Before I knew anything, I actually had no idea that our minds could be reprogrammed and modified to better serve our needs.

Instead, I used to just believe: “this is the brain I have, and this is the brain I will always have.” It was a passive thing – something I had no control over. It just was.

But the more I learned about personal development, the more I learned our mind is actually very flexible and very capable of changing itself.

In fact, our mind is always changing. Every new experience we have, and every new thing we learn, changes the neural pathways and structures in our brain. Today, scientists call it “neuroplasticity.”

The key to personal development is to actively change the structure of our brains by conditioning and reprogramming our mind in new ways. And we can actually achieve this using a variety of different strategies. Here are some things you can start working on right away:

Change your perspective. Try having more solution-oriented thinking instead of problem-oriented thinking. When you think only about the stuff that sucks in your life, it’ll often make you feel worse. But when you start feeling capable of finding solutions and overcoming obstacles, you condition your mind to find the answers you need.

Modify your self-talk. We all talk to ourselves inside our heads – that’s what thinking is. The problem is some of us talk negatively about ourselves, while others talk positively about themselves. The more you tell yourself something, the more likely you are to believe it and act on that belief. So the more you feed yourself healthy and motivating thoughts, the more those thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes can have a positive effect on your life.

Take risks. Sometimes the best way to learn something is to step outside of our heads and experience it. You might be used to getting a cheeseburger at every restaurant you go, but until you take a risk and try something new you’ll never know what else life might have to offer. Will you fail and make mistakes sometimes? Sure, but it’s a part of the growing process.

Use your imagination as practice. Studies show that imagining yourself taking a course of action is a really good way to motivate yourself to take that action in the future. So by practicing visualization techniques on a regular basis we can actually reprogram our thoughts and behaviors. One great example of this is professional athletes mentally rehearsing before a game or match.

Stop victimizing yourself. One of the most common traps our culture teaches us is that we are helpless victims of circumstance. In other words, we have no control over our destiny; instead, reality rears its ugly head and we get whatever we get. As a result, we become programmed to shift blame to external factors and never seek responsibility for our lives.

Stay present with your goals. By taking small and gradual steps on a daily basis, we can end up covering a lot of ground in the long-run. The most important thing to remember, however, is that the only real power you have is in the present moment. Only in the “now” can you think, decide, act, and make changes to your life. Don’t dwell on the past or wait for the future – start making progress today.

By applying these things in my own life, I have improved myself dramatically over the years. I now have a different perspective about life, I think and talk to myself differently, I take smart risks more often, I visualize my future more clearly, I take responsibility for the direction of my life, and I stay focused on what matters the most to me in each and every moment.

And in return – I’m happier because of it.

Social Dynamix covers all the bases for how to reprogram your mind more effectively, but it also makes a crucial point about achieving happiness for yourself:

“The only person that your happiness is dependent upon is you. You have to start being happy from within, and not look toward externals things or people to make you happy. Even when you’re in a relationship you want to be a whole person instead of this ‘you complete me’ thing. External things may make you happy for a little while, but it often doesn’t last. People and things can be taken away from you in a moment – but if you are happy from within then that is a very hard thing to take away.”

You have to remember that your happiness can only be achieved by you and you alone. No one else can take control of your mind and make you happy.

Program yourself for happiness.

Everyone from Buddha to modern day positive psychologist like Dan Gilbert understand that we synthesize our happiness by reprogramming how we think about ourselves and our world. As the William James quote adequately puts it, “The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.” If you understand this simple fact, then you are halfway down the path to personal development. The other half is now taking action and making it all happen.

Social Dynamix

Before I mentioned Social Dynamix. It’s a personal development product I just recently got a copy of and I’ve been really impressed with the breadth and depth of information in it.

So far, I’ve only watched the first module – “Mind Jack” – which is three 20 minute videos explaining how your thoughts, perception, and attitude affect your life (a lot of the stuff I’ve been talking about in this article). The 2 other main modules are “The Shyness and Social Anxiety Annihilator” and “Social Re-Boot.”

