I’m one of those rare people who love to create plans for everything. If you can name any area in your life that you can have control over, I guarantee you that I have created a mission on how to improve that aspect of my life at some point. (Okay, so maybe I’m a little bit nutty in that respect, but that’s okay. )

Day to day planning is what I focus on now. To me, having a productive day is incredibly important. If I go to bed with a lackluster feeling, I’m almost certain to wake up in the morning carrying over some residual emotions from that. Or vice versa – a great day yesterday means a great start today. Planning has a lot to do with these feelings, obviously.

At first, I would plan out my days as if I was a productivity robot, able to burst through tasks effortlessly with a little time to spare. Back to back objectives with a little breathing room made up my schedules. I would think to myself, “this is what it means to be productive. This is what it means to schedule your time wisely.” Of course, I now know that life doesn’t work like that.

Something would always happen that would tear my plans to shreds. The task at hand would be completed way before my estimated time… not necessarily a bad thing. Or worse, the task at hand would take up way too much time, sometimes several hours more than I would have guessed. This happened way too often than not, and it often pushed other necessary, urgent tasks to the next day. While that would be okay once in a while, the cumulative effect wasn’t too pretty. I began to feel burnt out and stressed to the max.

Is it human nature to think that we’re more efficient workers than we really are? I’d like to think so. We all want to believe we’re great at barreling through tasks at a breakneck speed, able to conquer anything that we put in front of ourselves. The real world and our lives don’t work like this, however. We’re not perfect machines; we’re human beings. We plan for computers, but we behave like primates.

After these realizations, I began to plan in a different way. I had to be more flexible, more conscious in the realization that I can’t possibly execute my plans perfectly if I tried to box myself in a tight schedule day in and day out.

With a little trial and error, I worked out two planning guidelines that I use to allocate time to activities:

1. Only assign time amounts to those activities where time is the only requirement. There are certain things that I do that merely require I put in the necessary time. Piano practice is one of these. No matter if I choose to practice for one hour or three hours, I need to simply put in the time. Results will happen regardless, as long as I’m focused on the task at hand.
2. Schedule wide open spaces for activities that are creativity based. I love writing these blog posts and sharing my ideas with the world. Sometimes words flow effortlessly and I can create an inspired post at an incredible speed. At other times I decide to go at a slower pace, deliberately crafting my sentences and carefully choosing how I want to convey my message. These are the activities that I choose not to assign a time to.

Before I started planning like this, I would assume every task would be a #1 task. Somehow my brain thought that any objective could be assigned an allotted time amount and I would be able to finish that objective within that time frame. How wrong I was!

It’s true that some tasks will only require you to pump in the time. Running on the treadmill at the gym for 30 minutes will never, ever take 29 minutes or 31 minutes. Always 30. In order to knock off that exercise goal, all you have to do is put in the time. Easy. The same goes for any activity where time is the main measurable aspect of accomplishment, such as practicing a musical instrumental or studying.

But what about creative endeavors? It took me a while to realize that not all creative pursuits are made equal. There are instances where it’s fairly easy to finish up a project within a short amount of time. There are other even greater instances where more time is needed then you’d think. Countless times I’ve started writing blog posts that I think will only take me an hour to write and edit, but wind up being over 3 to 4 hours (or more) start to finish. Note that there’s nothing wrong with this – just the fact that it can and does happen.

Looking at planning through the nature of the tasks helped me create better plans that I can actually carry out. Try this method of planning out yourself. Plan for the human being that’s going to be carrying out your schedule – yourself.

Questions to ask yourself: Think of one of your current goal. Are you having trouble breaking up that goal into manageable chunks of time? What if you set aside one afternoon and freely worked on a section of that goal, without a time limit? Would you get more work or less work done? Why or why not?

But you know what? All of those crippling excuses for not sharing your creative works don’t matter. As soon as you come up with something creative, you need to put it out there ASAP. If you look throughout history, every single success story in any artistic field has tales of flops and tales of successes. But what defines those successful people from others is the fact that they kept trying again and again and again. If one thing they tried wasn’t successful, they immediately moved on to something else. Let’s look at a few examples.

Mozart was an incredibly prolific composer . He only composed a little over 30 years, but he wrote over 600 sets of pieces by the time he died at age 36. Starting when he was about 5 years old and ending literally on his deathbed, he never stopped the process of creating new artistic works.

The odd thing in Mozart’s story is that he only composed works purely for higher. He couldn’t sit around and wait for divine inspiration to strike at the perfect moment. No new compositions meant no money on the table; no money on the table meant he couldn’t support himself or his family. But even without sitting around waiting for a spark of creativity, he still managed to continuously compose and expand his accomplishments, creating beautiful masterpieces along the way.

If you go through Mozart’s catalog of works, you’ll see that most of his stuff isn’t even performed today. The first 200 to 300 works are pretty average, with some exceptions of course, but it didn’t stop him from composing the next piece. Even if one of his works failed miserably, it was still a brand new work to share with others. People kept hiring Mozart because they appreciated his compositions and admired his skills. Mozart never, ever took a break or quit; he worked nonstop on becoming an even better composer until the end of his life.

The best artists, the best writers, the best actors, the best directors, the best artistic people in the world are obsessed with continuously creating and throwing their new works into the hands of the public. If a new song or a new movie is a flop, so what? There’s always next time. They learn the lesson from the failure and move on.

Lady GaGa has been touring on almost a constant basis since early 2008, and now she’s selling out stadiums. Liberace started performing in restaurants when he was about 22 years old and didn’t stop until he was forced to due to extreme sickness, in his mid 60s; by that time, he was selling out Radio City year after year. Madonna constantly revives her career by sharply turning down different roads every single year, never halting to take a break. When she finishes recording a brand new record, there’s promotions and a tour to be done. When the tour is wrapped up, she undertakes another creative project almost immediately.

Great actors never stop honing their craft. A new role is always available for them to take on. Directors continuously direct.

