≡ Menu

how to buy moneyPsychologists have conducted research which shows that money can’t buy happiness. That is, once you have enough money to meet your basic needs, having more money will impact your level of happiness only slightly.

However, Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Michael Norton, an associate professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, have set forth the proposition that this is only partially true. That is, how much money you have won’t determine your level of happiness, but how you spend it will.

Most people think that they can be happier by doing things such as the following:

  • Buying a faster, sleeker, more luxurious car.
  • Moving to a bigger house.
  • Purchasing a better version of whatever it is that their neighbors just bought (and making sure that the neighbors see it).

Nonetheless, research conducted over the past ten years shows that this way of thinking is wrong. Buying these things won’t make you happier.

In their recently published book, titled “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending”, Dunn and Norton claim to have uncovered how you can buy happiness. They set forth five spending principles which they argue will transform your currency into “happy money”.

The five principles are the following:

  • Buy Experiences
  • Make It a Treat
  • Buy Time
  • Pay Now, Consume Later
  • Invest In Others

Each of these is explained, in detail, below.

Buy Experiences

Research has shown that buying experiences makes us happier than buying material goods. There are many reasons for this, and here are six of them:

  • People adapt quickly to possessions; therefore, the pleasure of acquisition is short lived. Experts call this the hedonic treadmill.
  • You “live” an experience and are therefore a part of it, while material goods are “out there”.
  • Experiences are often done with others, and this fosters connectivity and helps to strengthen your relationships with the people you share the experience with. As we know, social connections are a vital component of happiness.
  • We tend to be more engaged during an experience than we are when using an object. Think of the engagement that you feel when riding a roller coaster, as opposed to the engagement that you feel while watching your new screen TV.
  • You can relive an experience over and over again each time you remember it. We tend to savor experiences more than we do having bought something new, and we squeeze more enjoyment out of them.
  • Experiences help us to define who we are. Wouldn’t you rather be the person who hiked a Colorado Fourteener—a mountain in the state of Colorado which exceeds 14,000 feet–, instead of the person who owns a riding lawn mower?

In addition, it doesn’t have to be an expensive experience in order for you to derive a happiness benefit from it. Just having a coffee and scone with someone whose company you enjoy can do the trick.

Make It a Treat

The authors of “Happy Money” argue that abundance can be a negative and that you can have too much of a good thing. Dunn and Norton explain that “abundance, it turns out, is the enemy of appreciation. This is the sad reality of the human experience: in general, the more we’re exposed to something, the more its impact diminishes.”

For example, if you go out to dinner almost every night of the week, you get used to it; dining out begins to lose its appeal. However, if instead of going out to dinner all the time you save up to eat at a really nice restaurant once or twice a month, the novelty of the event will make you take notice and you will appreciate it more.

As a second example, in one experiment conducted by Dunn and Norton, some people were told to eat chocolate every day for a week. Others were asked to abstain from eating chocolate for a week. A week later both groups reconvened and everyone was given chocolate. Those who had given up chocolate for the previous week enjoyed it a lot more than those who had eaten chocolate every day.

Buy Time

You can use your money to buy happiness by buying time. That is, buying time to spend with the people who are important to you, being able to get more sleep, or having more time to spend on a hobby you enjoy. You can buy time by doing things such as the following:

  • Hiring someone to mow the lawn instead of doing it yourself.
  • Shopping at the corner store instead of driving half an hour to the supermarket, even if the corner store is more expensive.
  • Moving closer to work in order to shorten your commute time.
  • Buying a Roomba to do the vacuuming for you.

By buying time you’ll be gaining something called “time affluence”, and having time affluence makes us happy.

Pay Now, Consume Later

When you purchase a spa weekend a few weeks before you intend to go, or pay for a vacation you’ll be taking in a couple of months, you’re paying now and consuming later. Paying now and consuming later has two positive effects:

  • The first is that when you’re participating in the activity you won’t be as focused on the cost. Although it can be a bit painful to fork out money now for an experience which you’re going to enjoy later, it can feel like it’s free by the time you get to it.
  • The second is that, as Dunn and Norton write, “consuming later provides time for positive expectations to develop”. In fact, research shows that anticipation is a huge and often untapped source of happiness.

Invest in Others

The authors of “Happy Money” cite studies which show that spending money on others provides a bigger happiness boost than spending the money on yourself. In fact, Norton gave a Ted Talk on this very subject. In his talk Norton explains that he and his research team conducted an experiment in which they did the following:

  • They gathered a group of test subjects.
  • In the morning the researchers gave each of the test subjects an envelope with either $5 or $20 in it. In addition, some of the test subjects were told that by the evening they had to have spent the money on themselves, while others were told to spend it on someone else.
  • In the evening the researchers interviewed the test subjects. They discovered that those who had spent the money on themselves did not experience an increase in happiness. On the other hand, those who had spent the money on others did experience an increase in happiness.

Something else that the researchers observed from the experiment was that whether the test subjects had been given $5 or $20 was irrelevant. Once again, this shows that happiness levels are not determine by how much money you have, but by how you spend it.

In addition, keep in mind that if you’re going to donate money the biggest happiness boost comes from making a donation to something you can actually see or which will have a specific impact. For example, donating money to buy school supplies for the elementary school down the street, or donating money to Kiva to help a specific micro-entrepreneur achieve a specific objective.

Conclusion

The basic message of “Happy Money” is that instead of thinking exclusively of how to get more money, you should start thinking of how to get the most happiness out of the money that you already have. To this end, Dunn and Norton recommend that you do the following:

 “Before you spend that $5 as you usually would, stop to ask yourself: Is this happy money? Am I spending this money in the way that will give me the biggest happiness bang for my buck?”

Live your best life by applying the five principles described above and spending your money in ways that will lead to greater happiness.

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. How to Calculate Your Net Happiness
2. Three Happiness Tips From Eckhart Tolle
3. Srikumar Rao On Happiness – Four Exercises That Will Make You Happier
4. Harvard’s Most Popular Course: Tal Ben-Shahar on How to Be Happier

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

Just For Today

just for todayThere are many things we would probably conclude we could not possibly do, if we had to do them for a lifetime.  However, we could do them, just for today.  Instead of trying to “tackle your whole life problem”–to paraphrase Kenneth L. Holmes–, and being burdened by yesterday’s mistakes and tomorrow’s worries, try living one day at a time and focusing just on today.

Reiki is a Japanese healing technique which involves transferring energy–Ki , or the life force–through the palms of the hand.  (I’m a second degree Reiki practitioner.)  The Reiki ideals are the following:

  • Just for today, I will let go of anger.
  • Just for today, I will let go of worry.
  • Just for today, I will give thanks for my many blessings.
  • Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
  • Just for today, I will be kind to my neighbor and every living thing.

You would be amazed at the things you can do, just for today.

Things I Will Do, Just For Today

Here’s a list of things you could consider doing, just for today:

  • Just for today, I will be as cheerful as possible.
  • Just for today, I will read something that requires effort and concentration.
  • Just for today, I will pause when someone does something that upsets me, take a breath, and take a moment to decide how to best respond.
  • Just for today, I will plan out my day.
  • Just for today, I will not blame anyone else for my problems.
  • Just for today, I will not make excuses.
  • Just for today, I will take responsibility for everything that happens to me.
  • Just for today, I will take some action that will move me closer to my dreams.
  • Just for today, I will take twenty minutes for meditation, prayer, or reflection.
  • Just for today, I will take a risk and do something that’s outside my comfort zone.
  • Just for today, I will not speak harshly to anyone or raise my voice.
  • Just for today, I will look for ways to compliment others.
  • Just for today, I will be less critical and more tolerant of other people.
  • Just for today, I will place the best possible interpretation on the actions of others.
  • Just for today, I will act as if success were inevitable.
  • Just for today, I will refrain from labeling things as “good” or “bad”.
  • Just for today, I’m going to focus on the journey instead of the destination.
  • Just for today, I’m going to accept things as they are, instead of struggling with what is.
  • Just for today, I will do at least one activity mindfully, being fully present.
  • Just for today, I will exercise for half an hour.
  • Just for today, I will not put any junk food in my body.
  • Just for today, I will do something for someone else without any expectation of getting something in return.
  • Just for today, I will think of what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praise-worthy.  (This is a paraphrase of Philippians 4:8.  It is also in line with what James Allen says in his book, “As a Man Thinketh”.)
  • Just for today, I will be patient.
  • Just for today, I will give someone who is struggling a word of encouragement.
  • Just for today, I’ll try not to change anyone.
  • Just for today, I’ll remember that everyone is doing the best that they can.
  • Just for today, I will belittle no one.
  • Just for today, I will stop trying to control events and other people.
  • Just for today, I will be kind to myself.
  • Just for today, I will cherish this day as if it were my last.
  • Just for today I will not put off until tomorrow something that I can do today.
  • Just for today I will carve out an hour of my time and invest it  in my future.

