You’ve probably heard the advice to stop complaining. However, complaining can be a powerful means for achieving important ends. That is, it can help you to change unsatisfying situations and to get what you want.

Instead of making a resolution to stop complaining, what you need to do is the following:

• Stop complaining about things you can do nothing about.
• Stop complaining simply as a way to let off steam and vent your frustrations.
• When a situation warrants a complaint, make sure that you complain effectively.

There are many situations in which complaining can lead to positive results. Here are three examples:

• You purchased a product which is not working as advertised and you want a refund.
• You have a co-worker who’s constantly taking credit for your ideas, and you want their behavior to stop.
• Your significant other is usually running late, so you regularly miss the start of movies, lose your dinner reservations, keep your friends waiting, and so on. You want them to learn how to better manage their time so that they’ll stop making you late for everything.

In this post you’ll discover how to complain effectively so that you can get what you want. When you’re going to complain, make sure that you follow these seven principles:

• Be Specific About the Issue that You Want to Address
• Be Very Clear On What You Want to Achieve
• Make Sure that You’re Complaining to the Right Person
• Take the Emotion Out of It
• Be Prepared
• Use the Sandwich Approach
• Try to Make It a Win-Win Situation

Each of these principles is explained below.

Be Specific About the Issue That You Want to Address

When you’re going to complain you need to be very specific about what it is that you’re complaining about. Exactly what is it that’s bothering you or making you unhappy? Be direct.

In addition, address one complaint at a time. For example, if you’re going to complain to your spouse because you feel that they’re not doing their fair share of the housework, don’t muddy up the waters by adding other issues to your complaint. There may be other issues on your mind, but right now you’re just going to address the housework issue.

Be Very Clear On What You Want to Achieve

Before voicing your dissatisfaction, you need to be very clear on exactly what it is that you want to achieve by complaining. That is, you need to have a goal. What has to happen in order to make you feel that the issue has been resolved to your satisfaction?

Here are some examples of goals that you could set when voicing a complaint:

• Get a refund.
• Get a replacement.
• Get a discount.
• Get the other person to take a specific action.
• Get an apology.
• Draw up a game plan on how to prevent the situation that’s bothering you from happening again in the future.

Keep in mind that you need to make sure that what you’re asking for is realistic.

Make Sure That You’re Complaining to the Right Person

In order to achieve a positive result from your complaint, you need to make sure that you’re complaining to the right person.  Once you’ve decided what you want to achieve by complaining, find out who has the authority to give it to you. Try asking the following: “Who do I need to talk to in order to . . . ?”

Take the Emotion Out of It

When there’s an issue which you feel warrants a complaint, it’s very likely that there are negative emotions surrounding the issue. For example:

• You’re frustrated over the fact that the shoes that you bought online are the wrong color.
• You’re angry because your neighbor’s dog keeps waking you up at night with all that barking.
• You’re sick and tired of finding the sink overflowing with your roommate’s dirty dishes.

If you become overly emotional while you’re voicing your complaint, it’s less likely that you’ll get what you want.  You don’t want the other person to feel like they’re being attacked, because that will make them defensive. Then, instead of thinking of ways to help you resolve your complaint, they’ll be thinking of ways to escape from your emotional barrage.

The best way to prevent your emotions from overwhelming you is to pretend that you’ve been hired to resolve the issue at hand for someone else.  By taking a third person perspective you’ll be getting some distance from the problem so that you can look at it objectively, and so that you won’t take things so personally.

In order to make your communication as effective as possible, adhere to these four guidelines:

• Stay calm.
• Don’t raise your voice.
• Make your tone as civil as possible.
• Don’t be aggressive or insulting.

Be Prepared

Be prepared with any facts or data that will back up your complaint. Here are some examples:

• Have your sales receipt at hand.
• Gather any evidence that proves your claim.
• Be ready with any documents you might need.

Being armed with knowledge gives you authority and makes it more likely that your complaint will be taken seriously.

Use the Sandwich Approach

You’ve probably heard of the sandwich approach when it comes to giving others criticism:

• Say something positive.
• State your criticism.
• End on an encouraging note.

That is, you place the criticism between two positive communications. Guy Winch, Ph.D., author of The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results, Improve Your Relationships and Enhance Self-Esteem, recommends that you apply the same approach in order to complain effectively.

For example, suppose that you and your significant other have decided to move in together.  You notice that they keep leaving their used tea bags on the kitchen counter instead of throwing them in the trash. Here’s how to complain effectively about the tea bags by using the sandwich approach:

• Initiate the conversation by saying something positive, such as the following: “I’m so happy that we’ve moved in together, and that we’re both looking for ways to accommodate each other’s needs.”
• The meat of the sandwich is your complaint: “I did want to talk to you about your tea bags. I’ve noticed that you leave them on the counter after you’ve made your tea, and I would like to ask you to toss them in the garbage can instead.”
• End the conversation by saying something encouraging: “I really want us to continue finding ways to turn this apartment into a warm, inviting home for both of us.”

Try to Make It a Win-Win Situation

I’ve already written before about the TV show Frasier. Frasier is about Seattle radio psychologist Dr. Frasier Crane. In Episode 7 of Season 5, Frasier is in a store trying to return a purse he bought for his producer, Roz, which she didn’t like. Here’s the exchange between Frasier and the sales lady:

• Frasier: Hello. I’d like to return this purse.
• Sales Lady: I’m terribly sorry but this was a sale item and we have a no-return policy.

Frasier makes another effort to get a refund for the purse, but is unsuccessful. A woman shopper overhears the exchange between Frasier and the sales lady and she comes to Frasier’s aid (the woman’s name is Samantha):

• Samantha: Ah, look, [reads the sales lady’s badge] Jill, we’re all reasonable people here, why don’t you just give this nice gentleman a store credit.
• Sales Lady: Look, I don’t make the rules.
• Samantha: Yes, but a shrewd saleswoman such as yourself knows that this business isn’t about rules, it’s about relationships. Now, look at this man, cultured, impeccably dressed, well-to-do, exactly the sort of man you’d love to have a relationship with… Now, there’s only one thing standing in the way of that relationship, Jill, he’s not happy with his purse.
• Frasier: [interrupting] It’s not MY purse.
• Samantha: Maybe his purse was the wrong color, maybe it didn’t hold enough.
• Frasier: [laughing off other people’s glances] It’s not my purse.
• Samantha: The thing is, if this man walks away today unhappy, he may never shop here again, and who knows what he might have bought in the future; scarves, gloves, hosiery! The choice is yours, Jill, the commission that comes from a lifelong relationship or the hollow satisfaction of knowing you followed the rules!
• Sales Lady: Okay, I’ll go get the forms.

As Frasier thanks Samantha for helping him out, she adds: “the secret is persistence”. Of course, the real secret is that Samantha helped the sales lady to see how she would also benefit by helping Frasier to resolve his complaint in a satisfactory manner.

You’re more likely to achieve a positive result when you complain if you can frame your request as a win-win for you and for them.

Conclusion

Complaining can be a powerful tool for living your best life and getting what you want.  However, you have to make sure that when you complain, you do so effectively. Start complaining effectively by applying the seven principles explained above.

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Improving your memory will help you in countless ways.

Look at the following three scenarios:

• You have a college exam coming up which counts as a high percentage of your grade.
• Your boss asks you to give an important presentation at work for which you need to memorize a long list of facts.
• You’re simply tired of forgetting things all the time.

