Free up some time

Some days do you wake and you feel that you've got so much to do that you may not have anytime for yourself?  Your days are filled with work, running around, cooking, cleaning and endless tasks that keep you exhausted and complaining.
 

I'd like you to think of your 24 hours everyday like your bedroom closet.  If you walk up to your closet and open the door you will probably find boxes, old clothes you think are still useful to you and clothing you presently wear.  You will also find junk that you threw in there expecting one day that it will become useful again.  It's an overfilled mess that could be re-organized.

Like the overfilled closet, your day can also be re-organized.  If I look at your day you may notice it's filled with activities that no longer serve you any purpose.  You may feel the your activities are important but ask yourself:

"I'm I totally satisfied with my life?"

Are you beginning to understand?  Learn to fill your day with activities that are useful, start looking at everything you do as opportunities to become more effective. Work, family time, school and anything else that are "musts" in your life need to be more interesting.  Going through the motions are not getting you anywhere.  It's time to make work, school and family time more interesting, come up with goals you want to achieve with each aspect of your life.

Like re-organizing your closet, get rid of what no longer serves you.  It will be very difficult to make adjustments, that is why you must start off slowly and build up.
Learn to prioritize your activities, define your tasks as:

a. Important
b. Not as important to achievement
c. It won't be the end of the world if I don't do
d. Total waste of time

By putting labels on your activities it will help you reach achievement much quicker and also help you understand the importance of what you are doing.
Start ditching the stuff that is boring and mundane and replace it with better activities that make you feel more like your accomplishing something.

Letting go of old habits and routines can be a very difficult thing.  The more you complain about things in your life, the more a change is needed and shaking up your routine is key.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Hangovers can motivate

How many times have you woken up and it's been a "Morning after"?

"Morning after" usually happens on Saturday or Sunday morning after a fun time out. Checking your phone you see texts and calls you should have never made.  You find things in your pocket that make you shake your head and you feel the need to come up with a million alibis for what you did the night before.

I'm here to tell you it's ok, what your picturing in your mind probably isn't nearly as bad as you think it is.  Don't regret having great times in life, what should be done instead is learn from what you did.  Everything you do in life is an experience and all you must do is learn from experiences, this helps you grow.

Life is a learning experience, you learn as you go.  Every day when you wake up you get a chance at a fresh start, and that my friends is an amazing feeling.  Learn to not label yourself as your mistakes. Everyday you choose if you want to improve, stay the same or worse dig yourself deeper into a hole.

So because this blog is written on a Sunday you may have a hangover, don't allow it to hold you back, simply learn from the mistakes you made last night.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Fun stuff

In the world of personal development and success, there is fantastic exercise you must do to help you excel in life, here it is:

Write out your ideal life, as if you had 10 million dollars in the bank and knew you could not fail.

This is such a fun activity to do in your journal or simply on a piece of paper.  I encourage you to do this after reading the blog.  The down side, if you don't have the right training in personal development or proper mindset there can be one issue that continuously pops up, you may feel you don't deserve the things you write.  Don't believe the limitations your mind is telling you as you write.  Let your imagination run and let your hand write the best story of how you see your life unfolding!

Alternative

There is an alternative to this exercise. That is to picture the person you have become when you reach  extreme success.  Write out how you will look, dress and what you will do in a day in the life. 
I personally enjoy this exercise much more, you write out your superstar day.  It is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself.

Why do we do this?

The reason you want to do this particular writing exercise is because you generally put less limitations, while describing your ideal successful self and day.
The other reason why, is you must become the person you see to achieve such greatness in this world.  Have you ever noticed you say to yourself:
"When this happens then I will........"

It's time to write out your ideal self, no excuses nothing as allowed to hold you back other than your pen running out of ink, and if it does you simply get another allow nothing to hold you back!

Stay motivated
Shane C

Become more outgoing!

Are you waiting for something great to happen in your life, maybe win the lottery, get a promotion or even expecting someone to change.

