It's time to get egotistical

You've heard the old saying, "if you say something enough times, even you start to believe it"... and then you tell yourself that you can do it, you can do it, you can do it... and then you hear other people doing the same and think to yourself "What an egotistical jerk!"

WTF is wrong with you? Why would you stop saying it? They are egotistical jerks, who do very very well!! Don't you want to do well?

You don't have to be a jerk, just sound like one! Sure beats sounding like a miserable failure jerk.

Get egotistical. Until you start to tell yourself that you're awesome, that you're a winner... you won't be. Period.

Life is hard, stop making it complicated

Seriously, you've heard of todo lists, you've heard of budgets, you've heard of saving... yet most people simply don't do these things.
The result is a complicated mess of a life that is very stressful and extremely unorganized... it can seem like lists and budgets are complicated but the mess you make by not doing those things is far more complicated.

It's simple because not doing it is stupid. You ever hear of a very successful person without a planner, budget, todo list and tons of organization? No.

So why don't you do it? Because you think it's complicated. Good luck with your version of not complicated.

The Two Words You Should Always Remember To Never Say Are "Always" and "Never"

I am so tired of self contradictory double talk jargon thrown at me from all these "experts" that tell me that I fear success, I fear failure, anyone can succeed, not everyone is made for success.

Why can't someone just read a chart and tell me if it's in me or not. Let me go about my business with the knowledge that I should shoot for it or not. Do I have to be destined for greatness if I just try hard enough and never give up? Why? If everyone was, who would pump the gas and take my money at the fast food drive in window?

I don't necessarily mean that I want anyone to beat me down and call me the failure that I am, I just want people to tell me that it's ok to not be making a million dollar income.

Here's the problem: for some people, money comes easily. Not that it just comes to them, but making and managing it is something that they just know and do well. And those people will never ever understand what it means to just be an average person working pay check to pay check.

Oh sure some of the wealthy people have had hard times in their life, I'm not denying that. What I said was that making and managing money comes naturaly to them. That's why they're capable of bouncing back from those hard times.

Not everyone can play music, they may be tone deaf or just not have the rhythm in them. Not everyone can be an artist... the ability to see the picture on the paper just isn't there, and no amount of practice will change that.

Well, the same can be said for money and success. It's not in everyone.

Why am I ranting about this? Well, I go about the internet reading about how to be successful, how to motivate myself... and all these people tell me that I can be great if I just try hard enough and don't give up. And I do, for a long time. And when all it does is exhaust me, stress me and get me no where... I feel worse than before I had found their "advice".

I would have been better off if those people had just told me that I'm doing fine, I can do better, but I'm doing fine and not making a million dollars next year is ok too.

Don't let the snobby "It's easy!" well to do people try to convince you that you should be something you're not. Don't just give up on life and stop trying to be successful either.

Just accept that you can do better than you are but that you don't have to be successful to be someone. Don't beat yourself up when they tell you it's easy and you find out it's not. Because it really isn't. Nothing in life is. And yet, you're doing just fine.

Do you Believe in Karma? Fate? Destiny? Santa?

I don't have any historical proof or first hand knowledge but I like to believe that once upon a time, someone made up these concepts to help themselves and others feel good about themselves. Not that it was just someone with a pen and paper and it happened over night or anything, but that these concepts are man made fairy tales devised to put blame on some mysterious superior power and dismiss all the bad stuff as not our own fault.

Now, not many people would include Santa in with that list but I do because I have children and I find that Santa has very much the same effect that the others do. For example, come October or November, my children's attitudes and behavior change quite drastically when they begin to realize that good things will come to them if only they behave properly.

Doesn't that sound like Karma to you? Isn't it Fate that decides that good things are in store for good people? I know what you're thinking, those things are unavoidable where as you can change how you act in anticipation for Santa and thus fool him into being good to you Christmas morning.

Well I'm sorry but all the arguments in the world won't change the fact that all those arguments can be used both ways. You can fool karma, you can convince fate, you can't avoid Santa's naughty list. And in my mind, they're all just as real as each other.

It's so easy to accept failure because it's simply your destiny, it's easy to motivate yourself into trying harder because you believe you're destined for greatness. Why is one more true than the other? Because you believe one more than the other?  They're both true, they're both false... just like being on Santa's naughty or nice list. Try harder because you're destined to get good presents, and you will. Accept that you're no good and you'll get coal for Christmas.

The only thing that separates Karma, Fate and Destiny from Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy is that adults believe some while children believe the others.