Wouldn’t your life be so much easier if you had a better memory?

The good news is that there are methods and techniques that you can apply in order to improve your memory. This is what Joshua Foer discovered when he was given the assignment to write about the US Memory Championship held each spring in New York City. Joshua—whose memory at the time was average–expected to walk into the championship hall and find it filled with savants and people with photographic memories.

Instead, he discovered that the contestants were just normal people. After spending some time talking to them he learned that their memory prowess was due to the fact that they had trained their memory using memory techniques. One of the contestants offered to teach Joshua these memory techniques and Joshua took him up on the offer.

Joshua spent the next year applying the techniques in order to improve his memory. Then, Joshua returned to the US Memory Championship. However, this time he wasn’t an observer, but a contestant. To his incredible surprise, Joshua won the competition.

The moral of Joshua’s story is the following: you can improve your memory by using memory techniques. As an aside, Joshua wrote about his experience in the book, “Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”.

In this post you’ll discover three of the most effective methods for improving your memory. These three methods are the following:

• The Memory Peg System
• The Method of Loci
• The Dominic System

Discover how to apply each of these methods below.

The Memory Peg System

The memory peg system is a technique for memorizing lists. It works by pre-memorizing a list of words that are easy to associate with the numbers that they represent. Those words are your memory pegs.  When you need to quickly memorize a list of arbitrary objects, each object is associated with the appropriate peg.

For example, choose a word that you associate with the number “1”. Suppose that you choose “gun” since it sounds similar to “1”. Now look at the list that you need to memorize. Peg the first item on the list to “gun”. As an illustration, let’s say that you’re trying to memorize a grocery list, and the first item on your list is “cotton balls”.  Visualize a gun that shoots cotton balls.

Now, choose a word that you associate with the number “2”. You could choose “zoo” since it rhymes with “2”. Peg the second item on the list that you’re trying to memorize with the word “zoo”. To continue with our grocery list illustration, if the second item on your list is “toothpaste”, you could visualize a gorilla in his cage at the zoo brushing his teeth.

For the number “3”, you could choose the word “tree” as a memory peg (again, because tree sounds like “3”). Peg the third item on your grocery list to the word “tree”. So, if the third item on your list is gum, you could visualize a tree with packs of gum hanging from the branches like fruit.

To make the technique even more effective, tell yourself a story which involves all of the items on your list. In this case, vividly visualize a gorilla brushing his teeth while sitting underneath a tree with its branches filled with packs of gum. Suddenly, someone appears with a gun and starts shooting cotton balls at the gorilla. The weirder and more colorful you make your story, the easier it will be to remember.

Wikipedia recommends the following pegs for numbers 1 to 10:

•  1-gun
• 2-zoo
• 3-tree
• 4-door
• 5-hive
• 6-bricks
• 7-heaven
• 8-plate
• 9-wine
• 10-hen

Once you’ve memorized the pegs you can use these same pegs over and over again each time that you need to memorize something.

The Method of Loci

An ancient Greek poet named Simonides was asked to recite a poem at a banquet. After reciting his poem, Simonides left. A few minutes after his departure, the entire building in which the banquet was being held collapsed.

The bodies inside the building were mangled beyond recognition. Therefore, Simonides was asked to create a list of the people who were at the banquet from memory. He did this by recalling where people were sitting at the time of the accident.

This memory device of associating things with a place or location became known as the method of loci (loci means “places”). Today it’s also known as the journey method.

The essence of the loci method is to piggyback information you need to remember on top of information that you know like the back of your hand. For example, it would be nearly impossible for you to forget the layout of your house. Therefore, you would select five to seven locations in your house and use these as landmarks to remember the items on any list that you’re trying to remember.

Just as in the peg system, you’re going to use visualization. In our grocery list example, you want to remember the following three items:

• Cotton balls
• Toothpaste
• Gum

Let’s assume that the three places that you selected from your house’s layout are the following:

• The small lobby at the entrance.
• The hall filled with family photographs.
• The living room at the end of the hall.

For each of these places visualize an association with one of the items on your list. As an illustration, you could envision the following:

• You walk into the lobby of your home when, suddenly, you discover that the front door has been booby trapped with a bucket filled with cotton balls which tumble down on your head.
• As you walk down the hall you look at the family photographs and see everyone’s gleaming, white smiles.
• Then you walk into the living room and find your spouse sitting on the couch blowing a huge bubble gum bubble which pops and splatters all over his face.

The Dominic System

The Dominic System is a mnemonic system invented by Dominic O’Brien. It’s a system for memorizing long sequences of numbers by associating the numbers with people and actions.

For example, suppose that you associate the number “1” with the group “One Direction” (obviously, because “one” is part of the band’s name). The action associated with “One Direction” is singing and dancing.

Richard Nixon–a former president of the US–was well known for his “V” victory sign, which consists of holding up two fingers. Therefore, you could associate the number “2” with Richard Nixon. The action associated with Nixon is standing with arms outstretched, making a victory sign with each hand.

You can associate the number “3” with the movie “Three Men and a Baby” starring Tom Selleck. Selleck is best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum. Magnum always drove around in a red Ferrari. Therefore, the action associated with Tom Selleck is driving a red Ferrari.

You can associate the number “4” with the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” which stars Hugh Grant. Everyone remembers the incident in which Hugh Grant was arrested in Hollywood with the call girl Divine Brown. The action associated with Hugh Grant can be posing for a mug shot.

Now look at the following number: 12243341. In order to memorize that number, do the following:

• Divide it up into four-digit chunks: 1224 and 3341
• Look at the first chunk and split it in two: 12 and 24.
• The number “12” is the band “One Direction” which is associated with the number “1”, and the band is carrying out the action associated with the number “2”. The action associated with the number “2” is holding up the victory sign. Therefore, visualize all the members of “One Direction” holding up the victory sign.
• The number “24” is Richard Nixon—who’s associated with the number “2”–, and the action associated with the number “4” is posing for a mug shot. Therefore, visualize Nixon posing for a mug shot.
• You would remember 1224 by seeing the band “One Direction” holding up the victory sign while they stand next to Richard Nixon posing for a mug shot.

If you follow this same logic, you would remember 3341 by visualizing Tom Selleck (3) driving his red Ferrari (3), with Hugh Grant (4) in the backseat singing and dancing around (1). Put it all together and you’ve memorized 12243341.

Conclusion

Use the three memory techniques described above and begin living your best life by improving your memory right away. What are your favorite memory techniques?

 

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You probably have a bucket list–a list of life goals that you want to achieve before you “kick the bucket”; or, at the very least, you’re thinking of making one.

In addition, your bucket list almost certainly contains a lot of travel goals. If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place. This post will show you how to achieve your travel goals.

The steps that you need to take in order to achieve your travel goals are the following:

• Turn Your Excuses Into Tasks
• Work Through Your Limiting Beliefs About Travel
• Set a Specific Goal that You’re Going to Work On
• Obsess Over Your Goal

Each of these steps is explained, in detail, below.

Turn Your Excuses Into Tasks

We all make excuses when it comes time to doing the work that must be done in order to achieve our goals. Sometimes we’re not even aware of the excuses that we’re making. These excuses hide out in the deep recesses of our minds, sapping away at our energy and our motivation.

The first step that you need to take in order to achieve your travel goals is to identify the excuses that you’re making, and then transform those excuses into tasks. What do I mean by this? Let me explain.