What do you plan to do, just for today?

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. 49 Gratitude Quotes and A Poem of Thankfulness
2. 22 Gratitude Exercises That Will Change Your Life
3. How Gratitude Can Change Your Life – 365 Thank Yous
4. How to Create Positive Karma

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

thanksgiving quotes

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, here are 40 quotes of gratitude and thanksgiving.

1. “Gratitude means thankfulness, counting your blessings, noticing simple pleasures, and acknowledging everything that you receive. It means learning to live your life as if everything were a miracle, and being aware on a continuous basis of how much you’ve been given.” ~ Marelisa Fábrega

2. “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melody Beattie

3. “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

4. “And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.” ~ Ann Voskamp

5. “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ~ Epicurus

6. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

7. “I see the glass half full and thank God for what I have.” ~ Ana Monnar

8. “Gratitude and love are always multiplied when you give freely. It is an infinite source of contentment and prosperous energy.” ~ Jim Fargiano

9. “He who thanks but with the lips
Thanks but in part;
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.”
~ J.A. Shedd

10. “The unthankful heart… discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

11. “It is literally true, as the thankless say, that they have nothing to be thankful for. He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient. But a thankful heart hath a continual feast.” ~ W.J. Cameron

thanksgiving quotes

12. “To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.” ~ Johannes A. Gaertner

13. “God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.” ~ Izaak Walton

14. “Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.” ~ Robert Casper Lintner

15. “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” ~ Frederick Keonig

16. “You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.” ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

17. “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” –William Faulkner

18. “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” ~ Massieu

19. “If you never learned the lesson of thankfulness, begin now. Sum up your mercies; see what provision God has made for your happiness, what opportunities for your usefulness, and what advantages for your success.” ~ Ida S. Taylor

20. “Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture.” – Kak Sri


21. “Gratitude shifts your focus from what your life lacks to the abundance that is already present.” – Marelisa Fábrega

22. “In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and all I have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” ~ Henri Nouwen

23. “Clearly, one of the major obstacles to our experience of gratitude is the habit we have of sleepwalking through life. The truth is that we are never lacking for blessings in our lives, but we are often lacking in awareness and recognition of them.” ~ Rev. Diane Berke, Ph.D

24. “In the moments we are awake to the wonder of simply being alive, gratitude flows, no matter our circumstances.” ~ M.J. Ryan

25. “Each day, each season, each cycle offers something of beauty. Let us notice and give thanks.” – Diane Mariechild

26. “The focus of Thanksgiving should be a reflection of how our lives have been made so much more comfortable by the sacrifices of those who have come before us.” ~ Emmons

27. “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
~ G.K. Chesterton

28. “I find that the more willing I am to be grateful for the small things in life, the bigger stuff just seems to show up from unexpected sources, and I am constantly looking forward to each day with all the surprises that keep coming my way!” ~ Louise L. Hay

29. “Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you’ll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you’ll find that you have more of it.” ~ Ralph Marston

30. “Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don’t unravel.” ~ Author Unknown

thanksgiving quotes

31. “Get down on your knees and thank God you’re still on your feet.”  ~ Unknown

32. “[The most fortunate are those who] have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.” – Abraham Maslow

33. An Irish Blessing:

“Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Love your neighbor as much as yourself.”

34. “God smiles when we praise and thank Him continually. Few things feel better than receiving heartfelt praise and appreciation from someone else. God loves it, too. An amazing thing happens when we offer praise and thanksgiving to God. When we give God enjoyment, our own hearts are filled with joy.” ~ William Law

35. “Begin with thanking Him for some little thing, and then go on, day by day, adding to your subjects of praise; thus you will find their numbers grow wonderfully; and, in the same proportion, will your subjects of murmuring and complaining diminish, until you see in everything some cause for thanksgiving. If you cannot begin with anything positive, begin with something negative. If your whole lot seems only filled with causes for discontent, at any rate there is some trial that has not been appointed you; and you may thank God for its being withheld from you. It is certain that the more you try to praise, the more you will see how your path and your lying down are beset with mercies, and that the God of love is ever watching to do you good.” ~ Priscilla Maurice

36. “Cultivate a thankful spirit! It will be to thee a perpetual feast. There is, or ought to be, with us no such thing as small mercies; all are great, because the least are undeserved. Indeed a really thankful heart will extract motive for gratitude from everything, making the most even of scanty blessings.” [John Ross Macduff, The Words and Mind of Jesus, p.25].

37. “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” ~ William Arthur Ward

38. “When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep?” ~ George Canning

39. “A basic law: the more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

40. “Gratitude is heaven itself.” ~ William Blake

Conclusion

We all know the importance of giving thanks each day. I’ve put together a PDF with 55 Gratitude Questions you scan through each day to help trigger your memory as you count your blessings for the day. It’s free, and you can get it below.

Here are more posts on gratitude that you’ll love:

system banner

banner make it happen

guidebook of dreams banner how to be creative banner

Buddhist path to happinessThe message of the Buddha is traditionally known as the Four Noble Truths.  The last of these four truths sets out eight steps to happiness, which are: skillful understanding, skillful thinking, skillful speech, skillful action, skillful livelihood, skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration.

Although skillful mindfulness is one of the eight steps, it also underlies each of the other steps. In other words, bringing mindful awareness to every aspect of your daily life is a key component of happiness.

Below you’ll find tips and techniques offered by three different Buddhist monks to help you lead a more mindful, and ultimately a happier, life.

Matthieu Ricard: Well-Being Is a Deep Sense of Serenity and Fulfillment

Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard was born in Paris.  The son of a renowned French philosopher, he grew up surrounded by the great thinkers and personalities of the time.  Ricard is the author of the book “Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill”. He has devoted his life to trying to answer these two questions:

  • “What is happiness?”, and
  • “How can we all get some?”

Ricard’s conclusion is that we can train our minds in habits of happiness.

In his TED.com talk, Ricard explains that instead of trying to define “happiness”, we should call it well-being. In addition, well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation; it’s a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. It’s a state that pervades and underlies all other emotional states–all the joys and sorrows that come one’s way. Well-being is a state of being; it’s not just a fleeting emotion.

Ricard adds that very often in our quest for happiness we look outside. We think that if we could gather this and that, then we would be happy. However, our control over the outer world is limited, temporary, and often illusory. So, what if one of the things that we think we need in order to be happy is missing? Then it all collapses.

If we look inside, instead of looking outside of ourselves, we realize that it’s the mind that translates the outer conditions into happiness or suffering. Look at the two following types of people:

  • There are people who are always complaining and who always focus on the negative aspects of a situation.
  • There are people who even under very difficult outer circumstances manage to keep their inner serenity, inner strength and inner freedom.

According to Ricard, it all comes down to training the mind, and the best way to train the mind is through meditation.

Henepola Gunaratana: Our Happiness Is a Result of Our Actions

Henepola Gunaratana–a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk–explains in his book “Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness” that the Buddha’s path is grounded in common sense and in careful observation of reality.