I’ll definitely be sharing more about these in the future once I watch them. You can stay updated by joining my newsletter.

The product also comes with a slew of other related bonuses that I would like to write about at some point (about a dozen other PDFs, audio files, videos, etc.) If you want you can head over to the page and check it out.

Buyer Awareness: If you happen to buy it, I will get paid a % of the commission for referring you. But please remember that I don’t work for the company (so please don’t send me e-mails for customer support – but you can send me an e-mail if you want to talk about the content in more depth) and I only recommend it because I have tried it out myself and found it to be valuable.

Questions.

• What do you do to help reprogram your mind to be healthier and more positive?
• What were some old thought patterns and beliefs you needed to change in the past?

Please answer these in the comment section below!

As a kid I never grew up being very physically active. I did some little league sports, I liked gym class, but it wasn’t something that ever became a consistent part of my life. My free time was typically spend in front of computers, videogames, and eating fast food.

Meanwhile, other classmates were much more health conscious: they went to the gym everyday, participated on the high school football team, organized softball games over the summer, and lived in households that encouraged eating vegetables and drinking protein shakes.

These different lifestyles represent two different cultures. One where health awareness is a prevalent theme, and the other where it is largely absent. We all experience these cultures to different degrees.

But our culture is not chained to our childhood and family. We have the ability to change our routines even as adults. We start by becoming more aware of our habits, and then we begin to make small adjustments as we find healthier alternatives. At first we may just do 10 push-ups every morning, then we might add an evening walk after dinner. For breakfast, we begin to substitute bacon for a fruit salad, and at night we limit our TV snack to only one scoop of ice cream instead of two. Every change is a step in the right direction, and each one builds on the momentum from the last.

If you have a problem keeping commitments, just start by doing whatever is most convenient. Something is always better than nothing, and if you keep building little habits then it will add up over time. Remember, you are trying to make changes that will persist for a lifetime, not simply spend the 3 months before summer trying to pump up (and then losing those gains come next winter). If the culture isn’t there, if you aren’t planning for something permanent, any progress you make will be temporary at best.

The hardest part about changing your culture is making those first few steps. You need to get in the habit of changing habits, and once you have ingrained that into your mind you will be open to change when it presents itself. These things begin to have a snowball effect, and one day you will look back and wonder how you ever went from “couch potato” to “health guru.” It began with that first sit-up.

There are a lot of effective ways to build up your culture. You could make friends who encourage these new habits, find exercises you enjoy, or keep a diary to keep track of your progress. One of my most popular articles is Fifty Ways to Stay Committed, which suggests these techniques as well as many others that will help you instill change. It is probably worth skimming through.

I also recommend Routines vs. Rituals, which drives home the point that a ritual is an action with meaning and purpose, while a routine is heartless and treated like a chore. If your fitness regimen becomes a chore, you’ve already lost the battle. There is no culture there – no drive, no passion, and no commitment. Basically, it won’t last.

I encourage people to become engaged in their health, to be internally motivated to maintaining a healthy and fit body, and not reactive to the external and often superficial pressures placed on us by society. This is how you build authenticity that lasts.

While I haven’t recommended any particular exercises, diets, or work-out schedules, my point of this post was to stress the importance of building your own rituals and culture. If you are someone who has been a health nut for awhile, then you are probably already familiar with some ways you have developed these things unconsciously. If you are someone who is just beginning to develop a new culture of fitness, then I hope you have learned why they are so important.

I will touch on some more concrete examples and strategies in upcoming posts. For now, I just want others to get the attitude right.

In the pursuit of any endeavor we can’t ignore the fundamentals. Knowledgeable, aspiring young bloggers know that you need to build relationships if you want to establish a loyal fanbase. This means visiting other blogs, replying to comments and e-mails, making your site look presentable, and providing consistency in content.