Think about it. What child believes in Karma? Fate?? My children believe that when they're bad, they get no presents and get disciplined. They believe that when they're good they get good stuff. Simple as that. They know that good behavior rewards them. No destiny about it. Do good, get good. Try hard, get rewards. Now ask them about Santa and that's a whole other matter.

Adults are the exact same except the other way around. Adults believe that no matter how hard they try, they're destined to get disciplined or rewarded the same. Adults believe that if you're good you get the same stuff as if you're not, because that's Fate. Adults believe that other bad people will have bad things come to them because that's Karma... somehow that makes them feel better about those bad people.

There's only one thing that separates them, adults believe in some, children in the others. I think the children are far better off, don't you?

Just a Matter of Finding the Proper Motivation!

You see it in action movies all the time, but you never really think of it as a real life sort of thing... but what would you do if the one(s) you loved most were taken from you? Would you take on the world to get them back?

It's hard to image because it's so far fetched but I think most of us have seen enough movies to be able to at least come up with some sort of scenario in our heads and answer the question... what would I do?

Recently I wasn't put into as drastic a situation as all of that but I was forced to make a pretty big decision based on what was best for my son. He is Autistic and the best school we could find for him was pretty far and we quickly discovered that everything was out of our price range to accomplish.

I won't say I gained super powers and materialized money where there wasn't any but I did find the desire, the need to do what ever it took to make that money come to me.

We are now doing alright, quite the opposite of living like kings, but we're doing rather well considering we were quite incapable of any of this a year ago. The reason for it is that it had to be done. There was no question of if... because it was no longer about me. It was about someone so close to me that I had to do what ever I could and more.

Sometimes it's a kick in the pants like that which finally helps us to realize our true potential, to make us open our eyes to what we're truly capable of if we have reason enough. The tricky part is holding on to that... to carry it with you after you've accomplished what you had to and feel good about what you've done.

If you don't carry on with that you can lose it very quickly and very easily. And I think we'd all agree, we'd rather not be in the position to need to take on the world for the sake of a loved one all the time.

So do it for yourself first and there's a good chance you won't be put in that position in the first place.

One Man's World is Another Man's Illusion

It's no secret that our goverments keep things from us and that advertising is meant to mislead us. This is just what we've come to expect and yet we continually fall for it all like sheep in a field.

This past Olympics (Vancouver 2010), I saw commercials from all the big name companies that sponsored the games couldn't help but wonder... what were they telling other people?

I am Canadian, so I watched the Canadian broadcast. In it, I saw commercials from Coke-A-Cola and McDonalds waving their Canadian flags and boasting "Let's show them who's game it is" (in reference to the hockey) and "they're in our house now"....  uhmm... neither of them are Canadian companies.

The very first commercial that aired immediately following Canada's gold medal hockey game was "now they know who's game it is" from Coke-A-Cola which made me wonder, what commercial did the US see?? Conversely, what would have aired if the US had won it? We'd probably see some "congrats on the silver" commercial while in the US, they'd see "It's our game now!" commercial or something like that.

We eat it up!! It's patriotism and pride and celebration and we love it! But, isn't it also treachery and treason that they go spouting the same pride and patriotism to the other guys at the same time??

The thing is, most of us aren't watching two different telecasts of the same thing from two different countries and so we'd never know. A part of us does, because as you read this you're thinking it makes perfect sense and even occurred to you. But an even bigger part pushes that aside and says "someone get me a Coke!"

It's because we're hearing what we want to hear. We're getting an emotional response from what they're feeding us and we take it because we want to take it. We're sheep. The advertisers are the shephards and they've just pulled the wool over our eyes and told us where to run.

Don't become a conspiracy theorist, but open your eyes. Question everything. See the world as it is and you'll be that much closer to taking charge rather than being a mindless follower.

Do You Know What "Motivation" Really Means?

The first thing we have to do is break it down to it's core word which is motive. If you're like me, the first thing you think of when you hear 'motive' is a crime. Perhaps it's too much police drama television these days but when I hear the word, I'm thinking that it means 'the reason a person committed a crime.'

Likewise, when we hear the word motivation, we definitely don't associate that with crimes but rather as a 'reward' or a 'reason' to do something that we generally don't want to do. We often think of it in terms of "having to find the motivation" to do something. It's basically become a bit of a negative thing... something we think of only when we are feeling down or unwilling.

What we need to do is change that, because that is wrong. Here is what the dictionary has for 'motive':

1. something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive.

2. the goal or object of a person's actions: Her motive was revenge. 

