to do the necessary research.
• Draft up several alternatives.
• Choose the alternative that you think is best, and have all of the necessary data to back up the alternative which you’re recommending.

After all, how can you possibly feel confident in a situation that you haven’t adequately prepared for?

When I was in law school at Georgetown, most of my classes were very large. The professors used the Socratic method of teaching, which means that they taught by asking the students questions, and by stimulating debate. That is, there was a lot of class participation.

At first, I was scared to death of being called on.

• What if I didn’t know the answer?
• What if I made a complete fool of myself in front of the whole class?
• What if the professor yelled at me for not having prepared adequately for class?

In fact, I was so scared of being called on, that on the first day of class I sat all the way in the back of the room. Surely, I would go unnoticed sitting all the way back there. That was not to be; law professors can smell fear.

I was the first person called on, on the very first day of class. And I hadn’t read the material specified on the syllabus. When the professor asked me who was suing whom in the case we were supposed to have read, I answered:

“The plaintiff sued the defendant.”

Of course, the plaintiff always sues the defendant, and it was obvious that I hadn’t read the case. To this day I still blush when I think of that experience.

After that I made sure to read all of the material that was assigned for every class. I even bought study aids to supplement my reading. I can tell you from first-hand experience that your confidence level soars when you walk into a class fully prepared; and this applies to everything in life.

9. Use Visualization.

When you need to do something important that’s outside of your comfort zone, and you’re worried that you’re not going to do well, visualize yourself doing a good job. As an illustration, suppose that you have to give a speech in front of your company’s Board of Directors. Do the following:

• Before the big day, take a moment to close your eyes and see yourself standing in front of the Board, looking confident and self-assured, and flawlessly delivering your speech.
• See yourself in your mind’s eye calmly answering any questions asked by the members of the Board.
• Then, visualize each of the Board members walking up to you at the end of the speech, shaking your hand, and thanking you for your excellent work.

By visualizing yourself doing a good job, when the day comes in which you have to give your speech, you’ll feel as if you’ve already done it before, and that it went well. This will give you the confidence that you need to do a good job.

10. Distance Yourself From People Who Bring You Down.

Unfortunately, the world is full of small, angry people who have failed repeatedly and who have made it their life’s mission to make sure that everyone else feels as miserable as they do. These people will suck all of the self-confidence right out of you, if you let them.

If you want your confidence to soar, stay away from these people.

11. Make It a Point to Catch Yourself Doing Things Right.

There’s a book called “The One Minute Manager”, by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.

Although the book’s purpose is to help managers make their team members feel better about themselves–because people who feel good about themselves do better work–you can use some of the lessons in this book  to manage yourself in a way that will help you to feel good about yourself.

Here are some of the ideas in the book which you can start applying right away:

• Make it a point to catch yourself doing things right.
• When you do catch yourself doing a good job, praise yourself and give yourself a little pat on the back.
• Allow yourself to feel the pride that comes from doing good work.
• Do this as often as you can.

12. Stop Being So Hard On Yourself.

Lots of people have a tendency to be overly critical of themselves. They tell themselves that they have to do everything perfectly. Then, they berate themselves for every mistake that they make and for every failure to hit the mark smack in the bull’s eye.

If you’re one of these people, in order to make your confidence soar, you have to stop being so hard on yourself. When you do something wrong, do the following:

• Acknowledge to yourself that you could have done a better job.
• Ask yourself how you can correct the mistake, or learn from it so that you don’t repeat the error.
• Remind yourself of how valuable you are.
• Reaffirm that the fact that you did poorly in this situation speaks to your performance on this specific task, but does not in any way affect your worth as a person.
• Once you’ve gone through this process, resolve to do better in the future, and simply release the mistake. It’s over.

Conclusion

Everyone is capable of feeling more confident. All you need to do is to change your attitude and develop new behaviors and strategies. Get started by applying the 12 strategies explained above and watch your confidence soar.

Live your best life by becoming more confident.

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Men and women of all ages should strength train, for more reasons than you think.

Although I strength trained for several years, I stopped about six years ago (for reasons that are not relevant to the subject matter of this blog post). For the past six years my exercise has consisted solely of running four days a week, and walking two days a week. That is, until a few weeks ago.

In mid-April of this year I decided that it was time to hit the weights once again. Why? There’s a long list of pros to lifting weights. First, there are many physical goals that you can achieve by strength training. Here are just some of them: you’ll shrink your waist line, you’ll be able to fit back into your skinny jeans, and you’ll look lean and toned. These benefits, alone, should be enough to get anyone to start hitting the gym on a regular basis. However, strength training doesn’t just make you look good.

Weight lifting also provides a myriad of health and mental benefits. In addition, it will increase your overall sense of well-being. If you’re not already lifting weights, I strongly encourage you to start. In case you need a little push, below you’ll find 8 ways lifting weights will transform your life.

1. You’ll Lose More Fat. Adam Campbell, the fitness director of Men’s Health and author of the New York Time’s best-selling The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises explains that by lifting weights you’ll lose 40% more fat than by dieting alone, or by dieting and just doing cardio.

He cites a study done by Penn State University in which overweight people were put on a reduced-calorie diet and split up into three groups:

• Group one didn’t exercise.
• Group two performed aerobic exercise three days a week.
• Group three did both aerobic and weight training three days a week.

Participants in all three groups lost roughly the same amount of weight: 21 pounds. However, groups one and two lost 15 pounds of fat and about 6 pounds of muscle. Group three—the group that lifted weights—lost all 21 pounds from fat. Which group do you think looked better and was most likely to keep the weight off? Obviously, group three.