The reasons most people set forth as to why they can’t achieve their travel goals are the following:

• I can’t travel because I have kids.
• I can’t travel because I don’t have the money.
• I can’t travel because I’m too busy and I just don’t have the time.
• I can’t travel because I don’t have anyone to travel with.

Do any of these sound familiar? Be honest.

Now, you’re going to take each of these excuses and turn them into a task. For example, you would turn the four excuses set forth above into the following four tasks:

• Research how others have managed to travel with kids. As part of this research, find a travel blog written by a couple with kids.
• Come up with an estimate of how much money I’ll need to travel, and then create a plan on how I’m going to make that amount of money.
• Set aside some time to travel. If you can’t find the time to travel, no matter how hard you try, you need to reassess your priorities. In order to make travel a priority, something with a lower priority has to go.
• Find someone to travel with or identify a travel company that caters to solo-travelers.

Basically, you’re transforming excuses–which makes you feel powerless–into action steps, which is empowering.

Since “I don’t have the money” is one of the most common excuses that people make in order to explain why they don’t travel more–even though they want to–here are four strategies I’ve come up with for financing life goals:

• Three Strategies For Financing Your Life Goals
• How to Make $1374 to Finance Your Life Goals

Work Through Your Limiting Beliefs About Travel

A lot of people don’t really think that it’s feasible for them to travel. These people tend to hold beliefs that make it difficult for them to seriously entertain the idea of making travel a regular part of their lifestyle. Some of these limiting beliefs could be the following:

• Traveling is prohibitively expensive.
• Traveling is selfish and self-indulgent.
• Traveling is very complicated.

You need to break down these limiting beliefs and replace them with more accurate ways of thinking. Here’s how you could break down the three limiting beliefs indicated above:

• Traveling is expensive, but not prohibitively so. There are many ways to travel on a budget. I don’t need to fly first class, stay at five star hotels, or eat at the most expensive restaurants. In fact, there are several travel guides out there that offer lots of ideas on how to travel without breaking the bank.
• It’s not selfish to want to experience other cultures and see other countries. In addition, I work hard and I’m entitled to indulge myself every now and then.
• Traveling can be complicated, but I will break the process down into small steps and take these steps one at a time.

Set a Specific Goal You’re Going to Work On

Take a look at all of the travel items on your bucket list. You’re going to choose one of the places on your bucket list and make a commitment to visiting that place. When deciding which place to visit first, you could use any of the following criteria:

• Which of the places on my bucket list is closest geographically to where I am right now (sometimes it’s psychologically easier to convince yourself that you’re going to visit a place that’s relatively close by)?
• Which trip is the least expensive (if money is tight right now, this may be the way to go for the time being)?
• If I could only visit one of these places before I die, which one would I choose? With this question you’re identifying which trip you’re most passionate about.
• Which trip would be the easiest for me to take at this moment? Maybe you have a friend from college who lives overseas, or you have family in Italy. Having someone to stay with would make the trip much easier. In addition, you could pitch a trip to your boss: go to a conference to hone your skills, or explore a new marketplace for your company to possibly expand into.

Let’s suppose that you’ve decided that your goal is to visit Paris, France. You no longer have a vague goal–such as “travel more”– and you no longer have a long list of possible destinations competing for your attention. In addition, you’re no longer just interested in visiting Paris; you’re now 100% committed.

Obsess Over Your Destination

We’re often told that obsession is bad. However, obsession can also be good. When you’re working toward achieving a goal that’s really important to you, obsessing over that goal can make it more likely that you’ll achieve it. Do all of the following:

• Find someone who’s been to Paris and ask them what their trip was like.
• Use maps.google.com and look up Paris. Zoom in and take a look at the street names. “See” yourself walking down these streets.
• Go on YouTube and look at videos of Paris.
• Get yourself a Paris travel book.
• Find a nice image of  the Eiffel tower online and use it as your screensaver.
• Make a list of the top ten places that you’re going to visit while in Paris.
• Watch movies which are set in Paris, such as “Amelie”.

By obsessing over Paris you’ll be doing all of the following:

• You’ll be making the idea of visiting Paris more real.
• You’ll be directing your mind to look for ways to achieve the goal of visiting Paris.
• You’ll become more enthusiastic about visiting Paris. Enthusiasm can be the fuel that you need in order to take the necessary steps to achieve your goal of traveling to Paris.

Conclusion

Have you come down with a serious case of Wanderlust? Do you want to see faraway places, have new experiences, taste different cuisines, and so on? Hopefully, this blog post will help you to achieve your travel goals.

Where do you want to go? Please share in the comments section below. I’ll start: I want to visit Machu Picchu in Peru.

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In the early 20^th century, at the behest of Andrew Carnegie–the businessman, industrialist, and philanthropist who was then the richest man in the world–, Napoleon Hill, an unknown journalist at the time, spent two decades conducting research in order to organize a Philosophy of Personal Achievement.

Armed only with a letter of introduction from Carnegie, Hill set out to interview over 500 people of the caliber of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, William Wrigley Jr. and Charles M. Schwab. The 32 timeless success principles set forth below are the essence of what Napoleon discovered during his years of research.

1. Know what you want and believe that you can, and will, get it.

2. Master the negative habits which stand between you and success.

3. Develop the positive habits you’ll need in order to succeed. That is, the positive habits that will lead to sound health, peace of mind, and a positive mental attitude.

4. Achieve self-mastery over your thoughts, and constantly direct them toward your goals and objectives. Learn to focus your attention on the goals that you want to achieve and on finding ways to achieve those goals.

5. Exercise self-discipline over all of your emotions. Emotions are states of mind and, therefore, they’re subject to your control and direction. By learning self-mastery over your thoughts, you can achieve self-mastery over your emotions.

6. Start each day by conditioning your mind so that you go throughout the day with a positive mental attitude.

7. Start each day with an expression of gratitude.

8. Cultivate a flexible mental attitude.  If you have a flexible mental attitude, then you have the ability to adjust yourself to any circumstance you might find yourself in, without losing your composure. You can’t control the actions of other people, but you can control your reaction to whatever others say or do.

9. Acquire the habit of thinking before you speak. Make sure that what you’re going to say will benefit you and not injure others.

10. Don’t allow trivial matters to turn into major controversies.

11. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into arguments over unimportant subjects.

12. Adopt the habit of having a good hearted laugh every time you become irritated or angry. Begin each day with one minute of hearty laughing; this will change the chemistry of your brain and start you off with a positive mental attitude.

13. Whenever you have a problem, concentrate your attention on the “can-do” portion of the problem. Then, begin to act where you stand and do what you can in order to solve the problem. Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter what problem you may be having, or what you want to achieve, there is always something you can do right now that will help you. Find out what this something is, and do it.

14. Learn to transmute all unpleasant circumstances into a positive mental attitude by switching your thoughts to something that you find pleasant. Focus on the pleasant thoughts for five minutes in order to change your mental attitude from negative to positive.

15. Remember that your struggles make you stronger.

16. Look upon your life as a continuous process of education, of learning from all of your experiences—both the good and the bad. Be always on the alert for gains of wisdom which come to you a little at a time from both your pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

17. If you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, feel gratitude for the fact that you’ve been given complete control over your own mind. Then, ask for guidance in order that you may use this profound gift wisely in all your thoughts and actions.

