Share Your Pearls

[Lioness]

of PD wisdom! I'll start. (Some of these will conflict, like the adages "Look before you leap" vs. "He who hesitates is lost". At different times/circumstances, either approach can be valid; the trick is figuring out which to use when.)

Borrowed from Angela's sig Look where you want to go and stop analyzing why/how you took a wrong turn. Recently, I started thinking about all the crap I'm disappointed with. I was able to immediately stop this pity-party and look at the the good things I have, and WHAT I WANT and stop looking at what I DON'T want. Although you may not be where you want to be, focusing on the positive will help you live in gratitude, attract more abundance, and keep you moving in the right direction.

Conversely, the Larry Winget school of negative motivation can work also. If you get angry enough about your circumstances, that can give you the kick-in-the-pants to get up and do whatever it takes to improve the situation.

When you are in a rut, do something physical, get out of your head, off forums.

Do what's hard when thing are easy. Our temptation is to coast, splurge and/or party when our workload/problems are light. But the wise use this time to prepare for the harsh "winters" that are sure to come.

Just Do It. Do those little annoying chores immediately when they come up. Don't allow yourself to start rationalizing why you can do it later. Rationalizing non-action is the hallmark of procrastination. So recognize when you are doing it and just automatically put yourself in motion.

If all else fails, pay someone else to do the tasks you hate. It's worth it.

Babystep your way to a new habit. Babies don't quit when they fall down, they get up and keep learning how to walk until it's second nature. It's how we humans learn, gradually. You can't cram your way to a permanent change.

OK everybody, bring on your best tips for success in life!

[WarrenG]

I thought this thread was titled "Share your penis" at first! lol!

OK I'll add one:

Track your progress. If you're pursuing a goal or a particular PD direction, find a way of measuring your progress. That way, you can try out different things and see how they compare. Even if you get a perfectly accurate measurement of what you're doing, it's not going to be perfect as you can't control every thing, and things beyond what you're consciously doing might be having an effect. That said, you can get valuable data from it, and you can do little experiments if you're unsure (e.g., practise some technique on and off for 2 weeks at at time).

[Daffy Duck]

If you are to gain only one thing from personal development, let it be good time management.

Time management makes you figure out what's important and what's not.

Time is all we have. You may find one day that you have less than you think.

[James81]

Be here now.
Keep moving forward.
Find strength in what remains behind.
Question your thoughts.
Take responsibility for your role in creating your experiences.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Think win-win.
There is no meaning beyond what you create.
There is a space between stimulus and response that allows you the freedom to choose.
Love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness.

[spacecadetglow]

It all works out for the best.
Know thyself.
+1 for James' "there is no meaning beyond what you create."
When things get rough, sit with it.
Feel your feelings instead of analyzing them.
Never underestimate the power of a hot bath.
Add to that a warm, homecooked meal.
Don't take yourself too seriously.

[Mounds]

Don't be afraid to stem the tide. The crowd isn't always right.

Think biologically. If everything feels wrong, before you change anything else, check your eating habits. Bad eating habits result in general malaise. It affects every single aspect of your life. It affects your thoughts, which in turn has an effect on your perception of reality. Eat better food, enjoy a better life.

Admitting a mistake is the second most powerful gesture in the world.

Saying sorry is the most powerful gesture in the world. Not only have you admitted your mistake, you're working to correct it.

[Lioness]

Originally Posted by WarrenG

Track your progress. If you're pursuing a goal or a particular PD direction, find a way of measuring your progress.

I still haven't found the optimal tracking tool. I had an PAS (personal accountability system) that worked for awhile, then it fell by the wayside.

There is a space between stimulus and response that allows you the freedom to choose.

So true. We allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and manipulated by emotion, pain and/or pleasure. But we have the power not to succumb to animal nature, sentiment, or ego when it is not in our best interest. The trick is to have a set of values that you reinforce daily, so you are not caught up in the heat of the moment.