 

See, even the dictionary gives it a 'crime' feel with the revenge bit but you can see how it doesn't have to be a negative thing. It's quite simply the 'thing' that makes you do what you do. It can be anything from eating breakfast because you're hungry (hunger is your motivation) to going to work to earn your pay (money is your motivation).

Did you ever think of hunger as a motivation? Probably not. Perhaps you were hungry but your laziness was trumping it and as you sat there, you tried to find the motivation to get up and get yourself something to eat. You weren't looking for motivation, you were looking for more motivation. An added reason, an extra excuse.

What does this all mean? Well, motivation comes in a lot more shapes and forms than you think and it's a part of your life every single day. You may have just clouded it with what we've come to perceive it as. You don't need to promise yourself rewards or incentives to get something accomplished... the motivation is already there. You just have to stop ignoring it or dismissing it and embrace it for what it is.

Perhaps that laziness wouldn't keep you in your seat if you just simply accepted the hunger for the motivation that it is. You don't have to commit a crime to have a motive and you don't need someone else to 'give you motivation'. You already have it. Use it.

Why Many Motivational Articles and Speakers May Have the Opposite Effect On You

The problem with a lot of motivational quotes, articles and speakers is that they make it sound like you could be immortal, all powerful and rule the world. In their quest to be a great motivator, they try to empower you to "be anything you want to be" and will quote you anything and everything they need to tell you to make you feel like you could take on the world.

If you're feeling even the slightest bit of self doubt, that's probably not what you need. Your sarcasm mode kicks in and starts translating all of those grandios promises into a "that's fine for everyone else but not for me" lashing that you give to yourself long after you're done reading/listening.

You know what? Most people can't be anything they want to be, most people can't take over the world and when it comes to being immortal or all powerful, let's be thankful that most people won't ever get that.

Let's be realistic. Even if all the cards fell perfectly into place and you had nothing but driver, determination and motivation... you still likely wouldn't be hitting the top 10 list in Forbes magazine any time soon.

The thing to remember is that no one goes from 0 to 10 without taking a lot of steps in between. For you to feel self doubt and be promised the world is skipping a lot of steps.

You have to push those aside and come back to them when you're a 9.5 and not sure how to be a 10. Learn to recognize when that sarcasm mode kicks in and either take it for what it is, humour, or shut it up.

The more you keep telling yourself that you don't fit into what they're telling you, the more you start to believe yourself and then it becomes true. Maybe it was true before, maybe it wasn't... you'll never know because you make it true.

So stop it, skip it, find something else that is more on your level and read that. Maybe an article on beginner goal setting is better suited to you if you feel like you're never achieving anything. Once you get that out of the way, improve some more areas and continue upwards on that ladder. Maybe the articles promising world domination will be better suited to you after that.

But until then, don't beat yourself up because of what someone you don't know thinks you might be capable of.

Some People Think I'm a Genius, I Think They're an Idiot

The title sounds rather generalized so let me be more specific. People discover that I am a web programmer, very good with computers and I can retain a lot of useless information which tends to prove handy when playing Trivial Pursuit and they start describing me as brilliant, a genius or just really really smart.

Those people, they're idiots.

I am no more a genius than your mechanic that fixes your alternator. That person can take apart an engine and put it back together without any of those random 'spare parts' that don't seem to fit back in somehow... plus as an added bonus, your car will start when you turn the key. I can't do that.

So if a mechanic can do all that and I can't, why do these people think I must be a genius but not the mechanic?

It's all a matter of perception. The world has set several courses (career paths) in motion that have become so ingrained in our every day life that we automatically make assumptions of the people in those paths. Garbage man? Gas station attendant? Burger flipper? Mechanic?

The funny thing is that these are considered "dirty jobs" because, well, you get dirty. And therefore, only an idiot would do a dirty job because no normal person likes to get dirty.

If you can work a computer without wanting to throw your keyboard through the window however, you must be brilliant.

I have news for you. The burger flipper isn't an idiot. If you think they're an idiot, sorry, you are. You've played into the hypnotic stereotypical trendy way of thinking that makes you the sheep that you are.


By labeling a computer person as brilliant, you are inadvertantly labeling those 'dirty job' people as idiots. It's just more politically correct.

Yes I can do things with a computer that most people can't, I've also been sitting at my computer for 10 plus hours a day for about 14 years. If I wasn't any good with it by now, I'd be in serious denial.

Don't judge someone's intelligence by how well they do the one job that is their job, unless you intend to do it with everyone who does their job well, mechanics, burger flippers and everyone else.