Alwyn Cosgrove echoes the advice of lifting weights in order to lose fat. He says the following:

“Strength training is a critical component of any program that emphasizes long-term fat loss.”

Cosgrove is co-author of The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle and The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess.

2. You’ll Be Smarter. A study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress found that people who exercised fared better in terms of mental acuity—the ability to acquire and process knowledge– than those who did not exercise. The study involved overweight, sedentary adults. This is what happened:

• Participants underwent a series of assessments.
• Then, for four months they exercised twice a week. These exercise sessions involved both cardio and weight training.

At the end of the four months participants had reduced waist circumference and they had lost weight. However, the benefits were more than just physical. Participants also significantly improved functioning on the tests of mental acuity.

Why does exercise make you smarter? Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey, author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, explains that exercise increases the level of brain chemicals called growth factors. Growth factors help make new brain cells and establish new connections between brain cells to help us learn.

In addition, although both cardio and resistance training increase the level of growth factors, there are studies that show that more neurogenesis—or brain growth–occurs when you add strength training to your workout instead of just doing cardio.

3. You’ll Relieve Stress. Physical activity reduces stress by releasing endorphins, which are feel-good hormones. Although both cardio and strength training stimulate your body to release endorphins, your body produces more endorphins in a faster period of time when you’re weight lifting than when you’re doing cardio.

In addition, certain strength-training exercises produce more endorphins than others. Specifically, compound exercises—exercises that involve more than one muscle group– have been shown to produce the most endorphins during and after a workout. Compound exercises include the bench press, the dead lift, and the barbell squat.

4. You’ll Be Protecting Yourself Against Diabetes. Studies have shown that the bodies of people who weight train have better blood sugar control than the bodies of those who don’t weight train. This is because building muscle tissue increases the muscles’ demand for glucose.

Muscles pull glucose from the bloodstream, and this prevents blood sugar levels from rising dangerously. In turn, this helps to prevent diabetes.

In addition, weight lifting melts away visceral fat, which is the fat that is stored within the abdominal cavity and builds up around the organs found there, and which has been associated with a higher risk of both cancer and diabetes.

5. You’ll Have Stronger Bones. One of the best ways you can control bone loss as you age is to add strength training to your workout plan. By stressing your bones, strength training increases bone density and reduces the risk of osteoporosis. Therefore, you’ll be less prone to fractures and breaks as you get older.

In addition, weight lifting results in improved strength and balance, which makes it less likely that you’ll fall.

As an aside, my 70-year-old aunt was saying the other day that she wants to learn to ski, but at her age, she’s terrified of falling (because of the potential for bone breakage). I love skiing, and I hope to still be doing it at 70. So, off to the gym I go.

6. It Can Make You Younger. As I wrote in my post, 17 Ways to Slow Down the Aging Process and Live Longer, one unfortunate aspect of aging is the loss of muscle tissue and strength. However, a 2011 study published in the Sport Medicine journal found that it’s possible to slow down the aging process by improving strength.

In addition, in 2007 a team of American and Canadian researchers compared 596 aging-related genes of older adults to the ones of younger participants. As expected, the older genes did not perform as well. Then, the older participants were asked to follow a resistance training routine twice a week, for six months.

At the end of the six months researchers repeated their gene analysis. They saw a significant improvement in gene expression. To summarize their findings: increasing your strength by lifting weights will make your genes younger.

7. You’ll be Happier. Adam Campbell, who was mentioned in the first point of this article, writes in The Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises that lifting weights will make you happier. In order to support his claim, Campbell cites research conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the United States.

Researchers there took a group of people and had them perform three weight workouts a week, for 6 months. The results of the study were that participants significantly improved their scores on tests measuring anger–which had dropped– and overall mood, which had gone up.

In addition, Campbell refers to a study done at the University of Sydney in Australia. Scientists there found that regularly lifting weights significantly reduces symptoms of depression. They reported that a meaningful improvement was seen in 60% of clinically diagnosed patients; a similar response rate from antidepressants–without the negative side effects.

8. You’ll Gain Confidence and Self-Esteem. Right now you may be thinking that you’re too weak or too old to lift weights. However, almost anyone willing to follow a situation-specific training program can lift weights. In addition, you can challenge yourself by doing the following:

• Gradually increase the amount of weight that you lift — this applies to both men and women (ladies, you will not bulk up and end up looking like men).
• Increase the amount of repetitions that you do for each exercise;
• Increase the number of sets that you do for each exercise; and
• Try more challenging exercises.

Set weight lifting goals for yourself and then follow through on them. This will give you a sense of achievement which you can then apply to help you achieve your goals in other areas of your life. In addition, lifting weights will make you stronger, and feeling strong is empowering.

How does weight lifting increase your self-esteem? People who lift weights look good. And, let’s face it: looking good will give your self-esteem a nice boost.

Conclusion

I enjoy lifting weights. It makes me feel powerful. Plus, I think strength training is sexy. I hope that the 8 reasons why you should start lifting weights outlined above have convinced you to add weights to your exercise regime. Live your best life by starting a strength training program (with your doctor’s approval).

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Having a hobby is not just a way to pass the time; it can also improve the quality of your life.

A hobby is something that you do for fun or pleasure. You do it during your free time, and you don’t get paid to do it. Since hobbies are leisure activities, a lot of people discard hobbies as a “luxury” they can’t afford. Who has the time, right?

However, it turns out that a hobby is more than just a way to have fun. Picking up a hobby has myriads of benefits, such as the following:

• A hobby can give you a sense of self-efficacy.
• A hobby can be a creativity outlet.
• Having hobbies will keep your brain engaged.
• A hobby gives you something to look forward to.
• A hobby can give you something to be passionate about.

