Intention Manifestation

I hadn't really come across the intention manifestation model in any great detail until I began looking to improve myself personally. Previously, I'd read a few bits and pieces on the topic, but had never really been convinced by it completely. Being a very analytical person, I'd always paid more attention to the cause and effect model, where the belief was that by planning the tasks required to achieve my goals would ultimately see me succeed in these goals. Unsurprisingly, I never really made that much difference to my life in terms of improving it. OK, I'd managed to improve my career and earn more money, but I was obviously lacking a large part of the focus for improvements.

After discovering the personal development blogs and information available, I read through Steve Pavlina's Cause-Effect Vs Intention-Manifestation article, which really explained a bit more about the intention manifestation model and the realities behind it. In his article, Steve explains that the model can indeed be used for life changing developments on a huge scale - but that the effects are seen in much smaller increments. Suddenly, this realistic explanation and approach made the model seem that bit more applicable to me.

So I have been putting this model into practice in my life. As I mentioned previously, I'm a very analytical type of person, and so found myself still looking towards the cause-effect model. So I combined the two. Some of the goals I want to achieve have definite steps involved to achieving them. These goals I planned in detail, wrote down and am working towards achieving. Some of the larger goals have been intended on the hope that the intention-manifestation approach works in this case.

In truth, I have already noticed a lot of action on a number of these fronts. Some of the larger goals which I have set appear to be moving in the right direction already. Indeed I have seen actual results already. However, whether or not this was in fact just the result of intention-manifestation, I'm yet to decide.

The truth is this - whilst adopting this intention-manifestation technique has undoubtedly been of benefit to me, I'm not sure that it is entirely this that has been responsible for the improvment in my circumstances. Don't get me wrong, as a technique it has given me the motivation and belief that I obviously craved to enable this stuff to work. However, the most improtant change I've noticed has been in myself, which has in turn reaped the rewards and completed goals I'm telling you about.

From this, I've decided that there are a number of improvements in me that have ultimately already begun improving my life and achieving my goals. These are:

• Inspiration


• Motivation


• Intention Manifestation


• Planning and Goal Setting


• Desire and Enthusiasm


• Calmness (through meditation and improved self control)


• Stepping back and analysing the current situation


• Improving my sleep patterns


• Doing the things that I'm passionate about

All of these things added together have helped to improve not only myself, but also have driven me, without my realising, towards achieving some of the most important goals in my life.

Using Blog Services.....

In spite of reading that I shold avoid doing so, I decided to use a free blogging service to start this blog. Blogger have kindly provided the storage, the URL, the template and so on for me, and I've got somewhere to instantly post my blog posts. This seems like the perfect situation surely? As a naive new blogger, I certainly thought so.

However, I'm approximately 2 weeks into this blog, and have learnt the error in my ways already. I don't have the level of control that I require over this blog (which I was warned about by Steve Pavlina in an article he wrote about blogging). I have a few things I'd like to try out with my blog, but can't really achieve with a Blogger blog. Plus, I've been reading quite a bit about blog architecture, and it is quite obvious that the blog architecture used by Blogger is not going to support what I want to do with this blog in the future.

Then something very important struck me - when I started this blog, the intention was always to host it on Blogger temporarily and then pay for some hosting. If I do that now, I'll need to let the few people that have linked to my site know that it's moved. But let's say I move it in 6 months time, by which there will be (hopefully) many more visitors and links to the site. I would effectively have to start building my traffic figures all over again - not a good idea if, like me, you hope that your blog will generate some income in the future too.

Host it now!

There are a number of excellent options available for hosting a blog - one of the best that I've seen is the recommended option on WordPress which is reasonably priced hosting option which also includes an installation of WordPress as a part of your hosted service, saving you the trouble of having to set up and configure the software. More details can be found here.

So if you are just starting a blog, and either want it to generate an income or want to host it separately at any point in the future, make the effort to do it now, before you waste any of your time.

How to stay confident and positive.....