18. Go out of your way daily to comment enthusiastically on the good qualities of those with whom you live and work. When you concentrate on the good qualities of others, others will begin to concentrate on your good qualities.

19. Accept all criticism of yourself as an opportunity for self-examination to determine how much of it is justified.

20. Do not accept from life, or from anyone else, anything that you do not desire.

21. Remember always that there are two types of circumstances which cause you to worry: those you can do something about, and those you can do nothing about. The only thing you can do about circumstances you cannot influence is to refuse to allow them to worry you.

22. Always keep your mind engaged in thinking of what you want. Refuse to think of those things which you do not want.

23. If you’re ever feeling sorry for yourself, look around until you find someone who is worse off than yourself and start where you stand to help that person. Make this a habit and you will experience one of the great miracles of life: that which you do to or for others, you do to or for yourself.

24. Choose someone who is the sort of person you would like to be. Then, use that person as a role model and emulate them.

25. Write out this phrase and place it where you can see it often: “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”

26. Your success is something that you’re going to have to achieve for yourself, without someone telling you what to do or how to do it. Those who amount to something worthwhile in life are those who move on their own personal initiative.

27. Lear to express enthusiasm in your interactions with others. Enthusiasm is contagious and it has a powerful impact on the minds of those who come under its influence. It causes them to respond in a similar spirit of enthusiasm. Here are two examples:

• The most successful lawyers are not those who know the most about the law, but those who are able to influence juries with their belief in their cases, and those who have a great capacity for expressing themselves with enthusiasm.
• As another illustration, you may have noticed that the teachers that you learned the most from in school where those who expressed the greatest enthusiasm in their teaching.

28. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is near the top of the list of the causes of failure.

29. Follow Hill’s “QQMA formula”: the Quality of service you render, plus the Quantity of service you render, plus the Mental Attitude in which you render service, determines the space you occupy in your chosen calling and the compensation you get for your services.

30. Stop using your faith in reverse gear by thinking about the things and circumstances which you do not want, and the things that you fear.

31. When overtaken by defeat, remember that man’s faith is tested many times before he’s crowned with final victory. Accept your defeat as nothing more than a challenge to keep trying.

32. Keep thinking of what you want, and keep believing that you can achieve it, in spite of naysayers and any temporary failures, or setbacks, you may encounter.

Conclusion

The main principle taught by Hill is that whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve, regardless of how many times you may have failed in the past, or how lofty your aims and hopes may be. You do this by learning to control and direct your own mind.

Apply the 32 timeless success principles described above, and begin living your best life.

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Become enlightened by reading the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle.

Eckhart Tolle is a world-renown spiritual teacher and the author of the books “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” and “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” , both of which have sold in the millions.

His work, which has been influenced by a wide range of spiritual teachings, is centered on the recognition that the now is all that there is. Here are 30 pearls of wisdom from Eckhart Tolle:

1. Instead of reacting to the content that arises in your life—thoughts, external events, other people, the scenery, and so on—, allow the content to be. That is, instead of identifying with what arises in the now, become aware of the now itself, beyond the phenomena that arise in it. To become aware of the now itself means that you become aware of the stillness that underlies everything.

2. Becoming aware of the now also means realizing that you are the now, or noticing the “observer” that witnesses life’s events with detachment, and without being possessed by them.

3. The underlying stillness is underneath and between all of your thoughts. In fact, it surrounds all of the content in your life.

4. Meditating in the morning will help you to begin the day in the undercurrent of stillness.

5. Most people are not aware of the field; they’re only aware of what happens in the field. In fact, it’s not just that they’re only aware of what happens in the field, but they identify with what happens in the field in their search for self.

6. Fear of loss is when you identify with part of the content—with something in the external world–, and you think that if you lose it, you’ll lose part of who you are. For example, when you tell yourself that without this or that, “I’m no one”.

7. You’ll live in a state of continuous joy, no matter what arises, when you realize that what arises isn’t that important. What arises is just consciousness playing with form.

8. Become a participant in the play of form by creating without self-seeking; when you create without self-seeking, you’ll create beautifully. However, when you create and there’s self-seeking in it—when you tell yourself “I need”, “I want”, or “I must have”–, then you infuse the creative energy that is flowing through you with negativity.

9. The power of consciousness flows through you, and it loves to create; simply let it flow.

10. Think of the last time you were in a traffic jam; you felt stressed because you needed to be at “X” place, but you weren’t moving. However, the same spaciousness that is easy to become aware of when you’re contemplating nature, for example, surrounds even this event which we call a “traffic jam”. Shift your awareness from “traffic jam” to spaciousness.

11. You find the spaciousness surrounding any event simply by allowing that moment to be. Say “yes” to anything that happens, instead of fighting or resisting what is. What’s the point of saying “no”, if it is? Simply tell yourself, “It is what it is”. When you do this you become aware of a dimension that is deeper than the event that’s taking place.

12. If you get angry about something that’s happening around you, do the same thing; simply say, “Here’s the energy of anger; it is what it is”. Of course, it’s much easier to notice the stillness that surrounds something such as a flower, than it is to notice the stillness that surrounds anger. However, the stillness surrounds everything, even strong emotions such as anger.

13. True surrender does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in, and to do nothing about it. It doesn’t mean to stop making plans or initiating positive action. Surrender is about yielding to, rather than opposing, the flow of life.

The only place in which you can experience the flow of life is in the now. So, to surrender means to accept the present moment, unconditionally, and without reservation. It’s relinquishing any resistance to what is.

14. Thinking that you are the physical form that you’re occupying, with its psychological make-up, and the stories that it tells itself about who it is and what has happened to it during its lifetime, is an illusion.

15. Know yourself as something that is beyond form. To lose yourself in some form is suffering.

16. Every time that you react to a form that arises in the stillness or the spaciousness that exists around everything that there is, you identify more and more with the world of form.

17. An exercise that Eckhart Tolle recommends in order to become more aware of the present moment is to stop a few times throughout the day and look around the room you’re in as if you had just been born into that room, even if it’s just for a few seconds. Simply allow your entire self to be present and alert in the room, and enter the moment more fully. Don’t think about what you’re looking at; just look at it.

18. Most of your suffering is self-created. Almost all suffering arises out of your interpretation of something that is; that is, it comes from your thoughts about the situation, not from the situation itself.

19. There comes a point in which a person says, “I’ve suffered enough”, and at that point they’re ready to listen to the message that there’s another way to live. There’s another way to live that does not create further suffering. This way of living is when you stop mentally arguing with what is, and when you stop identifying with the world of form and with the mind-created self.

20. When you stop inflicting suffering on yourself, you’ll stop inflicting suffering on others.

21. You’ll never be able to arrange the world of form exactly as you want it, and you’ll never be able to accumulate all of the forms that you think that you need in order to be yourself, if you identify your sense of self with the world of form. It’s in the nature of the world of form that nothing stays fixed for very long.

22. The world of form will never make you feel complete and happy. Stop demanding that people, places, and situations make you happy and fulfill you. You need to go deeper, instead of staying at the surface.

23. When you see the inability of the world to make you happy, and when you notice the short-lived nature of whatever forms you encounter, you’ll begin to step out a state of unconsciousness and start to become more enlightened.

24. Accept what is. If someone cuts you off in traffic, it’s like a sudden gust of wind. You don’t personalize a gust of wind, so don’t personalize the fact that another car just cut in front of you. It’s simply what is.

25. The ego is habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through your mind continuously. It’s about being trapped in thought and in mental noise.