Instead of envying what I can do in my job, take pride in what you can do in your job. If you're a burger flipper and wishing you were 'smart like me' to work with computers, stop it. Many burger flippers have gone on to have a lot more money than me, been far more successful and retired young. Was it because they were idiots for being burger flippers or brilliant for being burger flippers?

I'm not a genius. You're not an idiot. It's not about what I know or what I do, it's about what you know and what you do... no matter what anyone else thinks about you. Do your best at what you do and some people will think you're a genius too. Those people, they're idiots.

Do You Know What The Difference Is Between You and An Expert?

I'm sure you're thinking about how experts really smart, have tons of schooling, make a lot of money... any number of things. But the truth is, there is no difference.

This is how it boils down... you can work the same job for 10 years and admit to yourself that you have some good job security, good experience under your belt... you might even say you have a solid career.

An expert, on the other hand, would work for 10 years and call him/herself an expert in their field. Simple as that.

See how that works? No? Let me break it down to you like this. It's about self confidence. Not to be confused with the confidence one has in their work.... it's self confidence.

Your issue is that you feel emberassed, shy or just awkward telling someone you're an expert. Because that sounds like you're bragging or boasting. Maybe they won't even believe you.

This is where your confidence comes into play. It has nothing to do with your actual job. The truth is, anyone can get any job and anyone can call themselves an expert once they know how to do that job. I didn't say do it well, just do the job.

Let me put it another way... do you think your boss will ever call you an expert? Co-workers? Friends? You could live your entire life just being some other worker hoping for someone to finally recognize you for who you are. Very few 'experts' in the world were ever given that title. They called themselves an expert and proved it.

If you're now asking yourself how you prove it, don't feel alone. The reason for that is because you've never thought about it before and chances are, still don't think of yourself as an expert. Give it some time, get used to telling yourself you know your work. You are an expert!

Chances are the opportunities to prove it have been there all along and will be there again. You just didn't recognize or sieze them because you didn't think of yourself as an expert.

Once you do though, the chances will come. People will come to you for advice and presto, you're a consultant! Peope will need an expert rather than just a bunch of worker drones from some company they don't know... presto, you're an independant contractor/entrepreneur.

Stop telling yourself that you're just an employee or that it's just a career. That's the old way of thinking. No one has careers any more. It's just a job. And either you think better of yourself and take charge of it or you'll just keep doing that job or some other job for the rest of your life wondering why the new guy went off and became an 'expert' when you've been doing it for 20+ years and can't do the same.

You are an expert. Act like one.

Motivation In the Form of Video Games - What Can We Learn?

Even if you don't play video games, just follow along with me. I've always played video games and have taken a lot away from them over the years. First and foremost, as a child, it greatly increased my hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and most importantly, my problem solving skills. However, as an adult, it taught me something even more important, how to motivate myself!

It didn't really dawn on me until I started playing Xbox 360 games, they had caught on a long time ago and found a way to turn it into money. Microsoft knew that what they needed to make more money was to feed us what fuels us... no, not food. Achievements!

Each and every game that you can get for their system comes with a laundry list of Achievements that extend beyond the normal game itself. For example, you can finish the story or beat the bad guys or play with friends and still need to get some Achievements or conversely, not finish it and still get some Achievements to your credit. I've seen people play a game for days, weeks, even months after they "finished" it just in search of those Achievement points.

It's a secondary feature which may seem kind of silly if you haven't tried to get them before but for avid gamers, these can become addictive. If a game had an achievement for playing 365 days straight, you can be sure that there would be people out there playing that game every day for a year. And not just children either, the average age of a video game player might surprise you.

The thing is that the Achievement system drives you on an Xbox 360 because it drives you in real life. It's the fuel you need to move forward.  It's just not usually laid out for you on your television screen. But it could be.

Think about it for just a second. If you could fire up a video game, say... PacMan, and see a list of things like surviving for 20 minutes without dying, getting 500 dots in a row without dying, eating 12 ghosts in a row... what ever, you would load that game up and say to yourself "I can get those!" And when you did get those, you would feel really good about it.

You don't have to play video games to get that feeling. And there's no reason that a list of Achievements should only be seen in a video game.

Put it in to practice right now. Make a list of Achievements in your life that you would like to get. Maybe it's drinking only one coffee a day instead of two. Maybe it's putting $100 into a drawer every month until you have $5000. Maybe it's playing less video games.

It doesn't matter what it is. The Simpsons video game has an achievement for pressing Start when you first turn the game on. Hard to get?? Not even close. But it's an Achievement!