The Buddha understood that if we looked carefully at our lives we would realize that the choices we make lead to either happiness or unhappiness. And once we understand this principle thoroughly, we will be able to make good choices, because we want to be happy.

Gunaratana adds the following: “The basis of Buddhist morality is that acting in unskillful ways leads to unhappy results, and acting in skillful ways leads to happy results. This simple principle of cause and effect is an aspect of what Buddhists call kamma (or karma).”

Once we understand that everything we think, say, or do is a cause, which will inevitably lead to some effect, we will naturally want to think, say, and do things which will lead to positive results.  At the same time, we will avoid having thoughts, saying things, and doing things that will lead to negative results. Taking this approach will allow us to focus our attention on making choices that will lead to a happier life.

The Buddha pointed to ten actions which are always unskillful because they inevitably lead to suffering for both the doer and the recipient. These ten actions are the following:

  • Killing
  • Stealing
  • Sexual misconduct
  • Lying
  • Malicious words
  • Harsh language
  • Useless talk
  • Covetousness
  • Ill will
  • Wrong view of the nature of reality

In addition, any action that comes from a mind that is filled with greed, hatred, or delusion leads to suffering and is therefore unskillful or wrong.

In order to act wrongfully, you have to be lying to yourself about cause and effect. That is, you’re acting against the basic truth that actions have consequences. If you train yourself to be mindful of what you do, and ask yourself whether what you’re about to do is likely to lead to positive or negative results, you’ll be heading in the right direction.  You’ll be heading toward happiness.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Happiness is Being at Peace In the Present Moment

Vietnamese Thich Nhat Hanh is the first Buddhist monk I ever read and he still remains my favorite (yes, I have a favorite Buddhist monk).  In his book, “Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life” he explains that we can breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available.

In his book Thich Nhat Hanh offers a variety of simple, very accessible techniques in order to help us remember that happiness is all around us. One of the things he recommends is that you hang up a reminder in your room so that the first thing you do as soon as you wake up each morning is smile. This reminder can be anything:

  • A painting;
  • A flower;
  • A leaf;
  • An inspiring quote, and so on.

Smiling will help you to approach the day with gentleness and understanding. Thich Nhat Hanh adds that a friend once wrote the following short poem:

“I have lost my smile,
but don’t worry,
the dandelion has it.”

The message in the poem is that even if you’ve momentarily lost your smile, as long as you realize that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not so bad. That is, even if something has gone wrong in your life, there’s always something positive that you can choose to focus on.

Of course, there’s also Thich Nhat Hanh’s famous breathing exercise. It goes as follows:

  • Breath in while reciting: “Breathing in, I calm my body.”
  • Then, breathe out while saying, “Breathing out, I smile.”
  • Do this three times.

And that’s it: the secret to peace and happiness is breathing and smiling.  After all, both peace and happiness already reside inside of you. You just have to stop getting in the way and allow them to rise to the surface.

Conclusion

In order to be happy, look for happiness within, instead of seeking it outside of yourself; analyze the consequences of your thoughts, words, and actions; and focus on the happiness and abundance that is all around you. Follow the Buddhist path to happiness, and live your best life.

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. 23 Wise Ways to Increase Your Happiness
2. How to Calculate Your Net Happiness
3. Harvard’s Most Popular Course: Tal Ben-Shahar On How to Be Happier
4. 37 Tidbits of Higher Consciousness

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

15 minutesFifteen minutes isn’t much time, right? Wrong. There are lots of things you can get done in 15 minutes. Below you’ll find 15 extremely useful things you can do in 15 minutes.

1. Expand Your Network. Patti Rowlson recommends that if you have fifteen minutes to spare you use that time to expand your network. She indicates that you should do the following:

  • Grab all of the business cards you’ve been given at events or that you’ve gathered as you come into contact with others throughout the day.
  • Look for these people on LinkedIn and add them to your network.
  • Delete the non-personal ‘note’ that LinkedIn sends out with each invitation to connect and add something personal.

Now you can network on LinkedIn with the people from whom you’ve collected business cards.

2. Get Fit. Get fit in fifteen minutes with CrossFit. Crossfit is a hard-core, military-style workout that uses equipment such as medicine balls, kettlebells, sandbags and barbells and involves pushing, pulling, and squatting. Although the workouts are short, they’re tough and effective. Expect to sweat buckets.

3. Declutter. Marla Cilley is the Fly Lady. She writes a blog—FlyLady.net–filled with advice to help people with housekeeping. The core of her organizational technique is the idea that you can conquer clutter in just fifteen minutes a day. She offers five tools to help you do this, including the 27-Fling Boogie, the Hot-Spot Fire Drill, and the Five Minute Room Rescue.

4. Learn Something New. Watch an educational video streaming at TED.com, Academic Earth, or Khan Academy.

5. Get a Harvard-Quality Liberal Education. This is something I’ve already written about on this blog: you can get a Harvard Quality Liberal Education in just fifteen minutes a day.

Charles W. Eliot was the president of Harvard University for forty years, from 1869 to 1909. He believed  that the elements of a liberal education could be obtained in one year by spending 15 minutes a day reading from a collection of books that could fit on a five-foot shelf.

Eliot made good on his statement and he put together “the Harvard Classics”, which contain what Eliot considered to be the world’s most important written legacies. He also created a plan so that the most important segments of these works could be read by the average person in a year by reading for fifteen minutes a day.

6. Read the Bible. I found a plan online for reading the Bible from cover to cover in one year by reading for fifteen minutes a day. Here it is.

7. Have “You” Time. For fifteen minutes do something just for you which raises your energy level instead of draining your energy away. This can be reading a great novel, writing in your journal, or giving yourself a dance break.

8. Strengthen Your Relationships. If you have an extra fifteen minutes use them  to email a friend or call your sister. Better yet, call your grandmother (grandmothers love it when you call them). You can also use the fifteen minutes to arrange a coffee or lunch meeting with someone you’ve been meaning to reconnect with.

9. Fix Something That’s Broken. Fifteen minutes is enough time to fix something that’s broken, or at least contact someone who can fix it. Here are two examples:

  • You can change the light bulb in the closet that burned out a week ago; or
  • Sew on that button that came loose on your favorite jacket.

If you’ve been meaning to call a plumber to fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen sink, use the fifteen minutes to set up an appointment that will work well with your schedule.

10. Start Writing a Blog Post. You might not be able to write a blog post in fifteen minutes, but you can at least get started. Then, later when you have more time, it will be easier to finish something you’ve already started than it would be to start from scratch.

11. Do Some Honest Introspection. Spend fifteen minutes honestly evaluating your career, your work –life balance, your relationships, and the progress that you’re making on achieving your goals.  Ask yourself questions such as the following:

  • Are you heading in the right direction?
  • Is there any area of your life that you’ve been neglecting?
  • Are you getting everything you need?

12. Update Your Resume. Adam Baker from the blog “Man v. Debt” indicates that if you find yourself with fifteen extra minutes you should use that time to update your résumé. Do things like the following:

  • Make sure that your job history is up to date.
  • Read over your job descriptions and see if you can improve how you describe your job responsibilities and achievements.
  • Update your references.

Having an updated résumé on hand will allow you to take advantage of any sudden opportunities that may present themselves.

13. Move a Goal Forward. Joan Bolker is the author of “Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day”. She admits that she used that title because it’s catchy, and that it’s unlikely that you’ll actually finish a dissertation at that speed. However, she adds that a mere fifteen minutes a day is better than not working on your dissertation at all.

Use that same advice on any goal that you’ve set for yourself. If you can work on your goal for more than fifteen minutes a day, that would be ideal. But if all you have are fifteen minutes, put that time to use in order to move your goal along. Making slow progress is always better than making no progress at all.

14. Take a Power Nap. Sara C. Mednick, PhD, sleep expert and author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life says the following about power naps:

“You can get incredible benefits from 15 to 20 minutes of napping. You reset the system and get a burst of alertness and increased motor performance. That’s what most people really need to stave off sleepiness and get an energy boost.”