However, the fundamentals alone won’t get you the success you want, whether it is with blogging, starting a business, or with life in general.

Don’t get me wrong – the fundamentals are crucial – but you need that X factor if you want to take your work to the next level. In fact, with the competition, it is almost as if we need a Y and Z factor too.

So what do X, Y, and Z stand for? Well…that is for you to figure out. If I could tell you, then they would no longer be X, Y, and Z; they would just be any old information that any hack could get a hold of.

Risk-Taking

Pat Flynn at SmartPassiveIncome.com makes a healthy living off blogging. He says he is not a millionaire, but he does make enough to support his wife and new baby boy. As a successful businessman, he says if you want to up the ante then you need to take bold actions.

In business or in life you really only have two choices:

A. Do you want to blend into the background?

B. Or do you want to stand out from the rest?

When asked this question, many will jump to their feet and scream, “I want to stand out from the rest!” But it isn’t that easy.

Standing out can be painful. It requires us to step out of our comfort zone, take risks, experience failure, and then still have the conviction and will to get back up again. Many won’t be able to get back up on that horse after only their first time falling. It can be that hurtful and dispiriting.

Mindful Persistence

Some folks believe that as long as you are strong and persistent in spite of your failures, then you can make it through anything. I’ve written about this before and I certainly still believe that commitment is a strong value to have during any endeavor.

But what if your failure isn’t due to you or any lack of skills? Maybe you keep getting thrown off because there is something wrong with the horse? How do you know when a failure is due to your lack of commitment or if it is the pursuit in itself that fails?

That is why I propose mindfulness, a concept I discuss very frequently on this blog. Mindful persistence means knowing when to be persistent and knowing when to ditch an idea completely.

We need to know when to attribute a failure to our self and when to attribute a failure to uncontrollable circumstances. If the problem is something inside ourselves, then we need to stay persistent, do research, keep failing, and eventually learn the tools of the trade. If the problem is an uncontrollable circumstance then it is time to accept a change in strategy.

“Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.”
- Tom Peters

What risks am I taking?

As a 21 year old, my biggest resource is not money or experience but how I spend my time. I graduated college a semester early so that I could get a jump-start on what I wanted to do. Even before I chose to major in psychology I knew I wanted to make a living being self-employed, without any concerns for bosses and strict deadlines.

My biggest risk thus far is my decision to remain unemployed and devote my full-time towards this site. I am now working on my first ebook, which is going to be my first bold step forward in monetizing my work.

Some may think I am naive or foolish, but I see things in my future that I cannot expect others to see for me. That is a big part of what makes a risk a risk. I am willing to step out on that limb.

Ask yourself, “What risks am I taking?” What things are you looking to put on the line and what do you think you can achieve in return?

Join me for the ride

This blog is as much about improving myself as it is about improving the world. That is one of the major themes throughout my writing. I provide a lot of free and useful content on this site and I want to encourage people who have a similar attitude to join my newsletter, where I share my latest posts along with articles and videos from all over the internet. If you click on that link you can also check out the latest issue of my newsletter and get a taste for the types of things to expect in the future.

Tips To Stay Committed To Your Goals

1. Love the journey not just the destination. Why do anything if you can’t enjoy the process of doing in-and-of-itself? Do what you love and love what you do.

2. Take pride in the small steps. Every step along the path should be seen as an accomplishment. Little accomplishments add up to bigger ones; and every snowman starts with but a single snowflake.

3. Realize persistence is key. Don’t be fooled by marketing schemes that offer a magic pill to fix all your problems. Nothing of value comes without a bit of hard work and dedication, whether it is making money or losing weight.

4. Have a sustainable routine. Persistence comes through dedicated consistency. If you can’t handle your workload then you need to adjust it until it is something you can see yourself doing everyday.

5. Commitment builds character. You aren’t just working on whatever you are committed too, you are also working on yourself. Therefore, every action is also an action of self-improvement.