The bottom line is that any famous person in any field, any success story, will have a long list of works behind their names. They might not be perfect works. They might not be works that people will look at in 20 years and think they were anything special. But to these people, it doesn’t matter – it’s a process of growing, of reinvention. It’s a story of becoming successful not right out of the box, but because they truly believed in their creative talent and did everything in their power to get that talent in the hands of other people.

Not every sonnet that Shakespeare wrote was a literary masterpiece. Not every piano piece Chopin composed will enter someone’s piano repertoire. Not every piece of art that Picasso painted was considered among his best.

Getting your work out there isn’t sitting on a completed work and thinking of ways that you could possibly perfect it. It’s doing the absolute, very best job you can at the time and then getting that work out into the hands of people who would appreciate what you do.

Will the average person notice the slight awkwardness of a brush stroke in a painting? The odd musical phrasing in a classical piece? A flubbed line in a play? Nope. Not at all. The average person is going to be focused on the piece of art being presented – the item you created. Not all of the imperfections that you personally see when you view your art.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of constantly sharing your works with the world is that you’ll be able to get first hand, live experience that shows you what works and what doesn’t work. Without this kind of awesome feedback, you’d never be able to know how to hone your craft into something greater. It’s one thing to be able to write a novel that you think deserves to be on a best seller list; it’s another thing to give it to somebody so they can assess what you’ve written and ofter a critique. Getting into a cycle of creating a work, sharing a work, then creating another even stronger work is something that will help you your entire life.

Think of it like a real world tennis lesson. When you first start playing tennis, you’re probably going to be absolute terrible. But with a teacher, and some practice off court, you can surely expect your skills to gradually improve over time… to the point where you might be pretty competent at hitting those balls. With the right mix of dedicated practice and a teacher to guide your moves to make sure you aren’t making any beginner’s mistakes or picking up on the wrong technique, it’s easy to see how your skill level would begin to improve and eventually soar.

Sharing creative works works the same exact way. Instead of learning tennis, it’d be creating valuable works for the world. Instead of hiring a private coach, you’d get real time feedback from your friends, family, even strangers who stumble upon what you do. Instead of practice, you’d be refining your process and coming up with an even better item to share with others. This process never changes, no matter if you’re learning a new sport, picking up a musical instrument, or writing a book of poems. Remember when you first learned how to drive a car? The method was exactly the same. You try, you got feedback, you tried again.

Creating and deliver value is at the heart of any creative career, ranging from fashion to music to acting to art. But it’s not enough to create a few things in hopes that one of them catches on with the public. You need to be the person who strives to always create something better, something brand new, every single day of your life. Be the person who takes every single completed work and shares it with the world.

Why on earth would anybody willingly want to live so…dully? It’d be easy for me to throw up my hands and say “Who knows?” – but in reality, there are a lot of reasons people want to live their lives as an unspectacular chain of events.

The funny thing is that all of these dull people constantly try to convince everybody else to be dull just like them. All of the time. For some reason, people adore attempting to talk others into living life just as they are. Since most of the people doing these attempts at converting are naturally dull, it takes on an odd twist: Living life to your absolute fullest is encouraged when you’re little, then discouraged once you hit adulthood. Dull-ness needs to rule once you can think for yourself!

But… who wouldn’t want to be the exception to the rule? Who doesn’t want a fabulous life that’s different from everybody else, from the time you’re little to when you’re older than dirt?

You can’t do that! That’s the exception!

When you’re a little kid, you’re often encouraged by nearly everybody around you to think big and dream even bigger. Whatever you want to achieve in life, you can certainly do it. You just have to believe you can, set a goal that you’re going to obtain what you want, and get working. Not even the sky is  your limit unless you limit yourself.

But along the way, as you grew older, something strange began to happen. Those people who told you that success was within reach and something you could grasp started to tell you the complete opposite.

Suddenly those same people are putting your dreams down. For example, does the following sound familiar, in any way, shape, or form?

“Oh, sorry. Did I just hear you say you want to be a pop singer? That’s not possible. You can’t do that; you can’t be the next Madonna. She’s the exception to the rule, she just got lucky. You gotta pick something more down to earth. Stop longing to be a famous pop singer. Why aren’t you thinking about going to college like your friends? What are you going to do for a living? Seriously, you cannot make a decent living singing. How are you going support yourself?”

There are literally hundreds of variations on this same theme. You can’t be the next (famous person!) because (they got lucky! they’re the exception!) Better go try your hand at something else, right? Right…?

Instead of dreaming these amazing dreams for yourself and being filled with the passion that you can achieve anything, you’re slowly taught to conform. After all, everybody wants to live like everybody else. That’s just a given. Who wants to show off, be amazing, and rock at life if you can live like the Joneses next door? Duh.

Where does this “You can’t do that!” stuff come from?

If you’ve ever had to deal with the assault-like verbal grenades like the one I just mentioned above, you know what it feels like for people to totally demean your aspirations. It’s no fun at all.

Why would people who care about your future dish out advice like that? In my experience, the cause is linked to two main reasons:

• A lack of courage. If somebody is trying to give you advice but it sounds directly opposite of what you want to hear, consider that he/she might be speaking from a mindset of fear. People who want to see you succeed and want you to be happy might be drawing from their own feelings of being fearful of success when they offer you up terrible advice. Take what they say with a grain of salt. They might not necessarily mean to put a damper on your dreams, but they have their own limiting beliefs that are darkly shading the advice they give you.
• Fear of your success. What would your success mean to these people if you went out, achieved what you set your mind to, and shattered their expectations to pieces? Would they truly be happy for you? Would they sulk and have resentment when they see what kind of person you’ve become? Your success might force them to reevaluate the boring life they’re living; your success would be a threat to their stability.

As you can tell, its not necessarily that these people don’t want you to succeed, but they’re afraid of realizing what your success would mean to them. (Also remember that things such as limiting beliefs can also skew judgement when these people give you advice.)

Come on! Be like everybody else! (Or not?)