So if you find yourself with fifteen minutes on your hands, use them to take a nap.

15. Meditate. The benefits of meditation have been well documented: stress relief; rejuvenation; better sleep; improved memory and concentration; and so on. Fifteen minutes of meditation a day can do wonders.

Conclusion

You can make great improvements to your life by using the scraps of time: fifteen minutes left over here, and fifteen minutes found over there. The next time you find yourself with an extra fifteen minutes, look over the points above and put the time to good use.

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. An 18 Minute Plan That Will make Your Productivity Soar
2. Productivity Tip: Think Small
3. The One-Hour-A-Day Formula
4. Seven Ways to Overcome Inertia and Get Yourself Unstuck

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

defeat procrastinationProcrastination is not the cause of your inability to get things done. Instead, it masks a deeper underlying problem.

The underlying problem can be any of the following: low self-esteem; perfectionism; fear of failure; ineffective goal-setting; imbalance between work and play; and so on.

Therefore, if you want to stop procrastinating you need to uncover what your underlying problem is, and address it.  Fortunately, there are many ways to do this. Below you’ll discover 12 tips for defeating procrastination and gearing up for action.

1. Listen to the Nike ad and “Just Do It”.  A lot of people have a tendency to get stuck in the preparation or planning stage of a project. While it’s definitely a good idea to plan, there comes a point at which you’re just avoiding the vital step of executing the plan in favor of further “preparation”.  In order to stop doing this, decide how much time you’re going to devote to a project, and then do the following:

  • Apply 25% of the allotted time to planning;
  • Apply 50% of the allotted time to executing your plan;
  • Apply 25% of the allotted time to analyzing the feedback that you receive after executing your plan, and then tweaking your original plan accordingly.

When the first 25% of your time is up, stop planning and just do it.

2. Stop acting like Chicken Little. One of the reasons why people procrastinate is because they give so much importance to the project that they need to work on that they scare themselves into inaction. Stop telling yourself the following:

  • My career or the future of my business depends on doing this well.
  • If I fail at this, it’s all over.
  • Whether or not I will succeed in life hinges on the outcome of this one project.

Stop telling yourself that the sky is falling. Panic mode is a highly unresourceful state to put yourself in. Instead, put things in their proper perspective. This will make it much easier for you to act and get things done.

3. Take a lesson from the Amish. Striving for perfection is almost guaranteed to lead to procrastination. After all, perfection is unattainable, so if your choices are to either do something perfectly or not do it at all, you’ll almost certainly end up not doing it.

The Amish purposefully plan for a mistake in their quilts as an acknowledgement that only God is perfect. They call the block in which they add a mistake the “humility block”. So, the next time that you find yourself thinking that you have to carry out a task perfectly, remind yourself that humility is a virtue. Acknowledge that you will make mistakes, and that this is OK.

4. Do things only because you choose to. Feeling like we’re being forced to do something makes our inner child rebel. If your spouse asks you to take out the garbage, your inner child is likely to think, “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me”, and make a grab for the TV control remote.

You can defeat this cause of procrastination by only doing things you choose to do. When your spouse asks you to take out the garbage, ask yourself whether or not you choose to do so. At this point you might tell yourself that taking out the garbage would make your spouse happy, and since their happiness is important to you, you choose to do so. Or you might choose not to do so and make your spouse unhappy. It’s up to you.

5. Ask yourself if you’re the best person for the task. You might not be the best person to perform the task that needs to be done. Would it be quicker and more efficient to hire someone else to do it? Is this something that you should be delegating to one of your employees? Is this a task that one of your children could take care of?

Sometimes the best way to stop procrastinating on a task is to have someone else do it.

6. Use the STING approach. STING is a mnemonic device which will help you to defeat procrastination.  The five letters stand for the following:

  • Select One Task
  • Time Yourself
  • Ignore Everything Else
  • No Breaks
  • Give Yourself a Reward

As an illustration, you might select “write article for blog” as the task that you’re going to work on. In addition, you’re going to give yourself twenty-five minutes to work on it. Do the following:

  • Set a timer for twenty-five minutes during which you’re going to work exclusively on the task of writing a blog post.
  • Clear away all distractions.
  • Start the timer and work on your article for twenty-five minutes without taking any breaks or allowing for interruptions.
  • When the timer rings go get yourself a cup of flavored coffee, sit back and close your eyes for five minutes, or reward yourself in some other way.

Take an index card, write the word “STING” on it, and place it in a prominent place where you’ll be sure not to miss it. Then, whenever there’s an important task that you’re procrastinating on, take a look at your index card and follow the STING method.

7. Stop waiting for your mood to catch up to your brain.  Writers are often told not to wait for inspiration in order to get started writing. That is, in order to achieve their goal of writing a novel they have to set aside some time each day to write and then get to it, whether they feel inspired or not.

This same advice applies to every profession and to any project that you may be working on. Instead of waiting until you feel like working on a project in order to get started, get to work on it regardless of the mood you’re in. You may even be pleasantly surprised to discover that once you get to work, your mood improves.

8. Strive for play-work balance. At times you may feel as if there are two different people living in your head. One of these people is self-disciplined and responsible and wants to get things done. The other one is carefree and fun-loving and wants to go out and play.

You may think that the secret to defeating procrastination is to keep the fun-loving part of you bound and locked up. However, that’s the wrong approach. If the needs of this part of you aren’t being met, it will find ways to sabotage you and prevent the responsible part of you from getting any work done.

Therefore, you need to cater to both parts of you. Schedule time for work, and schedule time for play. If the part of you that wants to have fun knows that after working all morning long on that important project it will get to have some fun in the afternoon, it’s much more likely to behave itself in the morning and allow the responsible side of you to get to work.

9. Make your goals as specific as possible. Vague goals lead to inaction. After all, if you don’t know what to do, how can you be expected to act? For example, saying “My goal is to lose weight” is a bad way to set a goal. The way in which you’ve worded your goal doesn’t tell you what to do.

Instead, you should set a goal like the following: “My goal is to lose ten pounds in the next ten weeks by joining Jenny Craig and getting up an hour earlier than usual so that I can walk outside for 60 minutes before going to work.” Now you know what to do, so you’re more likely to do it.

10.  Create a chain, and don’t break the chain. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld once revealed during an interview that he works on his comedy every day. When he’s done working for the day, he puts an “X” on his calendar. Then, he makes sure not to break the chain of “Xs”.

Every day that you take the action necessary to move you closer toward the achievement of a goal that you’ve set for yourself, put an “X” up on your calendar. When procrastination tries to creep in and prevent you from taking action on any particular day, just look at your calendar filled with “Xs”. Not wanting to break the chain is very likely to give you the necessary motivation to get up and take action.

11. Do nothing. In the book “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength”, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney recommend the “do nothing” approach to overcoming procrastination. That is, when you have a task that you need to work on, make the alternative to working on that task to do nothing.

For example, let’s say that you’ve set aside an hour each day for the purpose of writing articles for your blog. During that hour you only have two options:

  • Work on writing an article.
  • Sit there and do nothing.

A lot of the time we procrastinate on an important project by working on something else.  The “do nothing” approach puts an end to that. When your options are to either stare up at the ceiling or work on your blog posts, chances are high you’ll get those articles written.

12. Build momentum. Commit to doing something–however small–every day that will move you closer to the achievement of your goal. Just keep taking one small step after the other. Each step that you take will make taking the next step easier.

Conclusion

Procrastination is a major obstacle to achieving your goals and living your best life. Begin applying the tips explained above right away so that you can defeat procrastination and begin gearing up for action. A year from now you’ll be glad you did.

system banner

banner make it happen

banner book of possibilities

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

Related Posts:

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

the yin and yang of creativityCreativity is about putting on your faded overalls, rolling up your sleeves, and punching in each day to do your work. And yet it’s also about pausing, taking breaks, and distracting yourself with tasks that are completely unrelated to your work.