However, we can also take advantage of the fact that avoidance of pain is one of the strongest human drives. Supposedly, even stronger than pursuit of pleasure. If we can harness this phonemenon to work in our favor somehow....Like making it more physically painful to procrastinate than to take action? I can't advocate literally beating yourself up, though.

Never underestimate the power of a hot bath.

Ah, yes...
And music not only soothes the savage beast, a good beat can be a great motivator.

If everything feels wrong, before you change anything else, check your eating habits. Bad eating habits result in general malaise.

Also physical exercise, especially cardio, gets the blood and creative juices flowing again.

Don't be afraid to stem the tide. The crowd isn't always right.

One of the secrets to success is to stand out - and be outstanding. We waste so much time trying to fit in. Social skills and relationship/network building are important, but I find I always have the most respect for the person who is unafraid to disagree with the crowd. The only people worth impressing are your close family, your REAL friends, and whoever signs your paycheck.

[Lioness]

Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Let it go and move on.

Motivation follows action. You can't think your way to success or wait until you feel inspired to take action. You've got to prime the pump. Life rewards action and perseverance

Work harder on your dreams than on your job

Do what you love, the money will follow (I'll revise this to say, become excellent at what you love. There nothing worse than listening to someone who loves to sing, but can't.)

Even a .500 hitter strikes out half the time. Don't fear making mistakes. Mistakes are teachers.

Be bold. Life respects the bold.

[sorter]

Eighty percent of success is showing up. ~Woody Allen

Success Quotes and Sayings

[Lioness]

Two natures beat inside your breast. One you love, the other you hate. The one you FEED will dominate. Stop feeding your bad habits with indulgence, analyzation, and attention. Instead, focus on expanding and increasing the good habits.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Replace a bad habit with a healthier one.

[WarrenG]

Originally Posted by Lioness

I still haven't found the optimal tracking tool. I had an PAS (personal accountability system) that worked for awhile, then it fell by the wayside.

It depends on the specific thing you want to track. Each goal will need a bit of research to find the right tool and the right thing to measure.

The key is to make it easy, a computer spreadsheet can be just that little bit too hard to load up. Automation is best if that's possible.

For example, for meditation I use the stopwatch on my watch. I start it when I start, and stop it when I stop. If I do 20 mins in the morning, 3 mins here, 3 mins there, it all takes about 2 seconds to measure. I write the total on a pad of paper every morning (before I reset it for the next day). Practically effortless to track, I have data going back months which I can link up with other stuff, like a program called Rescue Time which tracks on-computer productivity in the background, no effort whatsoever. So with no effort I can compare meditation time to productivity (and indeed there is a link!).

[Peek]

Playing safe is risky, Seth Godin

[Supertramp]

WRITING!! Writing a Lot!! Writing in my Journal alone is the best PD activity I have ever done so far!

Over the years I have read many personal development books, but being the lazy person I am, none made a lasting impact as they didn't push me to action nor did they change my perspective radically. Whenever I read a book, I just experience a spike in my Life Graph, which is due to the motivation that I got from that book. But after awhile that would go away. But when I started writing, I felt the truth that every real Personal Development Guru proclaimed, which is, "Every Solution lies within you And that Your potential is limitless". There was no need of anymore PD books. I simply read most of them and found that most of them were giving out the same old stuff that N.Hill and Benjamin Franklin had told already. But when I write, when I think on paper, it's just wonderful and different every time. It's healing and helps exercise your creativity. One thing you'll realize when you start writing is that, you'll notice that you are using your brain to think after a very long long time

What to write about?
Prompts are the best way to start writing about. Checkout this for a list of prompts.
There was one prompt that asked me to imagine I was about to Skydive and write about my experience. After writing for about 10 minutes, I was profoundly sweating!!
One prompt was to have imaginary communication with the household bugs and after writing that I stopped killing Mosquitoes and Ants. (Ofcourse, I use Pest control agents to keep my Living room and Toilets clean of the micro-organisms. Some compromise has to be made somewhere right?!)

So according to me Writing is the single most beneficial activity an aspiring Conscious Being can do.

Ofcourse, you have to read Steve's Blog in order to get a lead on what to write about