It’s sometimes extremely difficult to break away from what everybody else is saying and go down your own brilliant path, especially when the status quo is pressuring you to stay exactly the same. But unfortunately for you, if you begin believing that your dreams aren’t worth clinging onto and turning into your own reality, your life starts to become a pale copy of everybody else’s.

What is it to be like everybody else, anyways? Does it mean you eat a lot of foods that shouldn’t ever be put into your body? Does it mean you slowly chip away your time at a 9 to 5 job, wishing you had the freedom to do anything else with your time? Does it mean you spend years of your life paying (possibly tens of) thousands of dollars to go to college to graduate and find yourself in one of these terrifying jobs?

Let’s be honest – who really wants to live like everybody else? Deep down inside, everybody’s thinking they could be the exception to the rule. Everybody wants to be a somebody who’s fabulous.

Who doesn’t want to be the person who can make their entire living online? Who doesn’t want to be the person who has the healthiest diet for themselves? Who doesn’t want to be the person who’s an extremely talented songwriter and brilliant singer? We call these people the exceptions to the norm. These people are the the people who others look up to, but everybody discourages their friends from becoming. These people are the ones who followed their dreams and made something of themselves.

What do you do when people attempt to curtail your dreams and bring you back “down to earth?” I hope you ignore these people. I hope you ignore all of them. Seriously. Are you honestly going to start believing these people, that you’re dreaming too much or that your head is in the clouds? Why would you deny yourself your very own dreams? Why would you even want to pretend that your aspirations don’t exist?

Letting somebody else tell you that you can’t do something is effectively giving away your power to create your own life. It’s like you’re conceding defeat.

These people may give you reasons that your dreams won’t work. And for a while, you may believe these reasons and you may even make up more reasons that your dreams will never work out in your favor. But behind all of the excuses you imagine up, do you really know the script that’s running through your mind?

“Oh, you’re right, (other human being). I could never do something like that. What was I even thinking? Thank you for helping me realize that! I won’t bother trying any longer.”

Think about that whiney, loser-like script for a moment. Doesn’t it sound utterly ridiculous to you? Somebody says you can’t do something, and you tell them right back “Oh. You’re right! I can’t!” What ever happened to your power to create the life you’ve always dreamed of? Did you suddenly forget that only you have that power and it can’t be given away to anybody else?

Don’t ever for a second doubt in yourself or in your dreams, no matter how big your dreams are or far off in the future you may be dreaming. If you don’t pursue your very own dreams, your life will wind up like everybody else’s. Dull. And pretty soon, you will try to convince everybody else to put away their power and to settle for a dull, dull life, just like yourself.

Be the Exception

The beauty and richness of human life isn’t found through mimicry of other people. It’s from transcending that little snag and becoming somebody who’s totally unique, so unique that their values, beliefs, and accomplishments can’t be classified as normal. It’s then that you become the exception.

Being the exception doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make astute, amazing scientific discoveries or change the pop music landscape for generations to come. It simply means you have to live true to yourself, without succumbing to other’s expectations of what you should become. It means going after your dreams in the face of everybody else, whether those dreams are super small or immensely huge.

It’s tough. Going after your desires is tough to do in a world that’s knocking on your door and reminding you 24/7 to be normal, reminding you that if you don’t act normal something is wrong with you. But you know what? The reward for being the exception is far greater than the reward for being identical to everyone else.

Nobody remembers the average people. Everybody remembers the exceptions. The average people don’t bother trying to touch other people’s lives with their skills, knowledge, and presence. The exceptional people reach out to other people and strive to make a difference in somebody else’s life, every single day.

Which of the two paths will you be choosing today? Will you become the exception?

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the bad things and lose focus of your ambitions when hard times crash into you like a 300 pound football player. It’s completely understandable, too. That’s a natural reaction.

Taking responsibility for your life – complete, total 100% responsibility – is one of the things that has gotten me through some of the toughest, most aggravating times of my life. It’s a difficult area to master, but learning what total responsibility is and then applying it to your life is richly rewarding.

Responsibility comes in two steps. First, you need to accept what your life is right at this very moment. Next, you need to take full responsibility for the changes that you can create in your life. Only you can make those changes happen.

Acceptance

A family member passes away. You lose your job. An unexpected medical emergency comes up. Something bad happens.

Or it may not even be an event like that. Maybe you feel totally stressed out from your daily load of schoolwork. Or you keep grinding your wheels at your job day in and day out but you just can’t quite seem to get ahead.

When something terrible happens or you feel as if your life is on a downward spiral, take a step back. Take a deep breath. Think about how your life looks as a whole. What parts are going amazingly well? What parts do you feel are crashing down on you? Try to look at the entire picture, not just the aspects of life you’re having trouble with. See how what you’re going through fits into the big picture.

Focusing solely on what’s going wrong in life is what most people decide to do. And as a first reaction, that’s natural. When I accidentally slide on ice getting into my car, the first thing I think isn’t “Gee, I wonder what I’m going to have for lunch?” It’s more like “Shoot! That hurt! Am I bleeding anywhere?” First reactions to any event zoom in on what happened. They’re like a snap decision in a situational analysis form.

Much like you have the option of viewing a tumble on a sheet of ice in different perspectives, from the game of life you have the option of using various lenses to get better understanding of your problem. You can focus on just the problem itself. Or you can focus on your life in general and how that problem will play out in the grand scheme of things. The former view often leads people to making rash decisions over a situation – decisions that don’t work out so well in the long run. The latter view is empowering and incredibly motivating. No longer does your situation look bleak; instead, you see how everything will eventually wind up. Your decisions are made with a cool head and logical reasoning, not your emotions.

It’s like eating an amazing 3 course dinner with a so-so dessert. Are you only going to focus on how okay the dessert tastes? Or will you remember the meal as a whole and how fantastic the rest of the food was? View your life together with the problem and the problem suddenly becomes easier to manage. What was a terrible, awful situation now turns slightly less horrible, as if streams of sunlight are beaming down on your life once again.