Being creative is about going on excursions to find new ideas and refusing to censor or criticize anything that pops into your mind. However, later you need to sift through your bounty and judge each idea carefully to determine which ones merit doing the work necessary to turn them into reality.

In addition, creativity is about opening your mind, and then constraining it.

This is the yin and yang of creativity. There’s much more on this below.

Creativity Involves Concentrated Effort and Letting Go

Twyla Tharp, one of America’s greatest choreographers, writes about the creative process in her book, “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”. She claims that art is not inspiration; instead, it’s hard work. That is, it’s not a gift from the gods given to select individuals, but the product of preparation and effort. For her, discipline is essential for the flourishing of one’s creativity.

Creativity as work involves writing through writer’s block, making time for your art even when you don’t feel inspired, and dancing even when you don’t feel the music. It’s about scheduling a regular time to practice your craft even when you’re not feeling creative.  Stephen King once said the following:

“My muse may visit. She may not. The trick is to be there waiting if she does.”

In addition, creativity is not about doing things halfway, but about immersing yourself completely in your work. You have to read everything you can on your subject matter; set up a daily work routine and stick to it religiously; refuse to be interrupted; and maintain a laser-like focus on your work.

At the same time, although discipline, focus, and hard work are essential to creativity, letting go is also an important part of the creative process.  Hemingway was a regular swimmer and is said to have gotten some of his best ideas while going for a swim.  In a similar vein, Julia Cameron writes in her book, “The Artist’s Way”, that Steven Spielberg claims some of his best ideas come while driving on freeways.

In my post, “Ray Bradbury’s Best Writing Advice“, I wrote about Bradbury’s advice to take breaks:

“The time we have alone, the time we have in walking, the time we have in riding a bicycle, is the most important time for a writer. Escaping from the typewriter is part of the creative process. You have to give the subconscious time to think. Real thinking always occurs at the subconscious level.”

The first aspect of the yin and yang of creativity is the following: work hard, and then let go.

The Creative Process Requires Whole-Brain Thinking

While Yang is associated with the left brain hemisphere, yin is associated with the right side of the brain. The creative process requires whole-brain thinking. That is, it involves both the nonlinear, free association, lateral thinking of the right brain hemisphere to come up with ideas, and the linear, sequential, analytical thinking of the left brain hemisphere to see those ideas through to fruition.

Creative ideas are largely the result of being able to take two separate elements and combining them into something new.  Without the right brain’s ability to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects, areas, or concepts, this process would not be possible.  At the same time, without the left brain’s ability to plan, analyze, and execute, new ideas would never live to see the light of day.

The second aspect of the yin and yang of creativity is the following: yin dreams up ideas, and then yang builds a frame around them.

Use Both Expansive and Constraining Creativity Techniques

There are two basic types of creativity techniques:

  • Expansive Creativity Techniques
  • Constraining Creativity Techniques

Expansive creativity techniques are intended to “open your mind” and encourage “free thinking”, such as idea generation and brainstorming sessions.  For example, you can begin a creativity session by releasing all of the preconceived ideas you have about a topic and questioning all of your assumptions. In addition, you can tell yourself that you have to come up with at least 100 ways to solve a problem.

Constraining creativity techniques, on the other hand, create constraints and force your mind to focus. Here are some examples:

  • Setting deadlines;
  • Forcing associations between the problem and a random word;
  • Setting budgetary or spatial constraints, and so on.

The third aspect of the yin and yang of creativity is the following: you can be more creative both by being more expansive and by setting limits.

Conclusion

Yin and yang is about balance and harmony. Yang is forceful, while yin is receptive; yang constructs and implements, while yin is imaginative and poetic; yang pushes upward, while yin pulls back down . By using this same concept of ebb and flow in your creative life, you’ll be better able to both conceive and give shape to your creative ideas.

“Yang is as the day, turning into night, and yin the night preceding the day; the one is the force that drives the waves of the ocean forward, the other the force that draws them back so that they may go forward again.”

–”Twin Souls,” by Patricia Joudry and Maurie D. Pressman

Be more creative by understanding and applying the yin and yang of creativity.

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. 25 Ways to Be More Creative
2. Nine Creativity-Sparking Tips
3. Stuck for An Idea? Try SCAMPER
4. The Night Before Christmas and Stealing Like An Artist

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

how to make friendsIn order to be happy and to get what you want from life, you need to be able to get along with others.  Making friends and forming connections with other people is one of the most important life skills you can develop.

Below you’ll discover five ways to make friends and get along with others.

1. Be interested in other people. Dale Carnegie, author of the greatest book ever written on building positive relationships with others–“How to Win Friends and Influence People”–, wrote the following:

  • “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
  • “To be interesting, be interested.”

I recently came across a show called “Parks and Recreation”, which is about the parks department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. The main character of the series, Leslie Knope, is a mid-level bureaucrat. Everyone loves her, including her difficult boss, Ron Swanson.  The reason that she gets such a positive response from others is because she’s a good, loyal friend and she shows interest in others.

In one episode of the show, Ron introduces Leslie to a woman he’s been dating for a while: Diane. When Leslie meets Diane she tells her how much she’s been looking forward to meeting her, gives her a genuine smile, and says the following:

“So, Diane, tell me everything about yourself . . . your kids, your hobbies. What are your five biggest hopes, dreams, fears, and regrets?”

Of course, that’s an exaggeration. But you get the point: in order to get along with others, be genuinely interested in them.

2. Focus on what other people want. Here’s another quote from Dale Carnegie:

“I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to have that?’ Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?”

In another episode of “Parks and Recreation”, Leslie discovers when Ron’s birthday is (which he had redacted from all government documents so that no one would know). Ron is an extremely private “manly” man who likes to hunt and fish, play jazz, eat meat, and make things out of wood and leather. He’s worried that Leslie is going to throw him a surprise party and invite the whole town (which is exactly the kind of thing that he hates).

However, on the day of his birthday Leslie leads Ron to a room that’s empty, except for a small table, a comfortable leather chair, and a large TV. There’s a plate on the table with a huge juicy steak on it, as well as a bottle of Scotch. The movie The Bridge on the River Kwai —one of Ron’s favorite moviesis playing on the TV. This was the ultimate Ron Swanson affair.

When Ron tells Leslie that he was afraid that she was going to throw him an elaborate birthday party like she had done for her best friend–Ann–filled with balloons, loud music, dancing, and lots of people, Leslie says the following: “Why would I do that? You’re not Ann. You’re Ron.”

In order to connect with others ask yourself, “What are their preferences?” and “What makes them tick?” Focus on what they want.

3. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. The more perfect you pretend to be, the more people will want to be around you, right? No, that’s wrong. People prefer to be with those who are vulnerable. Vulnerability means that you show up and you allow yourself to be seen for who you really are, warts and all. And that takes courage.

Dr. Brené Brown is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. She explains the following:

  • People connect more with those who have weaknesses.
  • It’s OK to say, “I don’t have all the answers”.
  • Look at yourself in all your weirdness and with all your strange quirks and realize that you’re worthy of acceptance just as you are.

4. Demonstrate fellowship. We’ve probably all read the verse found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (it’s for everyone, not just religious people). It says the following:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

This verse is a favorite at weddings, so most people think that it refers to romantic love. However, the verse is much more inclusive; it’s about fellowship.

There’s a short book called “The Greatest Thing in the World”, by Henry Drummond. The book contains Drummond’s analysis of the verse I quoted above from Corinthians. As I was looking through the comments about this book on Amazon, I found the following gem:

“Never having been trained in the social graces, I always felt like a bit of a klutz in social settings such as dinner parties and even simple get-togethers. Drummond makes the point that if you have love – if you can feel and express love – you have it all. So instead of focusing on which fork to use for the shrimp and salad, I started focusing on how much God loves me and everyone around me. And that little simple truth enabled me to feel more at ease in every circumstance and in every situation.”

