Finding your passion, your reason for existing is the key to success. If you don’t feel your own passion, you’ll be driven by what other people want, not what you really want. Even though you might be successful in the eyes of others, you will never be truly satisfied within yourself.

I can’t tell you how to be successful. And I can’t judge if you are successful or not. Only you can decide to be successful. And only you can determine what success means to you. And only you can achieved your success.

You have to look into your own hart and be true to your own passion.

You have to make your own meaning to your own life.

You have to live your dreams.

It is not what happens that matters, it is how you respond that counts.

Your response makes you count.

So stand up and be counted.

External Alarm Clocks or Internal Habits.
Dumb Little Man! had a recent post Five Ridiculous Alarm Clocks which I found both amusing and intriguing. Intriguing, because the geeky nerd inside me loves technology and gadgets and the unusual application of such things. Amusing because as someone who spent decades getting out of bed late and being the guy in the office who was always late for work, I know that such crazy alarm clocks are only effective for a short while, if at all.

Often we seek “easy” solutions to our problems from our external world, an elaborate alarm clock to wake us in the morning, rather than the “hard” solution of changing our internal view of the world, or simply reprogramming a habit. But the “easy” solution is very seldom permanent and the “hard” solution is usually easer in the long run.

Most of us think that some people are naturally early risers and some of us like to stay up late, “Larks” and “Owls” as my Mother used to say. But in reality rather than being deeply embedded aspects of our personalities staying up late at night or getting up early in the morning are simply habits that we have picked up as we went along.

And like all habits getting out of bed is an easy one to reprogram once you know how. It is no good just making a firm resolve to get up early, because our habits are controlled by our subconscious mind and when your alarm goes off in the morning you will preform your usual habit and not any new habit you may thing you want to do.

So how do you make a habit then? Repetition. Habits are formed by repeating the same actions over and over until we do them automatically. Until the subconscious mind takes over and we perform the actions with out any conscious effort. So that is what we need to do in order to make a habit of getting out of bed once the alarm goes.

Like Pavlov with his dogs we will create a conditioned response so once your alarm rings you will be up and out of bed before you can even think of pulling the covers over your head and hitting the snooze button.

It is best to pick a time when you don’t have to set your alarm clock for a couple of days. Because having your alarm go off in the morning and not get up is going to reinforce the old habit and break the new habit before it has a chance to take complete hold.

What we want to do is recreate as closely as possible the conditions that normally exist when you want to get up in the morning. And then perform the action we want to become a habit, that is getting out of bed when the alarm rings.

Pick a time, not too late in the evening, we don’t want you to fall asleep for real, when the light is about the same as it is in the morning. Got to your bedroom. Get undressed put on your PJ’s, or stay naked, however it is that you normally sleep. Set your alarm for a few minuets from now and get into bed. Take a deep breath, roll over and snuggle up.

When your alarm goes off: first get out of bed then turn your alarm off, take a deep breath, stretch, touch your toes and go into the bathroom, or kitchen if you need your coffee before you do anything else. Do what you would normally do when you get out of bed. Or at least pretend to do it. The idea is to create a new link in your subconscious mind bridging the time between being asleep in bed and what you do first thing when you get up.

Next do it again. Go back to bed, set your alarm for five minuets time and snuggle under the bedclothes. Then get out of bed once your alarm goes off, take a deep breath and go into the bathroom. Then do it again and again. Remember the key to making a habit is repetition. You need to repeat it until it becomes automatic.

Half a dozen times three or four days in a row will be enough to reprogram your habit from hitting the snooze button and rolling over to getting out of bed and turning your alarm off. For that day on you will automatically get out of bed when your alarm goes off.

You may feel a little silly doing this. Going to bed just to pretend to get up in the morning might seem strange. Especially if you have to explain what your are doing to your family or a room mate. But do it any way. When you are getting up with your alarm every day both they and you will forget any silliness you might have felt.

Just remember when you are getting out of bed earlier you have to go to bed earlier. Earlier risers still need the same amount of sleep.

Changing you habits is easy once you learn how. Learning how to change your habits is easy. The hard part is wanting to learn how to be in control of your habits, because then you will have to accept responsibility for them and not be able to blame “that stupid alarm clock” when you are once again late for work.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

I was just reading Seth Godin’s blog and came across a post which reminded me of an article I have on my to do list about the illusions we call “Good” and “Bad”.

In his Dancing with entropy Seth writes “There is no good, there is no bad, there’s just what happened.”

This is the theme of a longer article I am working on, and perhaps even a full chapter in my book. Things happen, always, all of the time, forever, and we only hurt ourselves by trying to make them fit into our subjective beliefs of good and bad, or right and wrong.

For instance missing a mortgage payment on the face of it is a bad thing. “Your home is a risk if you don’t keep up repayments.” But in my case it was a good thing.

When I realised half way through the month that come the 30th there simply would not be enough cash in our bank account to cover all the direct debits and standing orders that were due I sat down and cried. Then I picked myself up and did what I had never done before – monthly accounts. I took a long hard look at what money was coming in and what money was going out and started to do what I had until then only paid lip service to. I set a budget and stuck to it.

I have not missed a mortgage payment since and I am slowly chipping away at all my other debts, Car Loans, Credit Card etc. So missing that one payment made me improve my financial life. It gave me the wake up call I needed to actually do something and not just pretend to be addressing the problem.

In some ways human beings are very simple. We like to do things that give us pleasure and we avoid doing things that give us pain.

But sometimes this pleasure/pain principle can be inverted. For instance in my work with smoking cessation clients I often find that those who come to me for help to stop smoking dread the new smoke free life that is ahead of them when they give up smoking. In fact this is often at the root of why they may have tried and failed to give up smoking in the past. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, and for your wallet and that you end up with bad breath and smelling like a used ashtray. But instead of looking at all the things that they gain by giving up cigarettes: Better Health, More Money, Clean Breath, etc. some stop smoking clients focus on all the negative things: “I’m going to put on weight”, “I’m not going to fit in with my friends any more”, “What will I do to de-stress?”, “Will I start fidgeting with my hands?”

Yet, if you buy a brand new car do you look at the shiny new paint work and wish for the dull and scratched paint of your old car. When you sit inside and smell that new car smell do you wish for the old smell of your old car. When you start it up and feel the smooth running brand new engine do you wish for the clunky old engine of your last car. Or do you sit into your new car look at the shiny dashboard and bright displays, smell the unique new car smell and feel the smooth power of a brand new engine.

And so it is with with any change in your life. If you focus on the pain you will experience more pain than pleasure. If you concentrate on the pleasure, on the new benefits of of your new life, so you will experience more pleasure then pain. If you focus on the pain then the change in your life will be painful. If you focus on the pleasure then change will be pleasurable.

So why choose pain when you can choose pleasure?