26. Even your mental chatter is surrounded by stillness; simply tell yourself, “I’m full of mental noise, and that’s OK.” This will allow you to move beyond it.

27. The pain-gap is the gap that exists between your rigid expectations of how things should be, and the way things are. Acceptance of what is releases you from the discomfort of the pain-gap.

28. Whatever you think that the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. Give to the world, and to others, whatever you think is being withheld from you. This applies to all of the following:

• Love;
• Recognition;
• Assistance;
• Appreciation, and so on.

If you don’t think that you can give it because you don’t have it, just pretend. Soon after you start giving, you will start receiving.

29. If you don’t have a good relationship with the now, then you can’t have a good relationship with life, because life takes place in the now.

30. Worry is repetitive, negative thought patterns. There are three methods you can use in order to step out of the stream of negative thinking:

• First, move into the present moment by taking a few deep breaths.
• Second, you can step out of the stream of negative thinking by placing your attention on the feeling of aliveness in your body: in your hands, your arms, your legs, and so on.
• A third method you can use is to place all of your attention on an object in your environment.

Live your best life by living in the now. In addition, learn to live in the present moment by following the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle.

Related Posts:

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2. Three Happiness Tips From Eckhart Tolle
3. How to Create Positive Karma
4. 65 Happiness Quotes

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You already know this: most of the time there’s a gap between what you intend to do and what you actually end up doing.

Here are three examples:

•  You intend to wake up earlier so that you can work on your novel for an hour before going to work, but you keep hitting the snooze button instead of getting up.
• You intend to go out for a walk every day after work, but you plop down on the couch and switch on the TV, instead.
• You intend to eat healthier foods, but you keep eating donuts for breakfast and fast food for lunch.

What’s going on? To a large extent, it’s a problem of self-control. You have trouble exerting sufficient control over yourself in order to get up when the alarm rings, exercise after work, and refrain from eating that sugary pastry. The good news is that there are strategies you can use in order to increase your self-control.

Here are five scientifically-proven ways to strengthen your self-control so that you can begin to close the gap between what you say you’re going to do, and what you really end up doing.

Avoid Temptation

There’s a famous study in which a group of little kids were each given a marshmallow, and they were told that if they waited fifteen minutes before eating it, they would get a second marshmallow. However, if they ate the marshmallow before the fifteen minutes were up, they wouldn’t get another one.

Obviously, it was in each kid’s best interest to wait fifteen minutes in order to get two marshmallows instead of just one. The study found that the kids who stared directly at the delicious, gooey marshmallow were more likely to give in and eat it before the fifteen minutes were up then the kids who closed their eyes, looked away, or found ways to distract themselves.

The lesson from this study is simple: look for ways to avoid temptation. Here are two examples:

• If you’ve gotten into the habit of stopping by the bakery on your way home from work each day and eating a brownie, and you want to break this habit, take a different route home from work.
• If your colleagues leave pastries in the break room and, as a result of indulging in these treats each time you go to get yourself a cup of coffee you’ve gained a few pounds, set up a small coffee maker in your office so that you no longer have to go into the coffee room.

It’s very difficult to say “no” to temptations when they’re staring you right in the face. The best way to resist temptation is to avoid it. Here are three practical applications of this strategy:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t bring junk food into the house.
• If you’re trying to save money, leave the house without your credit cards.
• If you’re trying to give up smoking and you find yourself craving a cigarette, find a way to distract yourself (go for a swim, find someone to play a board game with, or work on a hobby that keeps your hands occupied).

Jump Rope For Ten Minutes

Studies show that a ten minute workout can increase your self-control. After a quick workout, your brain gets a blood-flow boost that delivers extra oxygen to the pre-frontal cortex. At the same time, your pre-frontal cortex is the part of your brain that is responsible for higher level functioning, such as taking action that will allow you to achieve your goals.

The practical take-away from this is the following: when faced with a situation in which you’ll have to exert self-control, get a quick workout in. Are you thinking of calling that ex-boyfriend you swore to yourself you would stay away from? Climb on the treadmill and run for ten minutes. After your mini-work-out you’re much more likely to make the right decision.

Make New Friends

A third strategy for increasing your self-control involves hanging out with people who have lots of self-control. You’ve probably heard the saying that birds of a feather flock together. If you want to increase your self-control, join a flock with lots of willpower.

A study conducted at Duke University shows that people with low self-control pick-up on self-control cues in others. In addition, they’re helped to avoid temptation by being around those who have high self-control. Think about it: are you more likely to stick to your diet if everyone sitting with you at the restaurant orders a healthy meal, or if they order the most fattening meal on the menu?

Play the “What-If” Game

In order to strengthen your self-control, plan how you’re going to respond to stimuli which might threaten to push you toward temptation. For example, suppose that you’re trying to give up smoking. You know that you’re highly likely to take out a cigarette and start smoking after a stressful meeting.

Here’s how to play the what-if game:

• Ask yourself: “What if I have a stressful meeting at work?”
• Formulate a plan: If I have a stressful meeting at work, I’ll do a few yoga stretches in my office in order to relieve the stress.

Having a Plan B will help you with your self-control.

Be Kind to Yourself

Suppose that you’re on a diet. However, on Tuesday, you blow it. You go out to lunch with a friend and order a hamburger with cheese and bacon, and a side of fries. Then, you have a sundae for dessert. You now have two options:

• You can beat yourself up for messing up and blowing your diet.
• You can forgive yourself for the slip up, give yourself a pep talk, and resolve to do better the next day.

In her book, “The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It”, Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., explains that people who follow the second approach are much more likely to stick with their diet. If you mess up, be gentle with yourself and move on. Your second grade teacher was right: kindness goes a long way.

Conclusion

Your level of self-control will determine how successful you are in achieving your goals. In addition, your self-control has an enormous impact on your self-esteem. After all, if you follow through on what you say you’re going to do, you’re more likely to feel good about yourself. Use the five strategies described above and begin increasing your self-control right away.

Related Posts:

1. Strengthening Your Willpower: Four Ways to Listen to the Angel on Your Shoulder
2. 18 Powerful Tips for Overcoming Procrastination
3. Stop Procrastinating Tip: Practice Discomfort
4. How to Level Up In Life – Turn Your Life Into a Game

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One of the main reasons why people don’t achieve their goals is because they lack the motivation to either get started, or to keep going once the going gets tough.

Luckily, there are many different strategies you can use in order to motivate yourself to work toward the achievement of you goals. Here are 21 ways to keep your motivation flying high:

1. Make sure that the goal is your own. Nothing will drain your energy as much as trying to go after a goal that someone else has set for you and which you don’t believe in. Think of the difference between the effort that you have to make in order to walk uphill, compared to the effort that you have to make in order to walk downhill.

• Taking action in order to achieve a goal that someone else has set for you is like walking uphill. Since the goal is not something that innately inspires you, you have to continually push yourself to act.
• Taking action in order to achieve a goal that is your own is like walking downhill. Since the goal is something that innately inspires you, it pulls you toward it like the force of gravity.

2. Use affirmations. Usually, I’m not a fan of affirmations. Telling yourself things such as, “I am now a millionaire”– when the truth is that your net worth is in the negative digits–, is not helpful in any way. However, affirmations such as the following are useful:

• By taking small steps on a consistent basis, I will achieve my goal.
• I have the ability to achieve anything I set my mind to.
• No matter the challenge, I will see it through.
• Each time I fall, I get back up again.