Of course, it’s a good idea to be well-versed in the social graces and niceties. However, what’s truly important in getting along with others is demonstrating fellowship. You demonstrate fellowship by doing the following:

  • Look for ways to make others feel at ease.
  • Be kind.
  • Be patient and be slow to anger; know that everyone is doing the best that they can.
  • Feel empathy towards others. After all, at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We want to be happy, we want to feel validated and accepted, and we want to feel loved.
  • Keep focusing on the fact that we’re all in the same boat; we’re in this together.

5. Follow the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule, as any kid could tell you, is that you should treat others as you want them to treat you. Sit down and ask yourself how you want others to treat you.

  • Do you want people to recognize your achievements?
  • Do you want people to ask about your day and to show genuine interest in your response?
  • Do you want people to listen to you when you have a problem?
  • Do you want people to lend you a helping hand when you’re feeling overwhelmed?

If so, then you need to get out there and start doing these things for other people. Here’s the last Dale Carnegie quote I’m going to share with you in this post: “Winning friends begins with friendliness.” In order to make friends, be a friend.  That is, follow the Golden Rule.

Conclusion

In order to live your best life you need to be able to connect and get along with others. The five tips described above are a good place to start.

banner book of possibilities

banner make it happen

banner bucket list

banner guidebook of dreams

banner tips for writers

Related Posts:

1. 42 Writing Tips From J.A. Konrath
2. 24 More Fabulous Tips For Writers, From Writers
3. A Plethora of Writing Prompts for Creative Writing and Journaling
4. Ray Bradbury’s Best Writing Advice
5. 57 Tips For Writers, From Writers

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

write a novel in 30 days

You don’t need years to write a novel; you just need 30 days.

Although the challenge of writing a novel in 30 days can be taken up at any moment, most people choose to do so during the month of November. After all, that’s when National Novel Writing Month– or NaNoWriMo– takes place.

Every year during the month of November, tens of thousands of people take up the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. It’s the perfect opportunity for would-be novelists to nurture their creative selves. In this post you’ll discover how to write a novel in 30 days. Some of the things you’ll need to keep in mind while writing your novel are the following:

  • Genre
  • Setting
  • Characters
  • Conflict
  • Theme
  • Plot
  • Scenes
  • Point of View

Each of these is explained below.

Decide On a Genre For Your Novel

Literary genre is a term used to group together works that share similar characters, settings, and themes. The basic genres are the following:

  • Action-Adventure: An example of an action-adventure novel is “The Ninth Orphan”, the first book in “The Orphan Trilogy”. The book tells the story of Sebastian, the ninth of twenty-three children who were raised to become elite members of a spy agency.
  • Mystery: Detective stories such as those written by Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Raymond Chandler are great examples of mysteries.
  • Fantasy: The best examples of the fantasy genre are “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “A Song of Fire and Ice”, and “The Lord of the Rings”.
  • Horror: Stephen King’s novels–such as “The Shining” and “Cujo”–are fantastic examples of the horror literary genre.
  • Historical Fiction: Philippa Gregory’s novels are good examples of historical fiction. Most of her novels are set in the Tudor period, including her best known work: “The Other Boleyn Girl”.
  • Literary Fiction: This genre includes novels of recognized literary merit, such as “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
  • Romance: Examples of the romance genre include “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, the “Twilight Series”, and books by Nicholas Sparks, such as “The Notebook”.
  • Science-Fiction: Two great examples of the science fiction genre are “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams and “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov.
  • Legal Thriller: John Grisham–the author of bestsellers such as “The Firm” and “The Pelican Brief”–is the king of the legal thriller.
  • Crime Fiction: An example of the crime fiction genre is “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and the other two books of the “Millennium Trilogy” by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.

The best advice in choosing a genre is to write the type of novel that you like to read. Then, read everything that you can in that genre in order to become familiar with its rules.

Summary of the Major Elements of the Novel

Here’s a brief summary of the major elements of the novel:

  • Theme is the “why.” It’s the author’s message and one of the reasons why the author wrote the story or novel.
  • Setting is the “where” and ‘when” of the story or novel.
  • Characters are the “who.”
  • Conflict is the “what.”  That is, what is the problem?
  • Plot is the “how.” The plot develops and then eventually resolves the conflict.

Theme

The theme is the central message of the novel which is conveyed through the characters and circumstances; it’s the statement you want to make about the human condition. In addition, it’s the unifying element for everything you put in your plot. Here’s an example:

  • The theme of Shakespeare’s “Othello” is betrayal. The setting for “Othello” is a coastal city on the island of Cyprus in the late 1400s. Othello is a Venetian who is acting as Governor of Cyprus. He wrongly believes that his wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful to him. Overcome with rage and jealousy, he strangles her. After her death Othello learns that he was deceived into believing that Desdemona was unfaithful by a man whom he trusted, and he kills himself in grief.

Setting: When and Where

wuthering heightsSetting is the background in which the story takes place. Basically, it’s the when and where, but it can also include lifestyle:

(a) Place: This is the geographical location of the story; it’s the physical environment. Throughout the novel, the story may move from one place to another. Consider creating a map that shows where all the action will take place. This will help you gauge distances and figure the length of time necessary to move your characters from one place to another.

(b) Time: First, this refers to the period of history. Your story could be set in the past, it could be a contemporary novel, or it could even be set in the future. You have to decide at what point in time the story opens and when it will end.  When describing the setting you may want to specify the season, month, and even the time of day. Make a timeline for the events of the novel.

(c) Lifestyle: This refers to the daily life of the characters. If a story takes place in a particular historical period, the lifestyle of the characters–for example, New York’s high society during the Gilded Age–is part of the setting.

As an example of setting, “Wuthering Heights”–Emily Brontë’s only novel–takes place in the late 1700′s and early 1800′s. All the action is set in or around two neighboring houses on the harsh and desolate Yorkshire Moors of Northern England: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

These two manor houses are just four miles apart, but they could not be more different in terms of the conditions that exist in each house and the people who inhabit them. Emily Brontë grew up in the Yorkshire Moors, and so her depiction of it is very accurate. The setting can help create the mood of your novel.

Creating Character Profiles

You’re going to need the following characters:

  • The Protagonist: This is the hero of your story; that is, the character who plays the starring role.
  • The Antagonist: This is the character who is standing in the way of your protagonist achieving his or her goal.
  • Supporting Characters: These are the characters who play a secondary role in the story.

Some authors prefer to come up with the basics of their characters and then simply allow their characters to reveal themselves as the story moves along. However, many experienced writers recommend that would-be authors create character profiles, at least of their main characters. This helps in bringing the characters to life, and in providing continuity throughout the story.

Some of the things you may want to jot down about your characters are the following:

  • Age
  • Appearance
  • Occupation
  • Income
  • Education
  • Marital status
  • Recent relationships
  • Children/siblings
  • Likes and dislikes
  • Favorite music
  • Hobbies
  • Strengths and weaknesses
  • Special characteristics (movement, speech, laugh, and so on)
  • Favorite sayings
  • Idiosyncrasies
  • Birth date/ Sign of the Zodiac
  • Nickname

A good rule of thumb is that the protagonist will confront the thing he fears the most, and overcome it, in order to win the thing he desires the most.

Use Archetypes as Blueprints for Your Characters

Victoria Schmidt argues in her book “45 Master Characters” that archetypes are blueprints for building well-defined characters, be they heroes, villains, or supporting characters. As Schmidt explains: “Each archetype has her own set of motivations, fears and cares that move her as well as the plot forward.” Archetypes are the foundation your characters will stand on.

The Greek gods and goddesses represent the basic archetypes. Each god or goddess has both a positive and a negative aspect.