Fun and good for you; that’s a winning combination. Below you’ll discover 16 habits that will improve your quality of life:

1. Say Your Oms. Everyone should take up meditation. But is meditation a hobby? I say that it is. Taking up meditation will help you to reduce stress, lower your blood pressure, strengthen your immune system, and even improve your ability to concentrate.

Is meditating fun? When I meditate–which I do for ten minutes, daily–I turn on my Enya CD, light a candle, and lie down on my yoga mat. Once I’m completely relaxed I get into such a good mood, that I would say that meditating is definitely fun.

2. Grow Something. Gardening is a surprisingly beneficial hobby. There’s the obvious benefit of growing your own fruits and vegetables, as well as pretty flowers, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It also does all of the following for you:

• It reduces your levels of cortisol, which is the stress hormone.
• Nurturing a plant from seed to fruit-bearing reinforces your ability to cause positive change in the world.
• It counts as exercise (and we all need to get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week).
• Studies show that gardening reduces incidence of dementia by 36%.

To top it all of, gardening puts you out in nature. I wrote about eight of the many benefits of being out in nature in this post: “8 Reasons Why You Need to Spend More Time in Nature“.

3. Reacquaint Yourself With Your Kitchen. Studies show that those who cook their meals at home are healthier and live longer than those who regularly eat out. Nutritionist Kimberly Snyder indicates that when people pick out their own food at the grocery store, they buy less processed foods, less sugary foods, and less fat. Instead, they make healthier food choices.

In addition, cooking at home helps you to save money.

4. Pick Up a Book. Reading is a lot more than just a pleasant pastime. Reading sharpens comprehension, teaches your mind to focus, and improves your vocabulary. It also boosts your brain power: just like jogging gives your body a workout, reading gives your brain workout.

Furthermore, studies show that reading can reduce stress by 69%. Since reading also helps you sleep better, a good time to practice this hobby is right before bedtime.

5. Tickle the Ivories. Playing an instrument, such as the piano, can increase cognitive development. In addition, it improves eye-hand coordination and fine-motor skills. And here’s the kicker: playing a musical instrument raises IQ by seven points, in both kids and adults. Kind of makes you want to run out and get yourself a keyboard, doesn’t it?

6. Dust Off the Chess Board. You probably already know that chess is a great hobby to take up if you want to improve your brain’s cognitive functions. To start off, playing chess exercises both brain hemispheres. First, players must develop and utilize the left hemisphere of the brain, which deals with object recognition. Second, they must utilize the right hemisphere which deals with pattern recognition.

Chess also helps to improve memory and helps to develop strategic thinking.

7. Take Up the Mambo. Not only is dancing fun, but it also has many benefits. Of course, when you dance you’re getting a physical workout. In addition, dancing reduces stress and increases levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that’s linked to feelings of well-being. Another benefit of dancing is that it increases cognitive acuity, which means that it makes you smarter.

8. Find Nemo. A growing body of scientific research shows that having pets can make us healthier. That’s why more hospitals, nursing homes, and mental institutions are using animals for animal-assisted therapy. Granted it’s mostly dogs and cats, but fish are also being used.

While it’s not always practical to keep dogs and cats, there’s always room for fish. In addition, fish require little time and attention. Finally, no one can argue against the calming effect of watching fish serenely gliding through the water. I’ve owned several goldfish throughout my life (all currently deceased after living long, healthy lives), and I’m thinking of getting another one.

9. Get the Ball Over the Net. Joining a sports team is a great way to meet new people and make friends. Signing up to play intramural sports–volleyball is an easy team sport to learn to play decently–is  a fun way to spend time with others, which is one of the keys to happiness. In fact, studies show that social isolation is deadlier than obesity.

So, the next time you’re about to go home and watch TV alone, head over to the YMCA, instead, and play some volleyball with others.

10. Take Online Classes. Knowledge is power. By taking online classes–and making a hobby out of it–you can achieve all of the following:

• Learning new skills increases feelings of self-efficacy, which means that your belief in your ability to produce the results that you’re after increases.
• Learning new skills can make you more valuable at work, which could result in a promotion.
• Learning new things stimulates the brain and helps to keep your mind sharp.

11. Learn a New Language. Learning a new language has the obvious benefit of allowing you to communicate with people who speak that language when you travel. Also, being bilingual or trilingual looks great on your resume.

The icing on the cake is that studies have shown that the brains of bilingual people operate differently than the brains of single language speakers. Learning a new language will make you smarter, it will make you more decisive, and it will even make you better at speaking your native tongue.

And here are two more benefits of learning a new language: it makes you more perceptive and it helps you to ward off dementia.

12. Connect With Your Inner Karate Kid. Studying and learning a martial art–such as karate–has real value. By learning a martial art you’ll be learning self-defense skills. In addition, you’ll be acquiring discipline and improving your ability to focus. Also, practicing martial arts will help you to develop balance, stamina, coordination, and strength, as well as bring together your body and mind.

13. Ride the Waves. You’ve probably heard of the state of flow — when you’re so completely immersed in what you’re doing, that your ego fades away, time stands still, and you become one with what you’re doing in the present moment. Surfing is a great way to experience the state of flow.

After all, surfing is packed with what Steven Kotler calls “flow triggers” in his book, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. Some of these flow triggers include the following:

• A challenging environment: there’s always unpredictability when riding a wave, so you have to remain fully focused on what you’re doing.
• Having clear goals: what could be more clear than the goal of riding a wave without falling off the board.
• Immediate feedback: you either ride a wave successfully, or you don’t.

14. Pick Up Those Knitting Needles. Experts say that crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain. In fact, crafting has benefits similar to meditation. Occupational therapist Victoria Schindler explains that the repetitive motions of knitting, for example, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which quiets the “fight or flight” response.