For those people who have never been involved in starting a business or running a business, becoming self employed will seem like a rather daunting situation. Indeed those people who are currently employed will also hear of negativity and denial from employees and indeed colleagues. People will have concerns over their short term incomes, over the risks involved in setting up a business, or indeed will have concerns over the possibility of failure. And much of this negativity will be generated by colleagues, employers or even family around you.

This was of course a concern of mine. In fact, I'm still in full time employment at the moment. And more notably, I also find that there are times that these concerns over risk and failure attack me over and over again.

As I've mentioned previously, my initial inspiration for improving my life was from Steve Pavlina's website, a website which gives away free premium content that will inspire most. Reading Steve's website, and similar websites which I then found as a result, gave me the confidence required to believe that I could achieve all of the goals which I have set. I felt full of motivation to achieve everything I wanted, one of which was to become self employed and hence time independent. However, doubts were raised by others around me, and I suddenly found myself worrying about risk and failure in just a couple of days.

Fortunately, it didn't take me long to realise how to stay confident and motivated. You'll notice that there is a consistent theme in a number of similar personal development and entrepreneur blogs and websites. That's because the people who write these blogs are of similar mindset - they understand the value of being an entrepreneur and possess a certain entrepreneurial spirit. They are positive and motivated and convinced not only that they will succeed but also that like minded people will succeed alongside them.

I suppose the message is therefore to ensure that you are surrounded by these like-minded entrpreneurs. These people will never tell you that you might fail, but will fill you with confidence that you will succeed.

Take it from me, if you truly want to succeed at your goals, then you will achieve them.

Financial & Time Independence

In this quest to improve my life, it has become apparent that there are two ultimate goals that will allow me to improve my life most. These two are financial independence and time independence.

Financial Independence

In order to achieve many of my goals, financial independence is a key goal. With financial independence, I will be able to fund the projects which I have identified as potential life improvements. I will be able to support my family in spite of not having to work for a single employer. And I will be able to gain time independence.

Time Independence

In addition, I see it essential to achieve time independence. By this I mean the ability to control my own time. Rather than having to appear in an office at 9am and be forced to stay there until 5pm, I want to be able to concentrate my efforts into the times where I am most productive. If I choose to work from 6am until midday, and then again at 4pm until 6pm, then I should have the option to do so. Likewise, if I feel the urge to work during an evening, it should be rewarded.

Achieving these two goals will give me the ability to concentrate my time and my efforts into projects that I see as important, as well as achieving goals that will have a positive impact on my life.

Motivation and Inspiration

The difficulty with starting a journey like mine has always been maintaining the motivation to continue indefinitely. How many of us have begun things with the promise to ourselves and others that we'll continue indefinitely, only to finish a week or two later and move on to something completely different. Take new years resolutions, for example......

I've found that there are a number of ways to remain motivated - things that inspire me to continue with this life improvement journey when previously I might have already given up by now. So I'm going to share these with you :

Personal Development blogs

I find that going back to my original inspiration to start this journey also helps me to remain motivated and continue on this path. Reading Steve Pavlina on a regular basis not only improves my knowledge of these things and furnishes me with more ideas, but also keeps me motivated to continue on my own journey.

Keep getting up early

I used to be notoriously bad at getting out of bed in the mornings. I'd often push the boundaries to see how late I could get away with waking in the morning, finding myself rushing around aimlessly and not even thinking. Since I decided to get up a couple of hours earlier every morning, it has given me the time to think about what I'm working towards and bring it into focus every day.

Similarly, this has almost become a daily goal for me (in spite of the fact that my body is getting used to it), meaning that I wake up every morning having already achieved something important. This gives me one hell of a lift in the mornings!

Listen to the positive people

Truth be known, there are plenty of people out there who have not only achieved much of what I'm hoping to achieve, but they also write about it regularly, and urge similar people to do the same. Reading lots about these people helps to keep me motivated to emulate them.

Music

When I'm working, I tend to find some music inspiring and certain music pieces motivate me to succeed. These will of course be different for other people, based on the key events in your life and your music preferences. Two pieces of music which currently provide me with inspiration are the Champions League Theme Music, and the music from the Harry Potter films. Finding your own inspirational music can help to improve your focus and achievements during work.