This could be the problem, your waiting.  Waiting gets you nothing, have you ever noticed when you go out to a party or out to a bar people talk to you the more outgoing you are?  You introduce yourself, ask some questions and radiate a great personality.  When you act in this manner, people seem to be drawn towards you and you have a better time. 
Then there is the other end of the spectrum, maybe you're someone that goes somewhere stands in the corner and waits for people to come towards you?  If this is the case you often notice you have less of a good time and less people talk to you.
I can tell you I've tried both to see what would happen, I can handle myself pretty good in a room full of strangers :-) .  And when I stood there in the corner, people would approach me but more out of mystery:
"Who's this guy?".  That impression, may not be what you want to give off.

I give you the party/bar example because in life if you stand in the corner waiting, you could wait forever for opportunity to seek you.  Open up your mind, towards what you want and start to make actions towards what you want to achieve.  When you work towards what you want, people appear you never noticed before, places you drove by appear you've never seen before and you notice more things in life that get you closer towards what you want to achieve.

Work towards things that you want, the more you work the better it feels when you receive it.  When an opportunity opens up for you, it ALWAYS lead to other opportunity in life and it becomes and endless cycle of greatness.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Fitness leads to success

There may have been a time in your life when you were in terrific shape or you may be someone who still hasn't discovered the joys of physical fitness.  With the obvious benefit of health, there are even better reasons to making your body lean and muscular.  When I say muscular, I don't mean extreme bulk.  You must train quite hard with a diet that allows bulk to come onto your body.
Many women claim that once they workout they get too bulky, this is only a fear. When your body transforms it will look harder and leaner, this is what you started to train for it's time to learn to enjoy the lean muscle that comes with transformation.  As long as your diet is clean with a good amount of cardio minimum 4 days per week for 30 minutes per session you will not turn into Mrs Universe.

Here are my top 4 reasons why you should transform your body to reach success in life.

1. It makes your body look sexy, by adding sex appeal you develop a self confidence that is unshakable.
2. People start to admire you.  When people look at you differently you feel better about yourself.
3. You get to buy a new wardrobe. Any time you buy yourself new clothing you feel better about yourself.
4. It is often said that life is easier for beautiful people.  Why not see if this is true :-)

On a more serious note, if you trained very hard at one time in your life and you have suffered an injury that does not allow you to do the same training as you once did, you can still look amazing. I've seen people in wheelchairs and the disabled get one stage to compete in bodybuilding competitions, so you don't have an excuse.  You must tailor yourself a different and new training program than you once had, take it slow in the beginning.  You will get your body back, it takes work but it's so worth it.

Stay motivated
Shane C

Do it!

What do you regret not trying in your life?

Once you've answered, your ready to read the rest of this blog.  Regret is a horrible feeling, it's almost like a weakness.  You talk constantly talk about how things could be when you regret something.

Next time you are faced with a fear you should think about what you can gain by facing that fear.  Just look at what can be accomplished if only you did that one little thing that scares you.  We also have big fears, just think what you can accomplish if you face the bigger fears that lie in your head. 

Sometimes it's easy to look to the negatives that could happen by facing your fear, this is normal but is it real?  More that likely not, your head is simply filled with horrible stories that have happened in the past to a couple of people. You are not those couple of people though.  You are you, and you are amazing! 

Look to what you want so you don't live in regret.  Regret is a sad feeling, that gets you in a negative state of mind.  Winning is a much better feeling.  Keep asking yourself, do I want to feel good about accomplishing things in life or do I want to continually talk about what could have been.


Stay motivated
Shane C

Love

Have you ever felt the need to withhold "LOVE" due to being hurt time and time again?

Let me begin by explaining that I'm not an expert in the topic of love or relationships, yet I am pretty well educated in the psychology of it.

To love someone is a verb, it's something you choose to do, and it gently blossoms to an attachment or affection towards people and even things or activities.  That's all it is, nothing more nothing less.  It's not Hollywood, Love is not a moment in time as many picture it in their minds.  It is something you choose to feel towards someone.  Everything else that comes with Love are positive actions.