15. Put Pen to Paper. Keeping a journal can help you to organize your thoughts, plan how you’re going to achieve your goals, help you to solve problems, and serve as a stress-relief mechanism.  In addition, University of Texas at Austin psychologist and researcher James Pennebaker argues that regular journaling strengthens immune cells called T-lymphocytes.

Finally, journaling can help you to know yourself better. You’ll be able to uncover what makes you happy and what’s draining you of energy. With that knowledge you’ll be able to do more of what brings you joy, and distance yourself from people and situations that are not serving you well.

16. Engage Your Inner Clown. Try juggling. Juggling improves your focus and eye-hand coordination. In addition, it counts as active meditation: your attention is fully focused on the objects that you’re juggling, which puts you in the same beneficial relaxed state as when you’re sitting on the floor cross-legged, chanting.

Also, a 2004 report from the University of Regensberg in Germany found that learning to juggle causes certain areas of your brain to grow. Unfortunately the brain will return to its original size if you stop juggling, so you need to keep it up.

Conclusion

Take some of the time that you’re currently devoting to Facebook and to watching TV and use it to pick up a new hobby. There are an endless number of hobbies you can choose from, but you can get started with the 16 hobbies outlined above. Live your best life by starting a hobby.

Read Next: 7 Benefits of Doodling and How to Get Started

Related Posts:

• How to Make Yourself Lucky
• Dealing With Life’s Challenges – Life Is Like a Game of Chutes and Ladders
• The One-Hour-A-Day Fast Track to Goal Achievement
• How to Conduct a Life Audit

Birthdays—like the New Year– are a fresh start, which means that they’re a great time to create a bucket list.

Experts at Wharton found that “fresh starts” throughout the year cause people to evaluate their lives in a wider context and be more effective at setting goals. In addition, tackling a goal during a “fresh start” increases people’s chances of achieving that goal. “Fresh starts” are temporal landmarks that allow us to say the following:

• The past is behind me.
• I’m ready to become a new, improved version of myself.

The most obvious “fresh start” is New Years. However, birthdays are another opportunity to start anew. My birthday was on May 2^nd, so I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I want to achieve before my next birthday. One popular tradition is to create a bucket list every year on your birthday, with the number of items to be achieved in the next 365 days equal to the number of years you’ll be turning next.

So, for example, you could create the following bucket lists:

• 30 Before 30 Bucket List
• 40 Things to Do Before Turning 40
• 50 Experiences to Have Before Turning 50

You get the picture. With that in mind, here are 25 ideas on things to do before your next birthday:

1. Splurge and have a meal at one of the world’s best restaurants. If you’d like some ideas on restaurants you may want to dine at, year after year these three top the lists of great restaurants:

• Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark;
• Alinea in Chicago, Illinois; and
• Napa Valley’s French Laundry.

In the alternative, you can try at least one dish you’ve never eaten before.

2. Test drive your dream car. Most people have a dream car. What’s yours? Find a dealership for that car and just walk in as if you own the place (attitude goes a long way), and ask one of the salespeople for a test drive.

In the alternative, rent your dream car for a day. Last, but not least, there are companies that will allow you to spend the day driving several exotic luxury cars. By your next birthday you may not own your dream car, but at least you’ll have driven it.

3. Conquer one of your biggest fears. Everyone’s afraid of something. What are you afraid of? Choose one of these things and start planning now how you’re going to get over that fear. This could be fear of heights, fear of public speaking, fear of rejection, or anything else that makes you shake in your boots.

There are few things in life that will give you more of a confidence boost than conquering one of your fears.

4. Learn to make one cocktail really well. Think Margaritas, Long Island Iced Tea, or Mai Tais. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, invite some friends over and let them sample and enjoy your new-found talent.

5. Try a new sport. There are tons of sports you can try. To name just a few, you can try paddle boarding, ski boarding, or mountain biking.

6. Get into the best shape of your life. These days, getting into the best shape of your life is achievable even if you’re in your forties (look at Sofia Vergara and Hugh Jackman). However, it’s not a goal that can be put off until the last moment, so you better get going with this one.

7. Own a power suit. Make this the year you finally get that power suit you would be proud to wear if you were suddenly called in for an interview for the job of your dreams. It doesn’t have to be a Giorgio Armani pantsuit or a Channel suit, but you do want it to suggest exclusivity.

8. Sign up to be a mentor or spend some time volunteering. Teach others something you’re knowledgeable about, raise money for a charity, or coach a youth soccer team. Opportunities for helping others abound.

9. Attend a major sports event. What’s your favorite sport? What’s the major event for that sport? Make plans to go before you reach your next birthday. Here are some ideas to consider: the Kentucky Derby, the World Cup, or the Super Bowl.

10. Take a MOOC—a Massive Open Online Course. Although you can find a MOOC in practically any subject you can think of, popular choices include Gamification, Learning to Program, and Songwriting. Here are ten ways taking a MOOC will improve your life.

11. See your favorite artists perform live. Think David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, and The Rolling Stones.

12. Adopt one habit that will have a major positive impact on your life. Ideas include becoming an early riser, starting an exercise program, or writing for an hour every morning. Meet your next birthday with another positive habit under your belt.

13. Drop one habit that is holding you back. Do you have a bad habit that’s sabotaging your efforts to get ahead in life? Drop it within the next 365 days! This can include smoking, eating junk food on a regular basis, and spending too much time watching TV.

14. Read a book. Cross at least one book off of your “books to read before I die list” and come one step closer to your goal of being well-read. Popular options include Don Quixote, War and Peace, and Moby Dick.