Pictures

I also find inspiration from pictures. In particular, pictures of my family and pictures of Canada inspire me, and I'm sure to keep these pictures around me whenever possible to ensure that I remain focused and motivated on achieving my goals in life.

Turn bad influences into positive energy

I find this to be another of my key improvements since I started this journey. Whereas previously negative influences (in particular work influences) would have either made me angry or negative too, I've learned to spin these influences on their head and turn them into a positive reminder of the direction that I don't want my life to move into. Let's take for example a boss that gives you a hard time at work. You can do one of a few things in these circumstances. You could become really negative, saying things like "he's the boss, there's nothing I can do" and resigning yourself to a workplace that is a complete misery. You could get really angry, shout and maybe hit, and end up leaving that job in disgrace (this is probably slightly better than the first :) ).

Or you could use his negativity and spin it into a positive manner. You could remind yourself that you'd hate to turn out like him, and do something about it. You could imagine his reaction on the day that you tell him you'll be leaving to pursue a life changing venture on your own. And then remind yourself that in 25 years, he'll probably be doing the same shit to a whole load of different people.

Summary

Positivity + inspiration + motivation = success

Discover your inspirations, and stay positive.

Getting up earlier

One of the main problems that I've always found previously is that regardless of the number of good ideas I might have, I'd never have to time to implement any of these ideas. After all, there's the full time job, a wife and child to see in the evening, my favourite TV shows to watch....and the list goes on. As part of the goals I put together at the start of this journey, I decided that I needed to start achieving more of my goals around my job, and that the best way to achieve this was to start getting up earlier in the morning.

Previously, I used to get out of bed for about 7:45am and be out of the house by 8:10am, giving me just enough time to wash and dress myself and my son, get my things together and leave the house. I decided that I needed to give myself more morning time. I had tried this before - setting earlier alarms, asking my wife to wake me (she leaves for work at about 6:30am), and trying numerous other unsuccessful attempts at becoming an early riser. Why should this time be any different?

I found that it was different. By giving myself a reason to get out of bed, I found myself easily responding to my alarm clock and waking early. This focus on improvement in my life made the process of waking early much easier, ensuring that I achieved this small goal. Initially my goal was literally just to achieve the ability to get out of bed earlier, but I have progressed to being able to work on other projects in the morning now, as well as showering, eating breakfast, and generally relaxing more before I leave the house.

In addition, the positive attitude which I have adopted of late have helped in this area too. Whereas I would see the morning as a negative event whereby I needed to get into work, I am now able to appreciate the time I have before I need to leave the house. This has provided me with a massive change in my energy levels both in the morning and throughout the day.

On the other hand, I'm finding that i don't need to get to bed much earlier to sustain this early rising. I am now in the habit of going to bed when I feel like the time is right and I'm sufficiently tired, all of which are providing an excellent balance for me overall.

To summarise, my ability to be an early riser has been born out of the following techniques:

• Set a time to wake up and stick to it


• Focus on the goals and achievements that getting up early helps you work towards


• Ensure some relaxation in the morning after waking


• Go to bed in the evening when it feels the right time for you - don't set your bed time by a routine, a TV program or another person.

Reaching and Touching Others.....

I have been constantly reviewing my set of goals since they were set, adding and amending goals, changing things around. It strikes me that although this list of goals has given me focus, the list will be ever changing as priorities change.

I've analysed my goals a little more, and there is a theme with many of the goals which I have set that involve doing things that will impact others. One particularly strong desire I have is to write a book - preferably fiction - and get it published. A book that will maybe bring some enjoyment to the people that read it in the same way that I enjoy reading books written by others. Similarly, my desire would be for this blog to provide inspiration to others and help people to improve their lives as I am doing with mine.

The point here is that I appear to have found another major goal for my life which is to influence, entertain and inspire others. With this find comes some clarity and some more momentum to completing this journey.