(I’m not saying to go all Pollyanna and think your bad situation will magically disappear; however, your problem will seem not as overwhelming when viewed in a larger perspective.)

Looking at the problem in a large setting also brings about acceptance. I’m not talking about acceptance of the problem, per se. Anybody can accept an individual aspects of their life – I can accept the fact that my name is Matt, I’m male, and I play the piano. What I’m talking about is an acceptance that you realize the problem is in your life is there to stay, and you need to make major changes to quickly and effectively solve that problem.

This is the part where people stumble. Instead of looking at the grand scheme of things and hammering away at solutions, they look solely at the problem. Whatever bad thing happened in their life angers them to no end. Because they’re so intently focusing on that one bad thing, it’s impossible for them to work through it. Don’t be one of these people.

Responsibility

Accept your life how it is. Take responsibility for whatever happened. Even if something awful happened that’s quite not your fault (e.g., you are fired from your job), accept that it happened. It’s in your life now. It’s your responsibility to take that misfortune and turn it into something greater.

Nobody else can change your bad situation into a fabulous situation. If you’re jobless, it’s your choices from here on out that determine your new job or new method of earning income. If you have a medical emergency, it’s your choices that will effect your quality of life, possibly for the rest of your life. If you want more happiness, you have to accept that you’re unhappy, and then take responsibility for your decisions here on out that can make you ecstatic about life.

This is another part where people totally stumble. They “get” the acceptance parts, they “understand” the responsibility aspect of this whole thing, but then they start pointing fingers. The blame game begins at full speed. For example, many people blame everything else – large companies, their friends, society’s standards of what’s beautiful – when trying to justify the fact that they’re overweight. But these people are completely wrong. It’s not the fast food company’s fault that you’re overweight and suffer from a low self esteem because of your body image. I wouldn’t even say it’s the fashion magazine’s fault. What you have is an acceptance and responsibility problem. Accept who you are, flaws and all. If you don’t like those flaws, take on the responsibility to change them.

Stop yourself from waiting on the permission of others to take charge of your life. That’s a classic symptom of total denial of responsibility. “I wish I could do X, but I’m waiting on Y to help me out first…” is a lie, 99% of the time. There might be some instances where you need another person’s specific help and you’ll be forced to wait on them until they have the time. However, most people use this as a bogus excuse to procrastinate.

Your decisions produce outcomes. Acceptance of how your life is right now and taking on the power of all that responsibility is what’s going to help you through the darkest hours of your life.

What are you putting off finally accepting as a reality in your life? How can you claim responsibility for what has happened and change it to what you dream of?

It’s your life. Your responsibility.

Reading this sent me into a think mood . How many of us honestly strive to live by Trump’s values? In our careers, do we give a sincere attempt to put out our best products, or do we settle for the average? Do we reach out for a genuine impact on other people, or do we figure a simple smile and “Nice job!” is enough of a reward for a job not so well done?

Are you constantly perfecting what you’re creating?

If you’re a blogger, are you constantly trying to out-do yourself every single time to create work with a higher impact? Or are you stuck in a complacent writing rut? If you’re a musician, are you practicing to become even better, day in and day out? Or have you settled for being an okay guitarist, playing average-level songs?

People want the highest quality they can afford. They hate to settle for the mediocre, the bland, the boring. If you’re not producing and putting out the highest quality content you possibly can, what’s the point of creating new content? People won’t flock to what you have; they’ll gravitate towards something even better.

For everything you ever attempt to do in life, you should always be asking yourself, “Is this the absolute best I can do?” If it’s not, immediately start doing your best.

This is silly mindset to some people, but to me, it’s really an interesting, awesome way to live. I want to be the best that I can be, no matter what I’m putting my mind to. If I’m playing the piano for a group of people, I want to be playing at the best level I can, whether that group is of 5 people or 150. If I’m writing a blog post, I want that post to be the absolute best I can make it, whether it’s going to be read by 5 people or 15,000. 15,000 would be nice, though.

Constantly demand perfection from yourself and from others. If you’re creating something, don’t settle for a product that’s just okay. Really, honestly try to top yourself each and every time. Always go bigger, go better, do something more interesting.

Are you striving to leave an impact on others?

Part of the reason I love what I do is because my work can leave such a profound effect on people. Okay, I know that’s bit of a cliche thing to say, but in my experiences it’s totally true.

The strongest memories I have of performing at the piano aren’t necessarily of me being on stage performing, but of the reactions I get afterwords when I’m meeting the crowd. It’s an amazing feeling to see the effect I had on so many people who had the opportunity to listen to me play; it’s like I want to rush on stage and perform once more just to see the audience’s reaction once last time.

Of course, my feelings toward blogging is the same thing. I might not be able to see everybody’s face to face reaction to my writings, and it might take a while for some of the ideas I’m explaining online to trickle down into real life and make an impact in other’s lives. But regardless of how much time that takes, I love communicating what I know through these posts. I love the positive comments and feedback I get. I love knowing that somehow, somewhere, what I’ve said here sincerely made a difference in somebody’s life.

The bulk of your life’s hours are going to be spent whittling away at your career(s). But are you doing work that truly leaves an impact on others? When you explain what you do to others and when your products get into other people’s hands, what are their reactions? Happy, enthusiastic, and ecstatic? Or bored, lackluster, and apathetic? Are they thrilled as much as you are about what you get to do every day? Do they even care? What kind of an impact are you truly leaving on the people you meet?

If you’re not impacting other human beings as much as you know you can be, it might be time to find a better fitting career.

The bottom line is simple: step up your game. Only demand perfection out of yourself. Strive to connect to other people. Make real human to human connections in everything you do.

Hyperactivity is not wasting your time wallowing in pointless, mundane activities. It’s easy to get lost in a day of internet surfing, TV watching, checking up on e-mail, Twittering, and doing a lot of other virtually worthless activities that won’t add up to any real value later on in your life. Instead, hyperactivity is choosing the one goal you want to ruthlessly go after with a vengeance and directing all of your actions and thoughts onto that goal.