6. Achieving your goals is gratifying. The feeling of accomplishment alone often makes it worth the effort.

7. Believe that you were made for this. We don’t commit ourselves to sudden whims, but the things that we believe have been boiling up inside of us for years, perhaps even since we were child.

8. Find encouraging friends. As I recently read in Daniel Goleman’s book “Social Intelligence,” good feelings are contagious, when we surround ourselves with positive people they usually have a positive effect.

9. Don’t forget that quitting can feel awful. Just as accomplishment can feel good, quitting feels equally painful. Don’t ever quit on the things that you truly value in life, you are only selling yourself short.

10. Notice the little improvements along the way. Be mindful that, no matter how frustrated or angry you may be in a given moment, things are always getting gradually better.

11. Create an affirmation. Write down an encouraging phrase to repeat to yourself every morning and night before bed. This little mantra or autosuggestion can help motivate and inspire you to keep pushing yourself forward.

12. Do something for the greater good. When we align our interests to something greater than our own self, we are that much more empowered to stay committed to our goals.

13. Stay enthusiastic and curious. Be weary when you begin to lose interest in the things you are committed to. It may mean you have forgotten what is really important about what you are doing.

14. Use your frustration as creative fuel. Why waste your energy on negative thoughts and emotions when you can transform and re-direct towards something more beneficial and uplifting?

15. Don’t be afraid to adjust. We aren’t psychics, we don’t know what the future may bring. That is why it is important that we adapt in the face of new information and new experiences.

16. Give yourself little rewards along the way. Maybe once you finish half your paper you can treat yourself to a quick Starbucks outing with your friends. Or, once you have reach $10,000 a month on your new business you can treat your family to a small vacation.

17. Allow times of rest and leisure. Knowing how to spend some time relaxing is key to replenishing yourself and staying energized throughout the day.

18. Keep a journal of your progress. We learn a lot more from our experiences when we allocate time towards reflection.

19. You only live once. Even if you believe in reincarnation you probably won’t be remembering your past life anytime soon – might as well live it to the fullest now!

20. Meditate and re-focus your intentions. With all this busy-ness and chaos that often runs our everday lives, it is important that we don’t forget what we originally intend to accomplish through our actions.

21. Put an encouraging quote up on your wall. This is just another effective way to integrate greatness into every aspect of your life no matter where you may be.

22. Find empowering role models. Sometimes the most inspiring thing we can do is pay attention to the actions of others, whether they be family, friends, musicians, or movie characters.

23. Prioritize your to-do list. Having a well-thought out to-do list can make all the difference between getting your stuff done by 4pm and getting your stuff done by 6pm. Practice planning out your day to maximize efficiency.

24. Ask for help in times of need. Although we like to take pride in our independence, the fact of the matter is most of us require the cooperative hands of others to help us achieve our goals. We are interdependent species, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

25. Be happy for no reason. Be happy for the sake of happiness itself. It’ll make everything you do that much more meaningful.

26. Stay educated about your craft. Education is key. Don’t let your skills dull because you are too busy or lazy. Your craft is your livelihood – be the very best at it that you can be, and this includes constantly improving upon your abilities.

27. Be realistic and don’t overestimate your abilities too much. Basically, don’t try running before you can walk. There is often a learning curve we must follow before jumping right into the big leagues.

28. Learn from your mistakes early. Don’t ignore your flaws. Instead, attend to them as soon as they come into view. The quicker you address the issues in your character or business plan, the sooner you can get towards fixing them.

29. Don’t obsess over every potential obstacle. It is not worth worrying about every single possible obstacle, you will only be wasting your energy coming up with alternative plans for each one. Instead, just focus on the main ones, the ones that are more likely to arise, and that way you can come up with a Plan B and a Plan C…but all the way to Plan Z would certainly be overkill.

30. Read inspiring lists like this. Hey, why not? Isn’t this getting you in the mood to further commit to your aspirations?