Improving Your Life - Getting Started

I must admit, this was the most tricky challenge I've faced so far (albeit in a relatively short space of time). Following my initial discovery of the words of Steve Pavlina, I know/knew that I will achieve everything that I am going to set out for. The motivation and eagerness to succeed that is now within me is driving me like never before, and I recognise the benefits now of everything I am aiming for.

Before I move on to describe the methods I've used so far to get started, I need to iterate that these are my (relatively early) experiences. I do not pretend at this stage to be an expert at personal development, and this is in fact the first article I've written on the subject. My aim is simply this - that if I can show the journey I am making towards self improvement, and the methods I've used along the way, perhaps others might be inspired to improve their lives too.

Read Steve Pavlina

This discovery has proved to be the single most important inspiration to me. On reading Steve's website, I immediately became obsessed with achieving a similar sense of happiness and achievement in my own life. I want to be content and happy in the knowledge that I have continuously improved myself, my life, and the lives of others around me, since this will furnish me with a sense of achievement in my life. I also hope that one day someone might read some of the words I've written and become equally inspired and driven to improve themselves.

What would you improve?

My next step was to really work out what it is that I would improve. To explain my current situation, I am 26 years old, I have a wife and son and I adore them both, I have had a fairly successful career to date, I have a decent house, a car and we are financially fine. On the face of it, it would seem like I've no reason to concern myself with improving any of this, since for my age, I must be doing fairly well.

However, wife and son aside, much of this seems quite empty. I don't have enough time to spend with my wife and son, I don't feel that I really achieve a lot, and I don't feel that I give enough back to others around me. So on this basis, I began to consider the things in my life that I would improve.

I came up with a list of broad headings of areas where I thought I would like to improve. Things like my physical health, my personal learning (educational). I decided that I'd like more time to spend with my family, I'd like to travel a bit more. The list goes on.

What do these mean?

Looking at the list I'd produced, I realised that I wasn't clear exactly why I'd written down some of these things. It struck me that there had to be reasons they were on there, and so the next step was to clarify each of the points a little more. So with each of the list items as a heading, I wrote the sorts of things I'd like to improve in each of them. Under "learning" for example, I realised that I had regrets for having not completed my college degree, and completing a degree was one of the tasks here. As was reading more and indeed writing more, two tasks which have certainly come true of the last week. Suddenly each of these areas for improvement had some meaning specific to my own life, and I had an idea as to the projects I might have to complete to improve myself in the future.

What's stopping you?

My next thought was to question why I wither hadn't done these things already, or why I wasn't already doing them. If you've created a list of your own, I fancy the answer to this question will be fairly similar to my own answers - either I haven't enough money or I don't have the time. This led me to explore these two areas within my own list further. And the answer is obvious - a good place for me to start is to work towards both time and financial independence. After all, more time would give me the opportunity to complete my life improvement projects, and financial independence would give me the financial support I need.

Plan some tasks

Finally, I decided therefore that it would be a good idea to plan some tasks to start with. Time and financial independence are long term goals. However, it is possible to start working towards them now. I've decided to train my body to get up at 6am every morning. This will give me 2 hours every morning before I need to go to work, which will allow me to pursue and complete some of my website projects which I currently have on hold (in fact, the motivation I currently have has led me to complete one website project over this first weekend). The completion of these websites will ultimately result in an increase to my income, until eventually I can afford to leave a full time role to concentrate on my own businesses.

In addition, I've started to think about my personal organisation a bit more. I've come up with a few tasks here too - sorting out my personal finances will move me slowly towards financial independence. Sorting out my (home) working environment will allow me to be more productive at home. Improving my diet and sleeping patterns will give me more energy to complete the other tasks on my list.

Finally

I now have a list of goals to work towards. One of my key considerations through this was to make sure that I'm aiming high. I could have listed some easily achievable goals and completed them within days. But I would have always regretted doing this in the future.

By using the method above, I have managed to produce goals set at the highest level, but break them down into (not easily) achievable tasks. And it's this that has made me sure that I am going to succeed.