Hyperactivity – in the personal development, goal setting sense – is not being impulsive, reckless, or “fly by the seat of your pants”. It’s calculated and driven. You’re getting the most amount of work done in the shortest amount of time. You’re making strategic decisions to go after the activities that give you the highest rewards in the end.

Suppose one of your 2009 goals is to create a blog that produces $3,000 worth of income a month. Difficult? A little bit. Will it take a lot of work? You betcha’. Possible? Entirely.

Using hyperactivity, you would determine exactly what you need to do for the blog to grow the quickest so you can make the most money in the shortest time possible (i.e., achieving your goal before your deadline). When you identified these activities, you would do them as quickly as possible while still keeping up a high quality of results.

If you needed to submit posts to blog carnivals, you wouldn’t think “Oh, gee, well, I don’t know if I can do that right at this time… I’m kind of busy…” Instead you would immediately do it – it’s a done deal. Essential activity identified and completed. If you needed to contact other bloggers in your field, you would put the activity on your to-do list and jump on the task as soon as it came up. If a new blog post needed to be written for the day, you would write, edit, and publish the post ASAP.

Most people think you need to work in something you love to do to be successful. That’s complete B.S.. Since when do you need to love what you do to be successful in it? The world is full of unhappy, seemingly successful people, right? The only thing different between unhappy successful people and happy unsuccessful people is the level of determination that each person brings to their own job.

Donald Trump is a master at hyperactivity and getting work done each and every single day, even during vacations. So is Madonna. You could easily become a blogging superstar in any field you chose – even if you immensely hated your field – if you only focused on what needed to be done.

The key here is choosing the right activities and doing them in the quickest amount of time. But how can you decide what to do vs. what not to do? Some questions you can ask yourself:

• What kinds of benifits will doing this activity bring me? If you’re a blogger, do you get an increase in traffic? Another post to add to your archives? Another income stream? Depending on your goals, you’re going to be wanting to focus more on certain tasks than others.
• Are there any other easier ways to be achieving this goal than what I’m considering? If you want to establish online connections, are you going to focus more on personally e-mailing other bloggers or sending them quick messages on Twitter? If you want to build traffic, are you going to focus more on blog carnivals, blog comments, or forum posts? If you’re tweaking the layout of your blog, are you going to make it more streamlined so visitors can find their way around the site easier or better at income producing? Think of all the outcomes of various possibilities and stack them up against each other in your mind.

Once you find the right activities you want to accomplish, put them in a to-do list in order of most important to least important. If you can’t decide on an order, write them in any order – you’ll be going through your entire list anyways. Read the first task, and do it. When it’s done, read the second task, do that immediately. If you need to take a break, do it in between tasks, not while you’re working on something. Breaks should be quick and refreshing. As soon as your break is up, move on to the next activity.

Hyperactivity sounds draining, but in reality it’s incredibly motivating and worthwhile. You build self discipline by pushing yourself to get through beneficial tasks that might otherwise slide to the side. You reach your goals much faster than you’d ever believe because you’re working so intently on what needs to be done.

Do you really need to check how many people visited your site 5 times a day? Do you really need to be working on that e-book nobody is going to be reading because you haven’t built your traffic up yet? Do you really need to be checking your e-mail 10 times a day, just to see if that one person has returned your request? Cut out nonessential tasks. Only do what’s necessary. Do as much of it as possible.

What’s one of your goals that if you went at with a fierce sense of determination could you make a huge dent in? What if you went at that same goal with an identical attitude for 30 days straight?

So what are you waiting for? Get started today!

Today’s secret has to do with “extreme goal achievement” – what are the specific steps you can take to always get amazing, fast results when you embark on achieving your goals?

Think quick. Act even quicker. Get results now.

If you suddenly found yourself under the ice in a frozen lake, seemingly unable to escape, what would be racing through your mind? Chances are you would feel extremely claustrophobic, frantically trying to escape the sheer coldness of the icy water surrounding your body. You would be smashing the thin layer of ice above you with your fists with all your might, eventually shattering a hole in the ice above your head, big enough to escape.

To you, this might be the world’s strangest metaphor. To me, this is the perfect example of how the process of achieving your goals should ultimately feel like. You must think and act quickly. If you didn’t get the results you want, modify your game plan slightly and keep on going.

So as you can see, there are three major parts of extreme goal achievement – thinking quickly, acting swiftly, and obtaining the results from your actions.

1. Thinking quickly. The most successful people in the world have a knack for thinking quickly on their feet. They see an opportunity, a problem, a possibility, and they immediately brainstorm action plans for success. They don’t wait for permission from another person for them to start.
2. Acting swiftly. Once these people have plans ready to go, they immediately get started. They take the initiative and go for what they want, acting as if they’re going to get exactly what they dream of. The most successful people don’t wait for others to give them the green light to start. They begin ASAP.
3. Obtaining the results. The world’s most successful people gather their results and observe what worked and what didn’t work. They make immediate changes to their goals and plans, and then they try something fresh and new. They don’t sit around and balk at horrible results; they accept the fact that what they tried didn’t work, and then they try something brand new.

The easy part is reading about the three parts of extreme goal achievement. The hard part is applying them to your life to consistently get great results. To do this, you have to ingrain this method of thinking into your memory.

Make this line of thinking a way of life.

Thinking like this is a habit. It’s a total way of life.

Most people think incredibly successful people, from entertainers to athletes to business people, got to super-stardom in their respective fields through a blind stroke of luck. And in some cases, that’s what propelled them to achieve the results they earned. Sometimes exactly what a person needs is an unforeseen opportunity for them to shine so their talents can be fully recognized by everybody else.

But in most cases, this isn’t what happens. The top people do what I described above. They think quickly when they see a brand new opportunity arise that hasn’t been taken advantage of yet. Once they formulate a plan, they act swiftly, trying to score the results they desperately dream of obtaining. And once they finish their plan, they obtain and glance at their results. What succeeded? What failed? What can they do even better next time to obtain even better results?