31. Challenge someone. Some of us are motivated most when we are competing against another person. If this sounds like you then why not challenge someone? Maybe the first person to hook up with a girl wins twenty dollars, or the person with the highest grades at the end of the semester gets treated to a night of drinking.

32. Be patient for that Eureka moment. During a book signing, one of my favorite authors Jonathan Safran Foer one time said something to the effect of, “99% of the time I am not sure what I am writing about or how it all fits together, but then there is that 1% of the time where it all meshes together beautifully. And those times make that 99% all worth it.” Sometimes we aren’t sure how things are going to end, but if we remain persistent we are bound to experience our “eureka” moments where everything begins to make sense.

33. Have fun with it. Things that give us pleasure are easy to commit to. You don’t often see people not able to finish their favorite book or videogame. Make your days too fun to want to quit.

34. Be grateful for this opportunity. Most of us are very fortunate to live during the times that we do. We have more freedom, prosperity, and opportunity now than ever, and that is something to be incredibly thankful for.

35. Every now and then push yourself to an extreme for the sake of learning. Are you a musician or a painter? Have you ever tried just having a 6-hour jam session or a whole day painting? Just as an experiment, think of different ways you can take your commitment to the extreme and see what you learn from the experience. This is a great method for bringing your attributes to a new level.

36. Watch an inspiring movie. Feeling a little down or dreary? Sometimes there is nothing like putting on an uplifting movie to get your head back in the game, loving life, and driven to succeed.

37. Know that it will be worth it in the long-run. At times you may feel lost in the dark and not sure where this all is heading, but know that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

38. Have a vision for the end, even if it is far away. As a frame of reference, having a vision of what your future looks like is important. As long as you don’t get too obsessed with everything going exactly as planned, having something to strive can be an empowering tool. Maybe you are an actor, in which case you can envision yourself giving an acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. It is just a way to get your mind having fun and thinking ahead, but don’t take it so seriously where you just let yourself down.

39. Recognize yourself as the hero of your own destiny. Not everything is in your control, but you are still responsible for your actions – so be a hero about it. Be triumphant, surpass people’s expectations, and say “fuck it” to mediocrity.

40. Ask questions to those who have been on a similar path. You have potential resources all around you and you never know who will give you the next idea. Never be afraid to tactfully probe people for their perspective, especially those who already have experience with what it is you are trying to accomplish.

41. Always be prepared to do more work than you originally expected. When we first come up with a rough blueprint for our goals, we often underestimate the amount of work it will take. Obstacles will pop up that we couldn’t have expected, and those will require extra effort to overcome. Don’t be alarmed when these things arise.

42. Nothing valuable comes easy. This is just about sheer will and dedication. If we want to rise above others, we need to go that extra mile, plain and simple.

43. Dedicate time each day. Frequency creates consistency. Doing work each and everyday, even if it is just a little bit, will separate you from the crowd. Not to mention getting some of your daily grind on over the weekends enables you to do less on weekdays. This is one thing to consider when creating a pace you are comfortable with.

44. Build a comfortable workplace. Don’t surround yourself in a prison. Your environment is important – make it interesting, inspiring, and fun to be around. Aim to impress people who visit you.

45. Do a bit of physical exercise to increase your energy. Once I started working out I noticed I had more energy throughout the day to get more done; I became more productive. Getting exercise is also a great way to relieve any stresses and anxieties.

46. Listen to motivational music as you work. Give your life its own soundtrack. This is your movie and you are the starring role.

47. Ignore the little things that don’t matter. Don’t waste your attention and energy on things that you can’t change. If it is out of your control, it isn’t worth worrying about.

48. Reflect on past achievements for inspiration. Use your memories as source of encouragement. Recall times where you did something really great, and use that as proof that you can do even more wonderful things.

49. Take it moment-by-moment. Slow and steady wins the race. We only have the present to act upon our decisions. The past and future always come secondary, focus mostly on the things you can do right now.