15. Take a 30-day challenge. Taking a 30-day challenge is a great way to jump-start an important goal. For example, you can challenge yourself to do the following:

• Exercise for half-an-hour every day, for 30 days;
• Stick to your budget for the next 30 days; or
• Take a photo every day, for 30 days.

The possibilities for 30-day challenges are endless.

16. Cross one item off of your travel bucket list. Take a look at your travel bucket list and choose one place to visit before the earth orbits the sun–with you on it–one more time. Make this the year you finally climb the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; or visit Machu Picchu in Peru; or transit the Panama Canal.

17. Increase your income. There are many ways to start making more money. Examples include making yourself more valuable at work and then asking for a raise, getting a job that pays more, or starting a business on the side. Start taking steps now in order to be a little bit richer by your next birthday.

18. Redecorate one room in your home. Remodel your kitchen by adding classic country details; add a swing and some wicker furniture to the front porch to encourage neighbors to stop by and shoot the breeze; or turn your bathroom into a peaceful oasis, complete with a clawfoot tub for taking long baths.

19. Do something adventurous. The truth is, everyone’s definition of “adventure” differs. However, typically, adventure refers to activities such as taking a glider flight, trying indoor skydiving, or going abseiling. If these ideas don’t rock your boat, that’s OK. Come up with your own.

20. Improve your relationships with others. You shouldn’t leave relationships out of your bucket list. It’s important to have a close group of friends you can rely on, and to get along well with others. There are many things you can do in order to improve your relationships with others, such as the following:

• You can choose to befriend someone new;
• You can reconnect with someone you’ve lost touch with; or
• You can look for ways to spend more time with someone you love.

21. Create something new. Who doesn’t have the urge to create? By the time your next birthday comes around you could have a painting made by you hanging on your wall; you could be selling an eBook you wrote on Amazon; or you could be wearing a scarf you knitted yourself.

22. Become a better person. You can become a better person by achieving one of your personal development goals. Personal development goals can include things such as becoming more confident, overcoming procrastination, or learning to manage stress effectively.

23. Have more fun. As Jim Morrison once wrote, “No one gets out of here alive.” Make a list of ways to have fun (think of things that are fun for you) and make sure that you incorporate as many items on that list as you can into the next year of your life.

24. Make yourself more attractive. Let’s face it, attractive people have a leg up in the world. However, there’s no need to go out and get plastic surgery. Instead, work with what you’ve got. You can get a great haircut that suits your face, have your teeth whitened, or get yourself some clothes that fit you well.

25. Put yourself out there. Stop holding yourself back. Submit your short stories to magazines to be published; read your poetry out loud at a poetry open mic; or audition for the lead in a play. “Someday” is now. Make this the year you muster up the courage to make your mark in the world. After all, each birthday is a reminder that you’re not getting any younger.

Conclusion

If you create a bucket list on your birthday, and you begin crossing items off of that bucket list right away, by your next birthday you’ll be a new and improved version of yourself. And isn’t the point of life to be a little better each year? I think so.

Think of your next birthday as a “fresh start” and spend the day creating a bucket list of all of the things you’re going to achieve before you’re blowing out candles on your birthday cake once again.

Related Posts:

• How to Make Yourself Lucky
• Dealing With Life’s Challenges – Life Is Like a Game of Chutes and Ladders
• The One-Hour-A-Day Fast Track to Goal Achievement
• How to Conduct a Life Audit

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“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?” – Dirty Harry

Your state of mind can make all the difference in the world. To be wealthy, lucky, and successful you need to think wealthy, lucky, and successful thoughts. That is, you have to feel wealthy, lucky, and successful.

In addition, adopting a feeling of wealth, luck, and success is easier than most people think. You do it by tuning into the real sources of wealth. These are the following:

• Health;
• Creativity;
• A good attitude;
• A good mind;
• A strong work ethic;
• Appreciation;
• Imagination;
• Peace of mind;
• Meaning; and
• Faith in the future.

If you have these things, and you apply them well, you will–almost without a doubt–be wealthy, lucky, and successful in the foreseeable the future. Below you’ll discover 20 ways to feel wealthy, lucky, and successful now, regardless of your current circumstances.

1. Make a List of Five. Make a list of five things that you want more of in your life, which don’t involve money. For example, more love, more serenity, and more laughter.

Then, make a conscious effort to be more loving, actively look for reasons to laugh more often throughout the day, and start a meditation practice. You’ll soon have more of what you want in your life, without having spent a penny. And that will make you feel wealthy, lucky, and successful.

2. Become Financially Literate. Regardless of the current size of your bank account, start learning about money–learn how to take care of it and how to make it grow. Do the following:

• Pick up a book about managing your finances, such as “The New Guide to Financial Freedom” by Charles Schwab.
• Take a personal finance class, whether in person or online.
• Set up a mock portfolio — choose a list of stocks and track their performance over a certain period of time.

Being knowledgable about money will help make you feel that you have what it takes to make lots of it and invest it well.

3. Go On a Rampage of Appreciation. Right now think of 100 things that you’re grateful for. Write them down. Then, read through your list and allow the feeling of gratitude to wash over you.  It’s hard not to feel wealthy, lucky, and successful when you’re focused on all the good that there is in your life.

4. Help Someone Else. Realizing that you have more than enough is a great way to feel wealthy, lucky, and successful. The best way to realize how much you have–other than by feeling grateful–is by giving to others.

There are many ways to give to others: you can make a donation; volunteer your time or services; mentor an at-risk-youth; and so on. Whatever you have, share it with others, and notice how that makes you feel. Good, I bet.