98% of people aren’t like this. Most people are fairly lazy. They really don’t care to rise above the mediocre. If you asked them where they want to be a year from now, they might be able to mumble a fuzzy, vague answer at best; if you asked them where they want to be five years from now, they’d have no clue whatsoever.

Then somebody comes along, blows away the entire status quo, becomes a celebrity in their chosen field, and the average people wonder why they couldn’t achieve those same results.

The amazing news is that you can achieve those results. You can become a blogger making a full time living online. You can go to college and get that degree you’ve always wanted. You can find your soulmate and start a family with them. But these things take time and effort; they require you to put forth an incredibly amount of self discipline and change your entire “normal” line of thinking.

Extreme goal achievement shouldn’t be a secret. In fact, it’s not too much of a secret anymore – I’m sharing exactly how to achieve your wildest goals right here in this post. But in the end, it’s up to you. You have to take those first steps. You have to find an opportunity, you need to create an action plan and work that plan as quickly as possible, and you need to measure up your results to find out how you can optimize your actions to work even better in the future.

It doesn’t matter what field you’re in. It doesn’t matter where you come from in life or where you want to go. It’s all the same, to everybody. Goal achievement, across the board, is universal.

Think quickly, act swiftly, obtain results should be your mantra. Say it until you’re sick of it and see if it doesn’t make you into a better, more successful person.

Okay, okay, I totally admit it. I’m one of those people who loves to become more productive with each passing day. But while sometimes I think reading lists like this is just a form of simple procrastination, some of the lists I find are genuinely useful.

This blog post is all about 20 ways I have personally tested and used to make myself become more productive on a day to day basis. Try out some of the tips yourself. If they work wonderfully, you’ve gained a new productivity booster that’ll last you a lifetime. And if not… well, at least you only wasted a day of your life.

1. Keep a list of inspirational quotes at hand. Whenever you feel down and unmotivated, whip one out and think about its meaning for a little bit. Then get back to work!
2. If you can’t get out of a creative thinking rut, get up and walk around. Doing a bit of (very) light exercise will get blood flowing to your brain and naturally make you more alert, allowing you to kick your productivity up a notch.
3. If you’re chugging away at an absolutely boring task, take frequent breaks. Work for two minutes, then listen to your favorite song. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed. Eventually you’ll build enough momentum where you’ll continuously work on your task without taking so many breaks.
4. Snack (preferably on healthy foods) throughout the day. It’ll keep your energy levels up.
5. Look your best! Even if you’re your own boss and work at home throughout the day, seeing yourself  dressed up and looking gorgeous in front of the mirror is a confidence booster. More confidence = more motivation. More motivation = more reason to be productive.
6. Find a soul stirring reason why you’re doing the work you do. I’m not talking about a mission statement or a goal. I’m really talking about a reason as to why you’re working on your project to begin with. If you can find that passionate reason, you’ll gain motivation and productivity.
7. Experiment with brightness in your work area. I work best when my working area is brightly lit – the brighter, the better, but not so bright as to think I’m staring into the sun.
8. While on that note, experiment with the room temperature as well. I used to have an awful problem with procrastination and feeling sleepy, until I realized that the cold temperatures where I work were making me sleepy to begin with.
9. Make your work space so clean it’s absolutely nauseatingly beautiful to anybody who passes by. Not a single messy spot should be visible to the eye… or to anybody with x-ray vision with the power to see through desks. A neat working space has the same effect as de-cluttering your mind. Thinking becomes easier.
10. Light candles. Seriously! For me, whenever I light my buttercream candle, the vanilla scent actually boosts my productivity. Experiment with different scents  to see what they can do for you.
11. Have you ever tried to work with white noise in the background? It’s pretty soothing. For me, music is too distracting, probably because I’m a musician at heart. However, white noise works wonderful. Try out this tip by turning on a fan on low in the background while you work.
12. Take frequent looks out your window.  When I glance outside into the world, I’m reminded that I’m not alone on this planet, and that I’m connected with everybody else. That alone is motivating enough for me to continue on with my work with an increased productivity rate.
13. Take frequent looks at your clock. When you realize time keeps passing you by as you procrastinate,  you’ll suddenly feel an urge to actually get something worthwhile accomplished.
14. Work with somebody else. Find another person who can act as your assistant for the day, and get him or her to help you with your mission. Work always goes quicker and more productively if you can find somebody you trust who knows what they’re doing as well to aid you.
15. Find somebody who’s an expert at what  you’re doing, and pick at their brain. How do they schedule their days? What kinds of advice can they give you to make your work more efficient? (For example, if you’re learning piano on your own, wouldn’t taking piano lessons from a master at piano make sense?)
16. If possible, focus solely on one task or project for the entire day. Without having to switch tasks every hour, you can seriously boost how productive you become. Your mind won’t have to change modes of thinking so often.
17. Have to tackle a project that’s extremely boring? If possible, do a lot of little, easy tasks that are super simple right before starting that certain project. The momentum you gain from doing simple tasks you love will carry on well into that boring project.
18. Take everything one step at a time. Don’t worry as much about getting a lot done (save for unless you have a deadline) but getting quality work done. More isn’t better. Better is better.
19. While doing your work for today,  mentally think about where you’re going with what you’re accomplishing. What do you want to do tomorrow? Use that knowledge to trim the fat off the projects you’re working on – get rid off all nonessential tasks as much as possible.
20. Tackle your daily tasks out of order. If you’re forced to do a list of items, break the order that you would normally accomplish each thing. It won’t feel like such a chore to get so much work done, and you might find that pairing different tasks in a different order will get them done more quickly.

Now, stop reading this blog and tackle that task that you’ve been procrastinating on. You know you wanna finish that task once and for all!