Day 4 of 31

Day 4 of 31 in terms of consistent daily posting and today's post has proven to be a late one. It's now 23:00 (GMT) and I'm only just getting around to posting.

That said, today has been a productive day. I've progressed the task list to a first draft which will be fine for me to continue working against. And the whole thing seemed to flow out of me easily, although getting the first words down on paper proved the trickiest. As promised, I'll follow this post with my first real 'article' about how I managed to get started.

Task List Part 1

I took my first steps towards completing the willpower task today, with me having started working on what it is that I'd actually change. I've bought myself a nice black notebook, no lines (I like to draw a lot of things rather than write). I went for a fairly expensive notepad too - leather bound and really nice to look at and hold. If this is to be the way I improve my life significantly, then I want to do it in style, not with a 50 pence notebook.

I'm hoping to have my willpower task completed by tomorrow. One of the things that I'm struggling with at the moment is being able to make order of the mess. As I've said already, I'm really motivated by all of this, which is unusual of late, and yet there's so much there for me to think about that it's all blurring into a single mess of tasks and projects and ideas.

So I've decided upon a rule for my journey.

Rule 1: I'm going to start putting deadlines on certain things. Not all things, but since I'm doing this in tandem with a full time job at the moment, I need to give myself targets for the important things.

So, the first deadline I've decided upon is tomorrow. By tomorrow, I'll not only have a big task and project list for me to work towards, but I'll also have written an article for visitors to this blog on how I managed to get started and put together the task list.

I look forward to tomorrow.

My Eyes Have Opened

I didn't sleep very well last night - I went up to bed at about midnight as I was genuinely tired, but was lying there wide awake still at 2am. The truth is however that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The reason for my not being able to sleep is completely attributable to excitement and ideas for this blog.

It hasn't stopped there though. I've also been almost narrating everything I'm doing as if I'm writing a blog at all times during the day. Whilst at the shop earlier today, I could hear myself blogging about the new notebook I've bought and the diary to accompany it. That's another story for my first real article which I hope to write tomorrow as part of my willpower task.

The other thing I've noticed is a definite increase in my energy levels and a massive improvement in my mood. I'm suddenly really happy - almost ecstatic even. I'm itching to continue down this path of self improvement. I walked around Cardiff today (in Wales/UK) - I work in the city centre, so lunchtimes are extremely busy, with hundreds to thousands of others all walking around. And strangely, being in this environment made me very happy too. I was intrigued by the people around me. I wore a beaming smile, and paid detailed attention to everyone around me. And it's amazing how much you can find out just by watching others. The majority of people really looked like they wanted to be somewhere else, or with someone else. Occassionally I'd notice someone smiling and looking around like me, and I wondered whether these people had embarked on the same journey that I recently have.

I am motivated now like never before. I know where I'm going, and even the things in my life which could do with some serious improving all seem tiny now since I know that eventually I will make it.

I welcome you all to join me and succeed too.

Improving My Life

This is my first post on my new blog, and thanks must go to the man who inspired this new blog. After reading Steve Pavlina's "Personal Development for Smart People" blog, I decided that maybe it was time to make some of these changes in my own life - they are all beneficial after all. So then I decided to write about it too.

Thanks must also go therefore to blogger.com, who spurned my initial blog address suggestions (changing-my-life and changingmylife both gone). This led me to realise that I'm not trying to change my life - losing a limb, becoming bankrupt or catching some sort of disease would all be ways of changing my life - I'm actually looking to improve my life, hence the change of heart and the new spangly URL. Surprisingly, a lot of people appear to be changing their lives, but not as many improving them......?!

So onwards with this project. Steve recommends 2 theories which I'll be using here, namely a willpower theory and a 30-day trial theory. So my first tasks are as follows:

Willpower Task: Create a list of goals, and plans for achieving them, that will lead to an improved life.
30-day trial Task: Post on this blog every day - which means success in other areas, as I'll obviously need something to write about!

Well here we go.....! Wish me luck!