5. Nurture a Positive Attitude. Having a positive attitude can help you feel lucky and successful. Look at the following:

• Negative Attitude: “It doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll never be successful.”
• Positive Attitude: “By adopting good habits and taking small steps in the right direction, I will succeed.”

Which of the two thoughts above is more likely to make you feel good about yourself? Which is more likely to encourage you to perservere, instead of giving up? Obviously, the positive one. Instead of telling yourself that you’ll never have what you want, nurture a positive attitude and tell yourself that by being resourceful and working hard, you can have everything you want.

6. Dress the Part. Neil Pattel, owner of the popular blog Quicksprout.com, wrote a post in which he explains that spending $162,301.42 on clothes made him $692,500. Why? Because the reality is that people make assumptions about you based on how you look and dress. If you dress well, others will assume that you must be in high demand and they’ll want to do business with you.

This doesn’t mean that you should go into debt in order to buy nice clothes. What it does mean is that you should accept the reality that people do judge a book by its cover, and buy–and wear–the best quality clothing you can afford. In addition, looking good will make you feel good about yourself, and it will make you feel more successful.

7.  Treat Yourself to a Small Luxury. It’s essential to set money aside for a rainy day, for investments, and for your retirement. However, it’s also important to treat yourself to small luxuries once in a while. Here are some examples:

• Pamper your inner diva or divo (the male equivalent of “diva”) by spending the day at a spa.
• Indulge the serious artist in you by getting a Moleskine notebook and a fountain pen.
• Be a food snob–if only once in a while–and eat at the best restaurant in town.

Denying yourself what you want all the time will make you feel deprived, which is not conducive to feeling wealthy, lucky, and successful. Once in a while, buy the expensive chocolates, get yourself tickets to the opera, and have lobster for dinner. Small luxuries can give you a high return on your invesment in terms of how you feel and how you portray yourself to the world.

8. Let Go of 27 Things. Letting go of items and possessions which you no longer find beautiful or useful can help you to make room for good things to come into your life. Also, decluttering will help bring to your awareness the fact that you own a lot more things than you need, which will go a long way toward making you feel wealthy and lucky.

In Feng Shui–a Chinese philosophical system which examines how the placement of things and objects affects the energy flow in your living environment–27 is a lucky number. Do the following:

• Go through your living space and look for 27 items which you can donate, give away, or throw out.
• If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, spend the next nine days–nine is another lucky number in Feng Shui–decluttering 27 items each day.

9. Strip Experiences Down to Their Essence. Strip an experience that you want to have, but which you can’t afford at the moment, down to its core essence. As an illustration, if you really want to visit Italy, but you can’t afford to do so right now, ask yourself what it is about Italy that you really want to experience.

• Is it the food? Then start looking for the best Italian restaurant you can find within driving distance of where you live.
• Is it the art? Go to a museum.
• Is it the culture in general? Rent a couple of Italian movies, such as “La Strada” and “Profumo di Donna”.

Even if you can’t go to Italy at the moment, you can find ways to experience the things that you love about Italy, right now.

10. Start a Dream Jar. In my post, 14 Awesome Things You Can Do With Just $25, I explain that the way to finance your life goals is to start right away setting aside some money–even if it’s just one dollar a day–and placing that sum in a dream jar. Knowing that you’ve started saving for your dreams, even if it’s just a small amount, will help you feel that you’re on your way toward making those dreams come true.

11. Adjust Your Materialism Levels. It’s fine to want things. However, in today’s society people are incessantly bombarded with messages from marketers trying to sell everything from expensive colognes to insanely priced cars, which often creates a feeling of dissatisfaction among those who do not belong to the wealthy elite and who can’t afford these items.

If your levels of materialism have gone off the charts, you need to adjust these levels or risk never feeling like you have enough and never feeling satisfied.

12. Lack Is In Your Mind. Realize that a feeling of lack is all in your mind. There are 3 billion people in the world living on less than $2.00 a day. In addition, 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.  (Source). And you feel that you live in a state of scarcity because you can’t afford that leather jacket in the store window? You may want to rethink that.

13. Let Go of Your Need To Own Things. A while ago I was reading an anecdote about a group of tourists who were in Africa on safari. They were watching a beautiful sunset over a lake, when one of them said: “I would love to have a house overlooking that lake”. The guide that was with them pointed out that he had noticed the following about tourists to his country: when they experienced beauty, their first reaction was to want to “own it”.

Experience the beauty around you, and just let it be.

14. Nurture Inner Peace. By nurturing inner peace you’ll be creating calm and joy in your inner world, which will help you to feel good about yourself regardless of what may be happening in your outer world. Those who are spiritually rich feel wealthy, lucky, and successful even during the most trying of times.

15. Spend Time in Nature. Instead of going to the shopping mall, go to the beach. Instead of watching TV, go to the park, sit under a tree with a good book, and read. Instead of eating at the cafeteria, walk to an arboretum or a public garden near your place of work, and eat there. It’s hard to harbor feelings of lack when you’re surrounded by the abundance of nature.

16. Read Rags to Riches Stories. There are many biographies available of people who started out with little and ended up having a lot. Read these stories when you need inspiration. After all, if they could do it, why not you? Feel wealthy, lucky, and successful by reading about others who were once where you are and then went on to rise to great heights.

17. Learn Something New. Even if you’re not rich in material goods at the moment, you can be rich in knowledge. Explore Beethoven’s sonatas, read the classics, and memorize great poetry, such as “Daffodils” by William Wordsworths. After all, how can you not feel wealthy and lucky to be alive when you’re engulfed by one of Beethoven’s cello sonatas or dancing with daffodils.

18. Learn a Marketable Skill. Prepare yourself to be wealthy and successful in the future by learning a marketable skill now. The more valuable you are to others, whether it’s a boss or your clients, the wealthier and the more successful you’ll be. And the way to make yourself more valuable is by learning new skills.