3. Engage in what you like best. As Charles M. Schwab once put it: “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.”

Napoleon Hill—author of the perennial best seller, “Think and Grow Rich”–explains that enthusiasm is easily expressed when one is inspired by a burning desire for something. Therefore, you need to set goals that you’re enthusiastic about. Think of enthusiasm as the flame that keeps your motivation burning.

4. Surround yourself with people who are enthusiastic. Other people can either dampen your enthusiasm and your motivation, or they can help you to keep your motivation high. Befriend people who will encourage you and challenge you to achieve your goals.

In addition, enthusiasm is contagious. When you’re around people who are enthusiastic about their lives and about their goals, their enthusiasm will rub off on you.

If you can’t find people who are enthusiastic, surround yourself with videos and audio programs of people who are enthusiastic, such as Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Denis Waitley, and Marelisa Fábrega (he, he he 🙂 ).

5. Stimulate yourself into a state of high enthusiasm. Napoleon Hill explains that everyone has something that arouses their enthusiasm–it could be something like the following:

• Going to museums to admire fine paintings;
• Listening to music;
• Spending time in nature;
• Wearing clothes that make you “look the part”;
• Reading books by authors that you admire; and so on.

He adds that all people of outstanding achievement have discovered ways and means of stimulating themselves into a state of high enthusiasm. Identify activities or situations that energize you, and engage in them as often as you can.

6. Ask yourself questions. Earl Prevette—author of “How to Turn Your Ability Into Cash”–explains that one of the best ways to generate enthusiasm in yourself is by asking yourself questions about your abilities, your ideas, and your progress. Likewise, if you want to generate enthusiasm in others, ask them questions. Prevette says the following:

“Ask enough questions and you will find the answer. Asking questions starts an endless chain of ideas, each one suggesting several others. Most inventions and improvements are the result of questions. Someone wanted to know the answer.”

Questions stir up ideas, arouse response, stimulate interest, and create desire. That is, they generate enthusiasm. Here are some questions you can use in order to begin generating enthusiasm:

• How can I have more fun doing this?
• What’s good about this situation?
• How can I continue moving forward?
• What’s the next best step that I can take?
• What do I want to happen here?
• How can I accelerate the speed at which I’m moving forward?

7. Create a “yes, but” list. Whatever the goal is that you’re trying to achieve, you can probably come up with a long list of reasons of why you can’t achieve it. These doubts linger in the back of your mind, eating away at your motivation. However, there’s a process you can use to help you assuage these doubts. I call it the “yes, but” approach.

Sit down and write down all of the reasons why you think that you may not be able to achieve your goals. Then, counter each of these with a “yes, but”. Here’s an example:

• Reason I can’t achieve my goal: I’m too old to go back to school.
• Response: Yes, I am older, but my life experience is an advantage that younger people don’t have, and which will help me to do well in my studies.

Addressing your doubts and looking for ways to knock them down or turn them into positives will help raise your motivation.

8. Focus. Still another way to generate enthusiasm is by giving your full attention to what you’re doing. Prevette explains that doing any job well requires concentration of thought. Integrate your mental attributes completely, pull together, and pay strict attention to what you’re doing. Here’s what Prevette says:

“It is not putting in hours, but putting yourself into the hours that wins promotion, earns more money, precipitates an increase in salary and gets you ahead.”

Whatever it is that you’re doing, look for ways to pull your attention together and place it fully on the activity that you’re carrying out. It’s very difficult to generate enthusiasm when half of your mind is on one thing, and the other half is thinking of something else.

9. Try the “as if” principle. As Shakespeare writes in Act III of “Hamlet: “Assume a virtue, if you have it not.” Norman Vincent Peale explains in his “Enthusiasm Action Book” that you can deliberately make yourself enthusiastic. The process is as follows:

• Hold an image of an enthusiastic you in your consciousness.
• Then, proceed to develop that characteristic by acting as if you already possess it.
• Third, believe and affirm that you’re in the process of self-creating the quality that you wish to possess.

Act “as if” you’re enthusiastic and motivated; soon, you will be.

10. Focus on your present reality. Steve Pavlina—owner of the popular blog, “Personal Development for Smart People”—recommends that you motivate yourself to work on your goal by thinking about how it will improve the quality of your life right now.

For example, suppose that you currently work at a job that you hate and your goal is to start your own business. How will the act of working toward your goal improve your life right now? Look at the following two scenarios:

• Scenario One: You wake up, go to a job you hate, and then you come home and read magazines or watch television until it’s time for bed.
• Scenario Two: You wake up earlier than usual and use that extra hour to work on your goal of starting your own business. Then, you go to work, come home, watch a little TV, and go to bed early so that you can repeat the process the next day.

If you follow Scenario One, you’ll probably be frustrated all day long. However, if you follow Scenario Two, you’ll probably feel enthusiastic all day.

In Scenario Two, even though you’re still working at a job you hate, you’re taking steps toward creating your own business. This brightens your entire day. That is, working toward your goal improves your life right away. And this will increase your motivation.

11. Generate enthusiasm and motivation by feeling appreciation. One of the emotions that helps to generate enthusiasm—and, therefore, helps to keep your motivation high–is gratitude. Feel gratitude for everything that you have that is helping you to achieve your goal. Here are three examples:

• Feel grateful that you have the health that is necessary to achieve your goal.
• Feel grateful that you have access to the internet which allows you to quickly find the information that you need in order to achieve your goal.
• Feel grateful that—through books—you have access to the stories of people who have already achieved what you’re trying to accomplish. This allows you to use these people as mentors and role models (even if you’ll never meet or speak to them).

12. Make the journey more enjoyable. As Earl Nightingale once said, “Happiness comes from direction not arrival. It’s the trip that is enjoyable. Moving toward our goals is more satisfying than accomplishing them.”

If moving toward your goal is not currently satisfying, ask yourself how you can make the action that you need to take in order to achieve your goal more enjoyable. Here are some ways in which you can do this:

• Add variety: work in a different location or try a different work method.
• Balance physical work with mental work: if your goal requires a lot of mental work, take a break every now and then and do something physical. For example, you can go for a jog or turn on some music and dance around the room.
• Involve others: ask a friend to read the first chapter of your novel and discuss it with you, or get your sister to train for the marathon with you.
• Avoid the unpleasant: if there’s something that you need to do in order to achieve your goal which you find highly unpleasant, look for a way to outsource it, delegate it, or eliminate it.
• Make the task more enjoyable: if there’s a task that you find unpleasant and which you can’t avoid doing, find a way to make it more enjoyable, even if it means that it will take longer.

Try to remain in a state of joy—or at the very least contentment–throughout the entire journey toward the achievement of your goal.  This means that sometimes you’ll have to sacrifice efficiency in favor of joy. And that’s OK.

13. Be motivated by the past. Make a list of all of your past successes. Whenever you’re feeling unmotivated, take out your list. Reminding yourself of everything that you’ve accomplished so far is a great way to pump yourself up when you feel like your efforts are not producing the results you were hoping for.

14. Expect obstacles. If you’re trying to do something worthwhile, it’s not a question of “if” you’ll come across an obstacle, it’s a question of “when”. Therefore, when you do meet an obstacle, you need to stop acting like something out of the ordinary is happening. Simply say to the obstacle: “Ah, there you are. I’ve been expecting you.”  Accept that overcoming obstacles is part of the process to reaching your goals.