Creating Female Heroes and Villains:

  • Aphrodite – The Seductive Muse and The Femme Fatale
  • Artemis – The Amazon and The Gorgon
  • Athena – The Father’s Daughter and the Backstabber
  • Demeter – The Nurturer and The Over-controlling Mother
  • Hera – The Matriarch and the Scorned Woman
  • Hestia – The Mystic and the Betrayer
  • Isis – The Female Messiah and the Destroyer
  • Persephone – The Maiden and the Troubled Teen

Creating Male Heroes and Villains:

  • Apollo – The Businessman and the Traitor
  • Ares – The Protector and the Gladiator
  • Hades – The Recluse and the Warlock
  • Hermes – The Fool and the Derelict
  • Dionysus – The Woman’s Man and the Seducer
  • Osiris – The Male Messiah and the Punisher
  • Poseidon – The Artist and the Abuser
  • Zeus – The King and the Dictator

Beware that stereotypes aren’t the same thing as archetypes. Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations which will limit your character.

Six More Things You Can Do

Six more things you can do when it comes to creating your characters are the following:

  1. Write what a typical day looks like for your character.
  2. Create your character’s back-story; even if you never include a word of the back-story in your novel, if you know your character’s past you’ll be able to make him or her more convincing to the reader.
  3. Create a profile for each of your characters similar to those of popular social networks such as Twitter or Facebook.
  4. Draw a family tree for the character.
  5. Make a sketch of your character so that you can get a better idea of what they look like.
  6. Research your character’s job or career if it’s different from your own.

Character Profile Worksheets

Here are some links where you’ll find worksheets to help you create character profiles:

The Plot: The Story and Why It’s Interesting

The plot is what happens in the novel and why it’s interesting. E.M. Forster explains the difference between story and plot in “Aspects of the Novel” as follows:

  • “The king died and then the queen died” is a story.
  • “The king died and then the queen died of a broken heart” is a plot.

Most plots are made up of the Classic Three Act Structure:

Act I. In the first act we meet the characters, are given the setting, and discover what the main problem of the story is. This is the preparation act for the reader (this is where you set things up).

Act II. The second act presents the complication. The problem that we set up in the first act becomes more dangerous and difficult. The hero’s attempts to solve the problem come crashing down and our hero is lying on his or her back with no apparent means of escape.

Act III. The third act presents the resolution of the problem. In act three you wrap up the story and tie up loose ends.

Example: The Choking Doberman

dobermanMartha walked up the flight of stairs to her second floor apartment and wearily opened the door. As soon as she made her way into the apartment she was greeted by the sight of her pet Doberman pinscher choking and unable to breathe.

Filled with fear and anxiety, Martha rushed him to the vet and was told to leave him there for emergency surgery. Feeling a bit calmer knowing that her beloved pet was being looked after, she returned to her apartment.

No sooner had Martha set her purse down on the small table near the door, when the phone rang. She picked it up and was surprised to hear the vet’s voice urging her to get out of her apartment right away.

Martha quickly grabbed her purse, ran out of her apartment, and knocked urgently on her neighbor’s door. Fortunately, Marge was home and she let Martha in. Martha told Marge of how she had come home earlier to find her dog choking, and of the bizarre phone call she had just received from the vet.

A few minutes later the two women heard the sound of sirens nearing the apartment building. Four police cars screeched to a stop outside the building and several cops made their way up the stairs and into Martha’s apartment.

After waiting for what she considered to be a prudent amount of time, Martha ventured out of her neighbor’s apartment to see what was happening. She was told by one of the cops that –after a quick search of her apartment–they had discovered a burglar hiding in the bedroom closet bleeding profusely from one hand.

Analysis of “The Choking Doberman”

As Ronald Tobias explains in his book 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them, “The Choking Doberman”–which is an urban myth that has been retold countless times with endless variations–is completely plot driven. The characters take a backseat. In addition, it has three movements:

  • The story is set up when the woman comes home and finds her pet Doberman choking. She takes the dog to the vet.
  • The second movement starts when the woman returns from the vet and her phone rings. A startling complication is introduced when the agitated vet urges her to get out of the house. The woman flees the house and the unknown danger.
  • The third movement begins with the arrival of the police, with the climax (the point of highest interest in the story) occurring when they tell her that they found a burglar hiding in her bedroom closet who had a finger bitten off by her Doberman. By the end of the story the mystery is solved.

Some Ideas to Save Your Plot

If your plot runs out of steam on day ten of NaNoWriMo, here are some things you can do:

  1. Kill a main character.
  2. Hit shuffle on your iPod and the first song that comes up is the title of your next chapter.
  3. Your main character finds an old letter in a library book.
  4. Include an element of betrayal: someone is having an affair or has lied about their past.
  5. Flip through magazines or art books. Look through the newspaper. Cut out three items which you feel have potential to inspire an interesting scene.
  6. Go people watching: sit at an outdoor café; go to the mall; ride the subway or the bus. Collect five snatches of conversation.
  7. Write a list of words that are common to your genre and combine them in interesting ways to come up with titles for your chapters (dragon, castle, moat, knight). Once you have a title, create a plot twist based on that title.
  8. Think of your family’s stories which you’ve heard your relatives retelling over and over again.
  9. Think of an important, far-off goal your character is striving to reach and write about your character’s quest to achieve this objective.
  10. Your character loses someone or something that is very dear to them.
  11. Your character’s business is in trouble. Brainstorm ten possible ways to solve the problem. Choose the most unexpected approach to write about.
  12. Steal from the best. Think of a novel you love, take elements from the plot, and make them your own.
  13. Use social media for ideas (delicious, Stumbleupon, Twitter).
  14. Visit One Sentence or PostSecret and get inspired.

Conflict: The Struggle

“Conflict is the source of all growth and is an absolute necessity if one is to be alive.” — Jean Miller

Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces in the story. Conflict provides interest and suspense. There are various types of conflict, which can usually be categorized as one of the following:

  • A character struggling against nature.
  • A struggle between two or more characters (relational conflict): Here it’s usually the protagonist and the antagonist competing or clashing with each other.
  • A struggle between the main character and some aspect of society (social conflict): This is a human v. group conflict; the protagonist has a problem with a group of people.
  • A struggle of opposing forces within one character; for example, the protagonist is struggling with fear (inner conflict).

Scene: Miniature Stories

Jordan Rosenfeld writes the following in his book Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time:

“Scenes are capsules in which compelling characters undertake significant actions in a vivid and memorable way that allows the events to feel as though they’re happening in real time. When strung together, individual scenes add up to build plots and storylines.”

A scene is a specific chunk of the story, one that is its own closed loop. When is a scene a scene? When something changes. What defines the completion of a scene? The moment of change. Every good scene has a purpose and it leads to the next good scene.

Point of View

Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. It’s the “camera angle” through which the action will be filtered. Choose the point of view that will most effectively allow you to reveal your characters and tell your story. The points of view you can adopt are basically the following:

First Person

Everything in the first person point of view (POV) comes from one character’s perspective. We can only know what that character knows, and our knowledge may be skewed by that character’s biases.

For example, Kathy Reichs writes crime novels in which the protagonist is forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan (her books are the inspiration for the TV series “Bones”). Reichs writes in the first person, from Dr. Brennan’s point of view. Here’s how “Bones of the Lost” begins:

Temperance BrennanHeart pounding, I crawled toward the brick angling down to form the edge of the recess. Craned out.

More footfalls. Then heavy boots appeared at the top of the stairs, beside them a pair of small feet, one bare, the other in a platform pump.

The feet started to descend, the small ones wobbly, their owner somehow impaired. The lower legs angled oddly, suggesting the knees bore little weight.

Anger burned hot in my chest. The woman was drugged. The bastard was dragging her.”

In addition, here are three classics that are written in the first-person point of view:

  1. Charlotte Brontë made Jane the narrator of the novel, “Jane Eyre”.
  2. In “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens, Pip looks back at his life and tells the story based on what he remembers.
  3. “David Copperfield”, also by Charles Dickens, has David Copperfield as the narrator.

Third Person

This is the most commonly used point of view. When you’re writing in the third person you use pronouns such as “he” or “she”.  The third person gives you the following choices:

  • Omniscient, where we can hear the thoughts and see the action from any character’s perspective;
  • Objective, where only narration, dialogue and description is used to tell the story and we aren’t allowed into any of the character’s thoughts; and
  • Limited omniscient, where we see the story from one or a few characters’ viewpoints and we can only hear the thoughts of those characters.