19.  Make a List of Ten Things Money Can’t Buy. The best things in life can’t be bought. Here are some of them:

• Friends who love you for who you are.
• A close-knit family.
• A spouse whom you would trust with your life.

If you have these things, you can be sure that you’re luckier and wealthier than most people living in mansions and driving around in Bentleys.

20. Set Goals For the Future. The fact that you don’t have the money to take singing lessons or visit Paris right now, doesn’t mean that you won’t have the resources to experience these things in the future. Accept where you are now, while you make plans for where you want to be in the future. Then, allow yourself to feel that you can, and that you will, have these things.

Conclusion

Live your best life by feeling wealthy, lucky, and successful. You can start with the 20 ways explained above.

Related Posts:

• How to Make Yourself Lucky
• Dealing With Life’s Challenges – Life Is Like a Game of Chutes and Ladders
• The One-Hour-A-Day Fast Track to Goal Achievement
• How to Conduct a Life Audit

Mind maps engage your whole brain and allow you to see the big picture.

A mind map is a whole-brain method for generating and organizing ideas which is largely inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s approach to note-taking. The concept was brought into the mainstream by Tony Buzan and is based on patterns found in nature, and on research on how humans think and how the brain works.

In “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”, Michael J. Gelb explains that by using mind mapping regularly, you can train yourself to be a more balanced thinker, like da Vinci. Gelb adds that mind mapping stimulates both brain hemispheres: it lets you develop a logical sequence and detailed organization of your material, while encouraging imagination and spontaneity. In fact, he explains that the note-taking styles of many of history’s geniuses feature a branching, organic structure complemented by lots of sketches, creative doodles, and keywords.

These geniuses include Charles Darwin, Michelangelo, Mark Twain, and, of course, da Vinci. Below you’ll find step-by-step instructions for creating mind maps, as well as 14 brilliant uses for mind maps.

How to Create Mind Maps: Step-by-Step Instructions

Mind maps represent a task or an idea in pictorial form with a minimum of words. They rely on key pictures and keywords that act as triggers. Here are step-by-step instructions for creating mind maps:

Step 1. Get a plain sheet of paper and turn it so that it’s on its landscape side. You’re also going to need colored pens and/or pencils.

Step 2. In the center of the page draw a picture or paste an image that represents the central concept of your mind map. Then, write down a keyword which represents the central idea.

Step 3. Use colors throughout. Adding images and colors stimulates right-brain thinking. That is, it stimulates creativity and imagination.

Step 4. What are the main concepts or ideas that can be derived from the image and/or keyword you’ve placed in the middle of the page? Do the following:

• Draw anywhere from three to ten thick branches leading out from your central image/keyword.
• Make the branches curve and flow.
• Try to make each branch a different color.
• Choose an image and a keyword for each branch.

Step 5. Look at your branches and begin making free associations. Draw smaller sub-branches that stem from each branch to accommodate the new associations that you’re making.

Step 6. Connect third-level branches from the ends of the sub-branches. You can even create a fourth and a fifth level. Let your mind work freely by association and have fun.

Step 7. Throughout the mind map, use keywords. Keywords exercise your analytical “left brain” and help you find the essence of your subject. However, using too many words will restrict your thinking. Try using just one keyword per line; this will give you the freedom to discover lots of creative associations for your keyword.

Step 8. Use images throughout. Images make the mind map more interesting and more memorable. In addition, pictures generate far more associations than words do.

Step 9. When you’re done with your initial mind map, do the following: add details; jot down questions that radiate from particular nodes; and draw little “vines” that connect ideas on different branches.

14 Brilliant Uses For Mind Maps

Now that you know how to create mind maps, here are 14 brilliant uses for mind maps:

1. Use Mind Maps For Idea Generation. Place an image in the center of the page that represents the topic for which you want to generate ideas. From that image, start to radiate out every idea that comes into your mind on that subject-matter. Create a branch for each idea.

Look at the branches and see what ideas are triggered by the keyword and the image on each branch. Put these new ideas down as sub-branches. Next, brainstorm at least three ideas for each sub-branch and put these down as third level branches. You can stop there, or you can add a fourth level.

When you’re done, look through your final mind map and decide which idea you’re going to implement. Finally, go out into the world and implement your idea.

2. Use Mind Maps to Better Retain Information From Books and Articles. Most people complain that they quickly forget what they read. However, there’s a way to remember and retain more of the books and articles that you read. You can achieve this by creating a mind map each time that you read something that you find informative or helpful.

When you’re reading a book, the branches of the mind map can be the chapter headings of the most important chapters. Then, write down the main ideas of each chapter as subheadings. Third level branches can include examples, quotes, and even your own comments on what you just read. In the fourth level you can write down ideas on action steps that the book or article has inspired you to take

3. Use Mind Maps For Problem Solving. When problem solving, insert an image which represents the problem you’re having in the center of a piece of paper, along with the appropriate keyword.  Then, draw six branches leading out of the center image/keyword and write one of the following questions on each branch:

• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?
• Who?

Answer these questions in the sub-branches of your mind map and proceed to free-associate solutions to your problem from there.

4. Use Mind Maps to Take Notes During Meetings. When you’re at an office meeting, do the following:

• Write the purpose for the meeting in the center of the page.
• Each agenda item will be represented as one of the main branches on your mindmap (get the agenda ahead of time, if you can).
• As the meeting progresses, add sub-branches to each agenda item with the main points discussed for each item (ideas, facts, budget, who is going to do what, and so on).
• Draw pictures and interlink items.