Choosing to care, having deep desire and protecting the honor of the people you Love are the actions you do when you Love someone. Yet, that is only one version of what Love is.  Everyone has different versions that they have learned growing up.

The first step is understanding that not everyone has the same pictures of what Love is in their minds.  A man's mind and woman's mind are so different it's seems as though both minds could never function togther and for the most part they don't.  This is where communication comes in, we don't all communicate in the same manner it does not mean that people do not love each other it simply means that minds are different.

Most people look at another whom they have Love towards and wonder why the picture in their minds does not match up with their friend's or spouse's actions.  The internal dialogue often goes like this:

"Why don't they ever do ____ or_____ ?  They should know how much it means to me".

The real problem with that type of dialogue is the other people in your life cannot read what you are thinking.  A better approach is:

"How can I show them affection?"

I can tell you right now, what you will show them as affection or Love may not match up with what that person views as Love.  Simply put, you need to stop worrying about how people should Love you.  Show people Love often and do not give up because you envisioned a reaction they did not give you.  Love them always, and show them as many loving actions as you would want them to show you.  You may see that the effort you expected from them to be a little unrealistic.  You must change yourself so people around you start to change.

Love is complicated, and I'll say it again it's not Hollywood. 
-It's being there and encouraging someone when they are down without them asking you to. 
-It's standing beside them when they hurt. 
-It's the feeling you get when you hear terrible news about someone and you break down. 

You may not know you Love someone till it's to late, now start showing people around you what love is and stop being preoccupied with how they should Love you.

Just to finish off today's blog true love is in this video watch at 2:39.  Watch and learn...

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Who influences you?

Take out a sheet of paper and list the 3-6 people in your life whom you choose spend the most time with.  This will involve your work time and free time.  The one rule is, you are not allowed to use your immediate family (spouse and children) for today's blog.

In your life you choose to spend time with certain people for different reasons, I can't answer that for you, you will do that a little later. The people whom you associate with influence you in ways you can't even begin to understand. It goes as deep as body movement.
As for myself, their are two people who have had great impact on me, I watch what they do and I've started to mimic a common facial expression they do, and use 2 words they use quite a bit when speaking to others.  Did I do this on purpose, absolutely not I have simply picked up on it and overtime I adopted it.
The longer you spend time with people (ps- the actions I do, are only from spending minimal time) the more they influence your beliefs, choices and actions.  With that said, would you like to be influenced in a bad way?  Your answer is "no", yet most people allow this on a daily or a "weekend" basis.

Think of how you feel one hour after leaving people you spend time with, do they make you feel:

Angry, have a need to gossip, guilty, sad or even a need to say "I'm never doing that again".

or do you feel

Inspired, motivated, happy excited to go try what you've learned.

That question can be quite sobering, and you may not have ever thought of it before.

You may also be someone who claims you choose to spend time with a certain people because you are helping them through life.  Run quickly, those people only use you as a crutch and will very rarely use what you tell them to make there lives better.  It's great to be there for someone in a time of need, yet if there time of need is lasting several months or even years you may not be the right person that should be helping them.  Limit time with these people.  If you invest more than you receive from a relationship with a friend, limit time with them.

When you mature and need to grow you must start spending time with people who are influencing you in a positive way.  You start not being the most "popular" person in your new circle of friends, spend time with more successful people than you.  It's uncomfortable and scary but it's very worth it for what you get out of it.  These people give you ideas on positivity and success and at this point in your life you need it. 

Sometimes we worry that spending less time with someone hurts them, yet if it hurts you why suffer?  You must constantly be growing for if you choose not to get better, you are simply getting worse. 
Determine why you choose to spend time with the people you do, and ask yourself what are you getting out of it emotionally.  Are they draining you or helping you reach your potential?

At the begging I wrote family (spouse and children) do not count in this exercise.  The reason behind this is this blog was about people you CHOOSE to spend time with.  Your family life, is not the influence I was mentioning above.  And I'm not a family counsellor :-)

Stay motivated
Shane C.