When it comes to quitting a bad habit, or even changing that bad habit to a more suitable one, you can find lots of (un)solicited advice from a variety of sources… including in the self-help world.  Unfortunately, the personal development community has given a lot of awful advice in this field that simply doesn’t work. That’s not to say that some advice they give out doesn’t work for some people, but the majority of advice fails to really help others to change their awful habits.

This is also apparently in a few other communities. Consider Weight Watchers for example. A few people will have brilliant success losing a lot of weight with Weight Watchers or any other “fad” diet program. However, the majority of people will only lose a little big of weight, then they’ll start slacking off, and eventually come full circle to square one again. What gives?

Most of the time, when quitting something bad for you – whether it be trying to quit coffee or go vegetarian – the tools are right in front of you. There are hundreds of thousands of diet plans out there essentially telling you the same exact mantra in a reworded, prettier gift box. “Eat less, exercise more!” is what they all say, deep down inside. On the outside, that advice is deceivingly simple. Once you open the package, you realize how tough applying that advice really is.

One of the main problems I see with people is they get frustrated at themselves for not getting “the plan” right. You planned to lose weight, but things came up. You planned to finally kick all caffeine from your life, but somehow you can’t evade that Starbucks that’s 5 minutes from your house! You can keep going. I’m sure you have a couple you’d love to add as well.

But what if the problem didn’t lie with your willpower, courage, or strength? Then we have a different story.

This article shares with you a two tips I’ve found helpful in being able to quit anything. I used to weigh dangerously thin for my height (6′, 114lbs), but I’ve been able to bump it up to about 130lbs now by eating correctly and exercising a lot. Nearly all of my success I can attribute to changing bad habits of mine (no exercise, TV watching) to better, more conducive habits to get the results I want – in this case, weight gain. The process of gaining weight hasn’t been easy, but what I’ve learned along the way can possibly be of use to many people.

Do your research before you even begin.

A lot of people want end results right now, immediately, when they snap their fingers. It’s too bad the real world doesn’t work like this, eh?

For example, say you want to be able to lose 20 pounds by May 1st. That seems like a generally reasonable goal – that’s over 10 weeks away, and average healthy weightloss is somewhere between 2~3 pounds a week. Most people would probably pick a diet that looks appealing to them (Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Atkins, Nutrasystem, or eating and exercising to whatever degree they deem “correctly”) and off they would go, losing weight.

However, a few of the more brilliant folks around us would do what I would do. They would comparison shop around to see what all of the diets have in common. What are they suggesting you eat? Don’t eat? How much will you be required to exercise? What are some success stories of each diet? Failure stories?

Doing all of this background work seems like a lot of extra baggage – and it is a lot of work, no question. But by doing this, you gain an even clearer shot of success by looking at the road ahead of you. Figuring out underlying patterns lets you in on what obstacles you’re going to be facing. If you know what kind of troubles you’ll be encountering before you even begin, you can prepare yourself for the bumpy road ahead. You won’t be so surprised when a few large speed bumps suddenly appear in front of you.

For example, say you’re researching how to lose weight, and you discover that nearly everybody who starts any diet always complains about having a weak moment when they go to a restaurant. Nothing on the menu is ever healthy enough, they complain. Instead of skipping the meal and eating when they arrive home, they pick something horrendous to eat at the restaurant. This in turn leads down a slippery slope. “I don’t really care what I eat now, I already broke the rules once!” becomes their mantra; pretty soon they’re completely off the diet and back to where they started from.

You read all of their tales of restaurant woe and decide not to go to any restaurants for first four weeks of your diet, to make sure nothing will be knocking you off your path. And after 28 straight days on your diet, you know you’ll have the willpower to not even want to eat horrible foods at any restaurant. You won’t want to break that chain you created for yourself. 28 days free of crappy foods? Oh yeah!

This is an incredibly powerful simple step, if you take the time to utilize it for your own good. You might not be able to stop all of your future problems, but you can make a good dent in diminishing your own future havoc.

To sum it up, doing your research before you even begin to quit allows you to see patterns in the various habit-quiting methods there are out there – this in turn allows you to see the obstacles you’re against so you can start planning to dismantle those obstacles before you start changing your habits.

Forget about the big picture. Take it a day at a time.

Every adventure in life starts with one small step. And even though you might get very, very far and even accomplish some of your major goals, you still took small, daily steps to arrive at your destination. Sometimes the steps you take are like leaps, other times they’re more like baby steps. All in all, every little thing you do today has the possibility to push you towards where you want to be in the future.

The “big picture” I’m referring to here are those major goals that every personal development guru and his or her mother tells you that you need to set before you embark on a life mission. “Why are you cutting caffeine?” “Why are you quiting smoking?” “Why are you not eating any more fatty foods?” The gurus demand reasons from you. If only you could remember your reasons for starting in the first place, you can soar to the end of your goal because those reasons and mission statements will provide an endless stream of motivation from your gut when the going gets tough.

I’ve found that to be largely B.S.. Sure, those mission statements work fabulously well on occasion, but only when I’m already feeling somewhat motivated to begin with. To me, they’re like an adrenaline shot when my motivation is on 1/4 empty. But when my motivation is… say, 1/10th there, those mission statements are the equivalent of taking sleeping medication. I just don’t care what my original intentions were – I just don’t care period.

Circumventing this problem was fairly easy for me – whenever I had a day where I knew I had to exercise (to gain muscle, of course) and I felt like I didn’t want to do anything, I just reminded myself I only have to exercise for today. I only have to get through these three sets of dumbbell bench presses, and then I’m done for the day. I only have to get through these three sets of bicep curls, and then I’m done for the day. When I got home, I only have to eat these two veggie chicken patties, and then I’m done for the day.

Grand goals and schemes work wonderfully when planning for the future. And to an extent, they dictate how you’re day is going to look, to the degree you let them. But day by day actions are going to get you to your goals, not big picture thinking. Motivation is best when taken in daily – and even hourly – doses.

To me, thinking about how I’m going to look when I’m toned and 145lbs in 6 months is demotivating when I realize I have another ~6 months to go before I’m where I want to be. But knowing that I only need to do an hour worth of exercises today and then eat a few things every couple hours? Hey, that’s easy! I can definitely do that. One step at a time, there’s no need to rush, says Jordin Sparks.