5. Use Mind Maps to Set Life Goals. Write “Life Goals” in the center of the page (you can also draw an image of yourself or paste a photo). Choose what you consider to be your main life areas. These can include travel, adventures, family, contributions, career, finances, and so on. Each one of these will be one of the branches of your mind map.

Further divide each life area in a way that makes sense to you. For example, the “Family” branch could be divided into the following sub-branches: parents; siblings; spouse; kids; extended family; and so on. Then, write down at least three life goals for each of your sub-branches. These will be the third level branches.

As fourth level branches you could write down ideas on how to achieve each goal, a deadline, the resources that you’ll need, and so on.

6. Use Mind Maps for Project Management. What’s the name of the project that you’re going to be working on? Write it down in the center of the page. What are the main tasks that need to be completed for the project? Write those down as sub-branches. Divide the main tasks into sub-tasks and write those down as third level branches.

For each sub-task you can create a fourth level by adding information such as duration, cost, materials needed, and so on.

7. Use Mind Maps to Write Your Novel. Put your story’s tentative title, or the genre, in the middle of the page. Your branches can be the following: Setting; Characters; Conflict; Theme; Plot; Scenes; and Point of View. The “Character” branch–for example–can be further broken down by creating a sub-branch for each character.

Then, create third level branches by creating a character profile for each character. You can write down things such as the following: Age; Appearance; Occupation; Income; Education; Special Characteristics; Strengths; Flaws; and so on.

8. Use Mind Maps to Write Ebooks. If you’ve been trying to write an eBook for a while but you keep getting stuck at the planning stage, a mind map could be just what you need. What’s your eBook’s topic? Write that down at the center of the page.

Then, add ten branches. Temporarily label them Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and so on. Later on you can add the specific titles of each chapter, but for now just write down potential topics. For each chapter include sub-branches with ideas of what you’re going to include in each chapter. Then, as a third level, write down examples for each of your ideas.

9. Use Mind Maps to Write a Business Plan. Write the name of your business or your business idea in the center of the page. The branches are the major components of your business plan. This can include things such as your business concept; your legal structure; your marketing plan; a market analysis; your financials; and your sales strategy.

Further divide each of the main components by adding sub-branches. For example, your “Marketing Plan” branch could lead to the following sub-branches: brochures; press releases; web site; social media; advertisements; and so on.

10. Use a Mind Map to Write Your Memoir. Write down your name at the center of the page. Your main branches could be something like the following: early childhood; adolescence; college; life after college; marriage; retirement; and so on. Taking “early childhood” as an example, you could create the following sub-branches:

• School
• Friends
• Neighborhood
• After-School Activities
• Chores
• Holidays
• Family Life
• Pets
• Favorite Memories
• Traumatic Events

Then, you can take “School” and further divide it as follows: Favorite Subjects; Favorite Teachers; Grades; Riding the Bus; School Books; Learning to Read; Kids From School; and so on.

11. Use A Mind Map to Plan Your Finances. Creating a mind map of your finances is a good idea since it illustrates the big picture of your financial life. The branches of your financial mind map can include things such as the following: Income; Expenses; Debt; Investments; Retirement Plan; Estate Plan; and so on.

Each branch can then be further broken down into sub-branches. For example, the “Estate Plan” branch could be broken down into the following: Will; Revocable Living Trust; Power of Attorney; Health Care Proxy; and so on. You can choose to add more details by adding third and fourth level branches.

12. Use Mind Maps for Your To-Do List. Write something obvious such as “to do” at the center of the page. Then, identify your main categories and put those down as branches. Here are some examples: Blog; Work; Home; and Errands. List the tasks that you need to get done for each of your categories as sub-branches.

As an illustration, for the “Blog” category you could add the following sub-branches: write a blog post; share the blog post on social media; spend 15 minutes on Twitter; visit three blogs in my niche and leave comments; and email potential sponsors.

For a third level you could further break down each task: include time limits for each task; include more information about the task; and so on.

13. Use Mind Maps for Holiday Planning. The holiday that you’re planning goes in the center of the page. Let’s use the 4th of July as an illustration. Draw an American flag and write down “July 4th” at the center of the page.

Then, create a branch for each major area that you need to plan. Here are some examples:

• Barbecue
• Decorations
• Parade
• Fireworks Show
• Teach the kids about the 4th of July

The “Barbecue Branch” can be further broken down with the following:

• Drinks
• Food
• Snacks
• Dessert
• Backyard Activitivies for the Kids
• Music

Each sub-branch can be further broken down by adding more details. As an illustration, you could create third level branches for “Dessert” with the following: flag cake; cupcakes with sparklers; carved watermelon filled with fruit; red, white, and blue jello; and so on.

14. Use Mind Maps for Yearly Planning. Write down the year that you’re going to be planning in the middle of the page. Create branches: each branch represents a goal for the year. For example, let’s say that one of your goals for the year is to make an additional $12,000 which you’re going to put down toward your retirement.

You’re going to divide that goal into four milestones; each milestone is a sub-branch. Here are your four sub-branches:

• Make $3,000 by March 31st.
• Make $6,000 by June 30th.
• Make $9,000 by September 30th.
• Make $12,000 by December 31st.

Then, further break down each milestone. Continuing with our example, the sub-branch “Make $3,000 by March 31st” can be broken down as follows:

• Make $1,000 by January 31st.
• Make $2,000 by February 28th.
• Make $3,000 by March 31st.

Those are your third-level branches. Your 4th level branches can be the action steps that you’re going to take in order to make that money.

Conclusion

Mind maps are a fantastic tool for generating ides, organizing your life, planning, and so on. The 14 uses for mind maps explained above are just the beginning. Live your best life by engaging your whole mind with mind maps.

 

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