I have a test

Take a moment to look up from the screen and look around the room.  How many red things do you see?  Write it down, there is a test at the end.

Life gives you what you look for, you simply program your mind to find what it is you want to find and you will easily seek out those things.  This is what the "red things" test is for.
You may be about to email me saying that you tried this several times with no success.  You want to look for good things in life, opportunities and happiness yet it never works.  My answer to that is of course it doesn't work the first, second or third time, you must practice for days sometimes weeks.

If you want to find "good" in the world, you will.  You simply need a trusty old journal and a pen.  Carry it with you for a few days.  Write down at the top of the page what you are looking for, such as "people smiling".  As you walk around the first day you may only find one person smiling, but you must write it down.  The following day, when you get up you will be more pumped up to find these great people smiling, you may only find 3 people smiling.
After a week, you will be so excited to do this, you will start smiling at people just to get them to smile.  You will notice as time goes on you leave the journal at home and all you see around you is people happy because your smiling at them.

Everything takes a bit of time, but it's worth it when you put in work.  If you want your life to change for the better you must make life better.  It's easy right now to find only bad things in life when all your seeking is bad things, you pick up on them immediately.

Here is a task I gave someone who emailed me last week that I want you to do.  It's Sunday so it will be easy to do.  Go out and rent one of the following 3 movies:

-Happy Gilmore
-The 40 year old virgin
-White chicks

Take your journal and write down every time one of the actors sits down.  You will laugh through the whole movie, yet you will be programmed to only watch for people sitting.  It's a great exercise to do on a Sunday, why not try it.

So this week find out what you want to look for and go and find it, don't forget your journal.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Ok, so only look at the paper you wrote the red things on.  How many things in the room had rounded edges?  See, you didn't focus on rounded edges, so you don't know the answer!

Priorities

There is a belief that some people have, that they must put everybody around them first.  Their priorities are to control the happiness and comfort of everyone around them at all times.  They lose sleep over satisfying others needs and run themselves ragged with a schedule filled with everyone else's chores, priorities and agendas.  Then they brag about how much they do in life.

But....

They often break down, and break down hard crying that nobody cares and that they never give themselves time to enjoy their own life.  Does this sound like you or someone you know?  If so keep reading.

Somewhere in life you got a pat on the back for doing a great job for helping someone, and this brought you a feeling of pride and enjoyment.  This is normal, we all have the need for acknowledgement, this how are mind works.  Then you slowly started to look for that more and more by helping others, you slowly developed this habit and thrived (like a high) every time someone gave you praise for helping them.  The problem is you never found out when to slowdown and help yourself out because your self esteem is often to low you are unable you congratulate yourself on the great work your doing with your own life.

Eventually life stops patting you on the back and saying "Good job!".  Life and people around you have to much to do to constantly tell you that you are doing a great job in life.  You are the solution to your own happiness, only you can give yourself the right "Way to go!" on a daily basis.  Work on your self esteem and not others to feel better about yourself, because unfortunately people don't have time to hear about how you help everyone around you. 

People have only one care in the the world and that is themselves.  They do care if you can help them out, yet only to satisfy there own needs.  You must do the same for yourself, make yourself happy by being good to yourself.  Put yourself before everyone else in your life, or you will continuously feel like you are never caught up.  You must sit down and rethink your priorities, with a pen and paper.  Mark down what and who is important in your life and put yourself at the top, start making changes in your life.  Change is inevitable and must happen for growth. People around you and you included will hate change in the begging, yet with time the right people will stick around.

Helping yourself is the only way you can build strong relationships in your life.  I belief it was Jim Rohn (my favorite man to learn from) who said:
"Let me help me first so I can help us"
This quote says it all, you must help yourself.  If you don't help yourself you may end up overweight, sick, depressed being a burdon on those people you tried to help your whole life.....Do you want that??

Stay motivated
Shane C