This applies to all types of obstacles: people, events, circumstances, and so on.

15. Boost your self-esteem. Your motivation may be low because you don’t feel that you’re capable of achieving your goals. If you think that you don’t have what it takes in order to achieve your objectives, your motivation will suffer. If this is the case, take steps to increase your self-confidence, and your motivation will rise accordingly.

16. Create checklists. One of the best ways to make sure that you stay motivated to do what it takes in order to reach a goal is to know exactly what needs to be done, and to keep track of the progress that you’re making. A great way to do this is by creating a checklist.

For example, if one of your goals is to start a successful blog, set the goal of writing at least two blog posts a week. Then, create a checklist of everything that you have to do in order to write and publish a blog post. Twice a week, sit down and go down your checklist, ticking off each box as you complete each step of the process.

17. Join a challenge. Let’s face it: we all love a challenge. Whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve, there’s probably a group of people who are trying to achieve the same goal, and who have set up a challenge to motivate themselves to achieve that goal.

One example is NaNoWriMo. Writing a novel is one of those universal dreams; it’s something that almost everyone has on their bucket list. Therefore, the NaNoWriMo challenge was created: every year—during the month of November—people from all over the world take the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month.

Whatever your goal is, find a challenge that’s related to that goal, and take the challenge.

18. Motivate someone else to go after their dreams. Find someone else who has a dream that they’re trying to achieve, and motivate them to keep going. Point out their strengths, applaud any small progress that they make, and help them generate ideas on how to move forward. Remember that you get what you give, so by giving someone else motivation, you’ll become motivated.

19. Keep a journal. For a lot of people, writing is therapeutic. If you’re feeling unmotivated, write about it. Ask yourself why you’re feeling unmotivated and then pour your heart out in your journal. In addition, ask yourself what you need in order to feel motivated again.

20. Give yourself a break. If you’re constantly “on”, and you’re always striving to achieve your goal, sooner or later, you’re going to burn out.  Allow yourself to take breaks and do stuff that’s not productive, but that you enjoy doing. We all need some downtime.

• Is there a TV show you really enjoy? Put it on your schedule.
• Is there a video game you love to play? Give yourself a chunk of time to just sit back and play.
• Is there a trashy novel you’ve been wanting to read? Take a weekend off, go to the beach, and sit under a beach umbrella with your novel.

Think of these scheduled breaks as an opportunity to recharge your battery, so that you’re fully charged and ready to go when it’s time to get back to working on your goal.

21. Begin. Whatever you want to do, begin it. As Prevette explains, the law of nature is the following: “Do the thing, and you shall have the power.”

Start learning about the topic at hand; the more you know about something that more likely you are to become enthusiastic about it. In addition, set small goals for yourself and begin to achieve them. These small achievements will help you to generate the enthusiasm that you’ll need to keep going.

Conclusion

In order to live your best life, you need to set goals. And in order to work toward the achievement of those goals, you need motivation. Use the 21 strategies described above in order to keep your motivation high.

Related Posts:

1. How to Develop Your Character – Benjamin Franklin’s Thirteen Virtues
2. How to Level Up In Life – Turn Your Life Into a Game
3. Motivate Yourself By Appealing to Your Intrinsic Motivation
4. The Three-Step Formula for Success

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Whenever you turn your television on, there’s a high probability that you’ll find a talent show playing. You can find a talent show for just about anything: from singing, to dancing; and from cooking, to modeling.

My two favorite talent shows are America’s Got Talent (AGT) and Britain’s Got Talent (BGT).

Although I watch these two shows because I find them very entertaining, I also like to watch them for the life lessons that they teach. In this post you’ll discover four life lessons you can learn from talent competitions. These lessons are the following:

• Pursue Your Passion
• Overcome Your Fear
• It’s About How You Recover
• Keep Trying Until You Make It

Each of these lessons is fully explained below.

Pursue Your Passion

The majority of the adults who come on AGT and BGT have a day job. They’re teachers, brick layers, miners, and so on. However, their day job is just a way to pay the bills. In addition to their day job, they each have a passion.

That passion might be doing magic, dancing hip hop, being a trapeze artist, tap dancing, and so on. And they haven’t given up on their passion. That’s why they’re on AGT or BGT.  Here are some examples:

• Jonathan Allen is a Restaurant Host who loves to sing opera. He’s on Season 8 of AGT pursuing his dream of becoming an opera singer.
• When she was young, Francine Lewis did impressions. However, she never got to the level that she wanted. Then she stopped doing impressions when she got pregnant, and she became a housewife. After being out of show business for many years, she decided to make a come-back on BGT. She said the following during her BGT interview: “I love being with my kids, I really do. But I wouldn’t die happy if I didn’t do what I feel I should be doing.”
• Marty Brown is a carpenter from the state of Kentucky who wants to be a country singer. He’s on Season 8 of AGT with his guitar, singing away.

In fact, if you watch these talent shows you’ll see that the judges ask the contestants two questions:

1. “What do you do?” (They’re asking about their current day job.)
2. “What’s the dream?” (They’re asking about their true passion.)

Right now you may be working as a marketing executive, but your dream is to be the next Beyoncé.

If you haven’t found a way to make a living from your passion, you need a day job. However, in your spare time, do whatever you can in order to pursue your passion. Here’s Marty Brown during his audition:

Overcome Your Fear

Before the contestants on AGT and BGT go out on stage and start their auditions, the viewers at home get to watch a short interview with each of them. During the interview we get to hear some of the obstacles that they’ve had to overcome and the struggles that they’ve gone through.

Contestants share things such as the following:

• “Both of my parents were alcoholics”.
• “The kids at school made fun of me growing up because I was fat.”
• “My parents kicked me out of the house when I was eighteen because I told them that I was gay”.
• “I’ve always loved to sing, but my family told me that I would never make it as a singer.”

As a result of these events, most of the contestants are afraid. They’re afraid of not being good enough; they’re afraid of being rejected; they’re afraid of being buzzed by the judges; they’re afraid of being criticized; and so on.

However, the contestants manage to overcome their fears. They walk out onto the stage; they stand in front of the judges, the audience, and the TV cameras; and they perform. If you’re going to succeed in life–whatever success means to you–you have to feel the fear, and then do what needs to be done despite the fear.

One of the best examples of someone overcoming his fear in order to pursue his passion is Paul Potts. Paul was a mobile phone sales man from South Wales who auditioned for the First Season of BGT. During his interview, Paul said the following:

“By day, I sell mobile phones. But my dream is to spend my days doing what I feel that I was born to do. I’ve always wanted to sing as a career. Confidence has always been a difficult thing for me. I always find it a little bit difficult to be completely confident in myself.”

He went on to win BGT in 2007. Here’s his audition:

It’s About How You Recover

Ruby is nine years old, and she’s an amazing dancer (she dances with her ten-year old partner, Jonas). In the Eighth Season of AGT, during the second round of auditions–in Las Vegas–she slipped and fell during her dance number. When the judges asked her about the fall, she started crying.

Afterwards, her father–who’s also her dance coach– told her the following: “All dancers fall; it’s how you recover from the fall that counts. You have to recover like a professional.”

Of course, that advice doesn’t just apply to dancers. It doesn’t matter what the dream is that you’re trying to pursue; it’s almost a certainty that sooner or later, you’ll fall. The question is: “How will you recover from the fall?” Get back up and keep going.