You can even use this thinking whenever you feel overwhelmed with a large goal. Starting a new business, building relationships, you name it – take everything one day at a time.

And when you’re quitting a bad habit, simple action steps you can do right now makes the quitting process incredibly easier.

* * * * * * *

Most everything else you need to know about changing a bad habit is common sense – have a goal, break it down, and so on. But when these basic steps start to become trite and don’t work out quite as well as you hope, I hope my two tip will come in and save your sinking ship. It’s with the basic steps and these two tips that you’ll be able to change any bad habit, every time. They worked fantastically well for me.

What tips and tricks have you found to be incredibly useful for quitting bad habits? Share them in the comments!

Our human ability to imagine a better future for ourselves and translate our vision into words is something most people take for granted. As a result, most people don’t bother setting goals – they have a general idea of where they’re headed and where they want to go, which is good enough for them. And that’s totally okay! You don’t need clearly defined goals to have a sense of direction in your life. (This also includes people who set goals in only a specific area in their life and let all of the other facets slide – e.g., the manager who only sets goals to meet certain monthly quotas in her business.)

In Philip Zimbardo’s awesome book, The Time Paradox (opens in a new window), he explains there are several perspectives human beings look at time through: the past, the present, and the future. The past perspective is concerned with past events and how we relate to and think about them; the present perspective is concerned with how we’re going to find immediate happiness in our lives; the future perspective is concerned with what actions we can take right now to achieve our future goals. While the three time-frame labels aren’t exactly breathtakingly new, the unique twist on looking at the time-frames makes the book incredibly worthwhile to read.

I’ve read parts of it, and already it’s changed my views on thinking of my personal goals and my limited time. In this blog post, I want to share two mindsets with you that he talks about in the book – the “present-minded mindset” and the “future-minded mindset.” Both are ways of living and analyzing time management with. Utilizing both of their unique benefits in your life can make your life a more richer, rewarding experience.

The Present-Minded Mindset

The present-minded mindset is being totally focused on the present moment, with no regard for how your decisions will affect your future at all. Generally this means being focused on what can make you pleasured and happy immediately, without looking at the long term consequences of your actions.

Smoking is an example of a present-minded action. So is eating that double quarter pounder with cheese you just ordered from McDonald’s because you’re a bit hungry and need some fuel. Drinking copious amounts of alcohol, gambling, and whittling away your time at video games are all activities that make you happy solely in the present. These choices lead to future consequences down the road – lung cancer, a failed liver, a highly developed character in a video game – but your focus isn’t on the future. It’s completely on the here and now. What can you do right now to give yourself a little thrill?

You see this mindset with teenagers and young adults. Do you have a one night stand to make you satisfied, or do you wait it out just a bit longer to find somebody you’re more comfortable with? Risk vs. reward thinking is subtle here – you may know promiscuous sex can lead to unwanted pregnancies and STDs, but that’s not what’s on your mind. Your mind is set on what the immediate rewards are, so why dilute that with thinking about future consequences? The rewards you’d get from having sexual activity right now is far greater than analyzing the pros and cons in your mind.

The Future-Minded Mindset

The future-minded mindset is being totally focused on the future, with all of your current actions stemming from a desire to want to build a better future for yourself or others.

Why do high achievers always achieve so highly and make the rest of the population scratch their heads in awe and wonder? It’s not because they’re that different than you – it’s because they’re solely focused on the future. They have specific goals that they must accomplish at all costs, and they eschew everything that doesn’t lead directly to their desired results.

Future-minded people have no will to engage in pleasurable activities that only benefit them in the now. Choosing between watching a half hour TV show and reading a book about their desired work field, they’ll always choose the book. Distractions need to be dealt with and removed ASAP; what matters most is getting results. Anything else isn’t worth the battle.

Delaying gratification whenever the future rewards outweigh the immediate benefits is something future oriented people are masters at. If I told you that I would give you either $50 today or in two months I’d give you $100, would you choose the former or the latter? Future-minded people would immediately choose the latter. To them, the choice is simple – there’s a bigger reward to be had in the future if short term happiness is skipped.

Combining the Two Mindsets for Amazing Goal Achievement

When people set goals, it’s rarely in a present-minded mindset. Goals start out with a future-minded thought, e.g., “I wish I made more money!” Then they turn into some kind of  more specific statement, “I will make $3,000 a year completely through my personal development blog.” It’s only then do we turn our goals into a present-minded version, “I make $3,000 a year completely through my personal development blog.”

Writing out your goals completely in the present seems like a fabulous idea on the surface – if I can imagine my goals are real right now, that would make me want to act in congruent with those goals. If I feel like I’m already making $3,000 a month through my blog, I might be more apt to continuously deliver actions that really do get me those results; I’d create an awesome self-fulfilling prophecy for myself. But is a present-minded model of goal setting really worth it in the end? It’s both yes and no. If present-minded written goals conjure up thoughts of immediate happiness and instant gratification, then they can be pretty effective. Otherwise, I would personally would stick to future-minded goal setting.

It’s important to have a razor sharp focus on the future to know specifically where you are headed in all areas of your life, but it’s also equally important to enjoy your present moment as much as possible.

Present moments allow you to have immediate fun; future-minded thinking allows you to gaze into the future and allocate your time to goal achievement. Living solely in the distant future can drain your happiness bit by bit because you don’t feel as happy as you should; living without a regard for tomorrow can make your life miserable in the future. Becoming so obsessed with the risks in life can lead you not take calculated risks that could end up being major rewards.

Where do you fall in the grand scheme of things? Do you focus more on the present, skipping out on your long term goals to have fun right here, right now? Or is your focus more skewed towards the future, missing out on fun right now for a better life someday? Focusing on the future but also having fun in the present is the way to go – but you can’t go wrong consciously choosing the way to spend your time, every day.