Second Person

The second person point of view–the “you” form–is uncommon.  Most novels are written in either in the first or the third person, so using the second person may confuse your readers. But if it suits your novel, go for it.

More NaNoWrimo Tips

Here are some more NaNoWriMo tips:

  • Don’t worry about the quality of your writing, just focus on getting to that 50,000 word target.
  • Get into a routine and begin writing at the same time each day.
  • Make sure that you write every day.
  • Try not to edit as you go, or at least keep it to a minimum. Ask your Inner Editor to stand aside during the thirty days it takes you to write your novel. They’ll have an important role to play after the novel is written.
  • Outline your novel so that you have a clear idea of how your plot and characters are going to develop before you start writing.
  • Make time to write: carve out an hour-a-day to write.
  • Keep your supplies collected: coffee mug, dictionary, thesaurus, notebook, pens, pencils, index cards, and so on.  You could easily lose precious time gathering your supplies each time you’re going to start writing.
  • Explain to your friends and loved ones that you’re going to be less available  than usual for the month of November and ask for their support.
  • Stop writing while you still have something to say so that you can pick up on that train of thought the next day.
  • Create a strategy for overcoming procrastination.

Conclusion

Go ahead and take a creative challenge: write a novel in 30 days. I’m participating in NaNoWrimo in 2015, I’m using the one-hour-a-day formula to do so.

system banner

banner make it happen

guidebook of dreams banner how to be creative banner

Related Posts:

1. 42 Writing Tips From J.A. Konrath
2. 24 More Fabulous Tips For Writers, From Writers
3. A Plethora of Writing Prompts for Creative Writing and Journaling
4. Ray Bradbury’s Best Writing Advice
5. 57 Tips For Writers, From Writers

release the past

It’s time to let go of the ghosts of the past.

Most of us are haunted by the ghosts of our past: that opportunity that we let slip by; those kids who bullied us in the playground; that love interest who treated us badly; that professor who graded us unfairly; and so on.

As we move through our days we hear our past rattling chains and moaning eerily; we see the shadows of our past mistakes lurking in the corners; and our past failures creep up behind us and startle us at every turn. A fearful past that is not dealt with causes a fearful future. In addition, in order to be happy in the present, we need to release the ghosts of the past. In this post you’ll discover 8 ways to release the ghosts of the past so that you can be happy in the present and in the future.

8 Ways to Release the Past

I won’t lie to you: releasing the past is hard. Nonetheless, it can be done. Here’s what to do:

1. Learn to Live In the Present.

There’s no better way to release the past than to refuse to dwell on it. And the best way to refrain from dwelling on the past is to keep your attention firmly focused on the present. When you find yourself thinking about the past, ask yourself the following question: “Where am I right now?” This will bring your attention back to the present moment.

The only reason that your past is still haunting you is because you keep it alive in your mind by thinking about it. However, if your mind is filled with the present, there’s no room left in it for the past.

2. Change the Past.

If you don’t like something about your past, change it. Right now you may be thinking: “But it already happened, there’s nothing that I can do to change it.” Although it’s true that you can’t change what happened in the past, you can change how you interpret the past. Ask yourself questions such as the following:

  • What happened?
  • What evidence am I relying on to reach this interpretation?
  • What assumptions am I making?
  • Is there another equally believable interpretation of what happened?
  • How would someone who loves me interpret this situation?
  • What’s a better, healthier way to interpret this?

I once saw a “Cathy” comic strip in which Cathy’s mother runs into a group of women she had gone to high school with. The women were comparing notes about high school, and they told Cathy’s mother that they had always been intimidated by her since she was beautiful and got good grades. Cathy’s mother had always thought that they just didn’t like her.

In the last square of the strip, Cathy’s mother says something along the following lines: “All this time I’ve been basing my self-image on the wrong interpretation.” Look for ways to interpret the past in a way that helps you, instead of interpreting it in ways that harm you.

3. Realize That You’re No Longer the Same Person.

Let’s say that you’ve always wanted to take up pottery, and you finally decide to take a class. A few months later you’re creating beautiful vases, bowls, and so on. Then you take a look at what you created during your first week of class. You’ll probably be embarrassed by how bad the stuff that you created during that first week is, and you’ll want to throw it out.

A lot of the time we judge what we’ve done in the past through the eyes of who we are in the present. However, our present selves wouldn’t act in the way we did back then, because we’ve grown and matured, and we’re now wiser. So cut your past self some slack. As Maya Angelou once said: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

4. Let Go Through Ritual.

The human race has been using rituals since its very beginnings. Create a ceremony for a symbolic release of toxic emotions. The only requisite is that the ceremony has to have meaning for you. Fire has long been a part of ritual, and one ritual you can consider trying is to write down the stories from the past which are still haunting you, and then burn the piece of paper.


5. Make Room For the New.

One of the best ways to release the past is to make room for the future. What do you do when you’re expecting a baby? You clear out a room of the house in order to prepare a nursery. Then, you fill the nursery with all of the things that the baby will need once it’s born.

Do the same thing in order to prepare for your new future. Ask yourself the following:

The future that you want is on its way. Make room for it by clearing out all those things from your past that are not in line with your future vision. In addition, use the time and energy that you were devoting to dwelling on the past in order to do what needs to be done to prepare for your vision of the future.

6. Learn to Fail Forward.

For most of us, past mistakes play a starring role in the film we play in our minds. However, instead of giving our mistakes the role of antagonists, we can start viewing them as guides that help show us the way toward creating the future that we want for ourselves. We can do this by learning to fail forward.

In his book, “Failing Forward: Transforming Mistakes Into Success”, John C. Maxwell explains that we can learn to fail forward by doing the following:

  • Take responsibility for your setbacks, but don’t take failure personally.
  • View failure as temporary.
  • Have realistic expectations. A lot of the time we set our expectations so high, we’re basically setting ourselves up to fail. Make sure that the goals that you set for yourself are realistic.
  • Vary your approach. When you fail you’ve learned something about what doesn’t work. Now, try something else.
  • Learn from your mistakes and move on.

7. Ask Yourself What You Need to Do To Release The Past.

A while ago I purchased a system called “The Sedona Method”, which is basically a method for releasing negative emotions and beliefs. The Sedona Method teaches that in order to release the past you need to ask yourself the following three questions:

  • Could I let go of this?
  • Would I let go of this?
  • If so, when?

When you ask yourself the question, “Could I let go of this?”, sometimes the answer will be “no”. If this is the case, ask yourself: “What do I need to do in order to be able to let go of this?”  As an illustration, maybe you need to confront someone who’s hurt you, or maybe you need to ask forgiveness from someone whom you’ve harmed in some way.

When I was in law school in Washington, DC, a friend of mine went through a difficult break up from a man she was very much in love with. She couldn’t let him go. For months, he was all she would talk about (frankly, she started to sound like a broken record). She kept insisting that they were both very much in love, and that she just couldn’t understand why he had left her.

This woman had a job offer from a law firm in Washington, DC. However, her ex-boyfriend worked and lived in DC. So, when she received a job offer from a law firm in Argentina, she accepted.  The only way in which my friend could move on from her ex was to leave the city–and even the country–in which he lived.

If there’s something from your past that you just can’t let go of, ask yourself what you need to do in order to release it. Then, do it.

8. Give Yourself a Challenge.

As you work, have a piece of paper next to you. Divide the paper into thirty-minute chunks. Each time that you find yourself thinking about something in the past, stop and put a check mark on the piece of paper.

Make a note of how many times you allow your mind to shift to the past during each thirty minute period. Then, resolve to do better the next day. Do this day after day until you’ve achieved enough control over where you place your attention that there are only a few marks on the page.

Conclusion

Live your best life by releasing the ghosts of the past with the 8 methods described above. By doing so, you’ll be much happier in the present.

 

banner make it happen

one hour a day header-2

guidebook of dreams banner how to be creative banner

Related Posts