Here’s Ruby:

Keep Trying Until You Make It

This year, a dance group from Hungary called “Attraction” won BGT. They do shadow theater. However, BGT wasn’t the first talent show that they participated in. They had already tried their luck on both the Hungarian and the German versions of BGT. Although they performed well on both previous shows, they failed to win.

Nonetheless, they didn’t give up. Their goal was to get the world recognition that comes from winning one of these talent shows. So, they kept trying. They kept trying until they made it. You can see their winning performance on BGT, below:

Conclusion

Take inspiration from the contestants of talent shows such as AGT and BGT: pursue your passion, overcome your fear, get up each time you fall, and keep trying until you make it.  Learn these lessons and live your best life.

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Today I came across a huge free writing guide (it has over 360,000 words), written by mystery, thriller, and horror writer J.A. Konrath. It’s titled, “The Newbie´s Guide to Publishing”.

J.A. Konrath has gotten eight book contracts, he’s sold over 100 short stories, and he has self-published several ebooks on Kindle (he’s sold more than 25,000 copies of his self-published ebooks). I decided to look through his guide and see if I could pick out a few good writing tips. The guide did not disappoint: I found lots of gems.

Here, then, are 42 writing tips from J.A. Konrath:

1. When Konrath is working on a book, he gives himself a writing quota of between 3,500 and 4,000 words a day. In order to meet this quota, he came up with three rules which he follows religiously:

• He doesn’t automatically accept every speaking invitation he receives.
• He only turns on the internet when he takes his breaks after every 1,000 words.
• He keeps working until he reaches his quota, even if it means that he doesn’t get any sleep that night.

2. Be entertaining.

3. If you’re paralyzed with fear that your book sucks, do the following:

• When in doubt, keep writing anyway.
• Tell your internal editor to shut up until you’ve reached the end.
• Remember that you’re often a poor judge of your own work.

4. “I’m an advocate of cutting everything non-essential to the story. It’s the Kill Your Darlings School of Writing. If it ain’t needed, trim it.”

5. “Make each chapter, each paragraph, each word essential.”

6. “Well drawn characters are important in fiction. If a reader doesn’t care about the protagonist and antagonist, it doesn’t matter how many roller-coaster twists the plot has. As writers, it’s our duty to make our characters memorable.”

7. One of the best ways to motivate yourself to write is by having a game plan. That is, prepare an outline. “An outline doesn’t have to be dozens of pages long, incorporating every scene, twist, and point. It simply needs to be the framework on which you hang your story.”

8. “In my books, I try to keep raising the stakes, constantly introduce conflict (both internal and external) . . . . Each scene has to have a point, a reason for existing. It has to fulfill some kind of purpose—reveal clues, enhance character, add suspense, raise tension, ratchet up the conflict.”

9. Your protagonist has to have a goal (or goals); that is, a dream or something that they desperately want. The plot centers on your protagonist’s attempts to achieve those goals. However, you need to make sure that your protagonist doesn’t achieve his or her goals until the very end.

In the meantime, torture your protagonist as much as you can. At every turn, ask yourself: “How can I make things worse for the protagonist?” (As another writer put it, chase your protagonist up a tree and then throw rocks at them.)

10. “Make sure the first chapter starts with action.”

11. Give your character flaws. Ask the following: “What personal, internal problem will get in the way of the hero reaching his/her goals? Addiction? Illness? Disability? Neuroses?”

12. Ask yourself: “Who will make a worthy opponent for your protagonist?”

13.  Create a strong villain. “Good vs. Evil is conflict in its purest form, and any sports fan can tell you that competition is a lot of fun.”

14.  “Conflict is the main ingredient for successful fiction. The question of ‘What happens next?’ is what keeps your audience glued to the page. Not pretty description. Not clever phrasing. Not cute dialog. The motor that drives the story is conflict. The central plot of any story should be centered around a conflict. The sub plots should introduce more conflict. There should be conflict on every page, and even in every paragraph.”

15. “Write what you like to read.”

16. “If you want to be a writer you have to make writing a priority.”

17. “Rewriting and editing is where you take a good book and make it great by cutting out all of the fat, exposition, and unnecessary action and dialog.”

18. When writing dialogue, make it sound natural. “People talk differently than they write. Writing is slower, more deliberate, and more thought goes into it. Speaking is looser, freer, less constricting, and less precise. Record some dialog in natural settings—at the mall, on the phone, on the radio. Then transcribe what you heard. You’ll notice a big difference between the spoken word and the written word.”

19. “Read everything out loud.”

20.  “Get the scissors. . . . You may have the right words, but the wrong order. Don’t be afraid to print up a manuscript and then attack it with a razor and a roll of tape. Switching chapters, paragraphs and sentences can sometimes make a good piece into a great one. Seeing your words all hacked gives you a greater freedom to manipulate them.”

21. If you feel blocked, ask your characters how they’re feeling, what they want, and what they should do next.

22. Give yourself permission to write crap. “Spend too much time thinking, questioning, judging, dismissing, and second-guessing, and you’ll never get anything finished.” You can always edit later.

23. If you’re stuck, read what you wrote the day before. This can give you a launching point for the next scene.

24. “Keep at it.”

25. “Questions keep the pages turning. The obvious question, ‘What happens next?’ is what both your characters and your readers should be thinking.”

26. Editing tip: “Put the writing away. A week is good. Two weeks is better. The longer you can stay away from it, the more you can forget what you wrote and approach it with fresh eyes.”

27. “We’re not writers. We’re rewriters. Nobody gets it right the first time. And even when you do sell it, you’ll be required to make even more changes. This is a business. Leave the ego at the door . . .  and be prepared to work hard if you want to make some money in this biz.”

28. “Research shouldn’t take the place of writing, but it is certainly required if you want to paint an accurate picture in your reader’s mind.”

29. “Read like a writer. Reread passages from books you love and ask yourself, what is the author doing here that’s working so well? And if you see something that you think is bad, ask yourself, why is this bad? What could the author have done differently to make it work?”

30. Ask, “What if?” Here’s one example. “What if someone cloned dinosaurs and planned to open a dinosaur theme park on a remote island?” (Jurassic Park).

31. “Get feedback. It’s tough to write in a vacuum. As writers, we need readers. Family, friends, peers.”

32. “Seek criticism, not praise. Knowing what’s wrong will help you improve.”

33. “Read what’s currently selling, and come up with comparable ideas.”

34. “Don’t take rejection personally. This is a business, so be businesslike.”

35. Ask: “Does the story pull the reader in right away and then hold their interest?” In other words, does your story hook the reader?

36. “Short stories pay poorly, but they’re extremely important for getting your name out there. Try to send out a few every month.”

37. “Talking about writing, reading about writing, taking writing classes, and joining writing groups, discussing writing online, attending writing conventions, are not substitutes for sitting down and actually writing. Writers write.”

38. “Don’t be the writer who has ten projects going at once but never finishes any of them. Complete a project to the end.”

39. “Don’t be the writer who has a drawer full of finished manuscripts but no rejection slips because you didn’t ever send them to agents or editors. If you want to sell, you have to query.”

40. Luck plays a part in the process of getting published. However, you can improve your luck by working hard.

41. “All huge goals are simply a series of smaller goals. The pyramids were built one stone at a time. A mountain is climbed one step at a time. A bestseller is sold one book at a time.”

42. “Writing is craft, and craft can be taught.”

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