Microsoft makes a fortune from doing what you really could do for yourself. Think about it. Learn from it. Do it.

The Hardest Advice To Follow: Your Own

What is it in us that makes us great at giving advice to friends and family and yet prevents us from believing our own words? Is it that we think we're simply saying what the other person needs to hear and not really what we believe?

Think about this; if Michael Jordan gave you advice on basketball, would you listen? If Donald Trump gave you advice on making money, would you listen? If Anthony Robbins sat down and talked to you about motivation, would you listen? Conversely, would you listen to advice on the stock market from a convenience store clerk?

There's no real secret here, the secret is in the source. In this case, it's you.

Listen, I'm not saying you're not worth listening to. I'm saying that if you are needing the advice, especially on motivation or other self help areas, chances are you are already down on yourself. Hense the desire for advice.

You put yourself down, you don't like yourself or some aspect of yourself so you need advice... why would you listen to yourself? You think low of yourself just like you would think of that store clerk trying to give stock advice.

The fact is, the advice is in you, you already help others with it. Now think about this, their source is the same as yours. You! And they believe you. Why? Because you're you.

Look, there's an expression for this sort of thing. It's called a 'pity party' and it only ever has one person in attendance.

What you need to do is look in the mirror, slap yourself in the face and admit to yourself that even if there is only one single person in the whole wide world that actually takes your advice... then the source can't be all that bad. If the advice sounds like it could be good advice if it came from Michael Jordan, or Donald Trump, or Anthony Robbins... then maybe it's just good advice and you should stop caring who said it.

You're reading motivational articles, you don't feel like you're the greatest human that ever lived. I get that. But there's no reason to think that you can't give someone, even yourself, advice. Good advice is good advice, ignore the source. No matter what it is in you that says you shouldn't.

The Irony of Misery - Why is Our Natural Instinct To Make Ourselves More Miserable?

Have you ever noticed that when you're really miserable or even depressed that all you want to do is be alone, not go out with friends, not do things that you enjoy... not not not!

Probably the hardest thing a person could ever do when depressed is try to be happy. Why is that? What kind of backward self defeating programming is this that the one who kicks us when we're down most is ourselves?

It's not so apparent when you actually are depressed because no one is really thinking very clearly when depressed. We tend to focus on the things that make us depressed, even if we have to blow those things way out of proportion to do it. Ever had a friend or family member laugh at the things you say to depress yourself because it just sounds so ridiculous to them? I bet you hated that. Fact is, it was ridiculous.

Everyone gets miserable, depressed, has a bad day... and everyone has seen it happen to someone else. And when that happens, we can very easily see the triggers in them that they use over and over again to keep themselves in that frame of mind. And it makes no sense to us at all! But when it's our turn to feel that way, we do the exact same thing as them and it makes total sense to us for some reason.

This is a motivational article and so far all I've given you is observations of the absurd things we do when miserable. Truth is, I'm hoping you can see where I'm going with this on your own.

Next time you're having a bad day, feeling miserable or even depressed and you're scouring the Internet for some way to get your motivation back... think about these absurd observations. Think about just how stupid it is that we as humans do this to ourselves.

The next time you're miserable and you say no to doing something that you know you'd enjoy if you weren't miserable, remember just how dumb it is that we do that. Ask yourself, why do we do that?? And when you can't come up with an answer, stop doing it!

It's not really that simple, I know. When you're miserable, thinking straight is rough. But you can do it. You don't have to cheer yourself up or chuckle about it. Just realizing what your own mind and chemical make up is doing to defeat itself should be enough to snap you out of it.

The fact that our mind is wired to do it is just stupid. It defies logic. Don't let something so dumb drag you down further.

The Only Thing You Need to Know About Being Motivated - The Secret Revealed!

Do something you want to do!

Wait, what? You wanted more than that? I'm sorry to let you down. You were expecting some great revelation or some inspiring novel of information that would finally pick you up and get you moving when you really just want to get back into bed and feel warm and comfy huh? Please, even you know better than that!

Think about all the things you would really like to do right now, besides just sitting where you are. I don't care what it is, think about something you would really like to do. Now, do you think that you would have any trouble finding the motivation to get up and do it if the opportunity presented itself for you to do it right now?

You see it all the time, when someone offers tickets to a sports fanatic, they get excited and go! When someone asks if a shop-a-holic wants to go shopping, they hop up and go! When you ask a child if they want ice cream, they drop what they're doing!

Let me tell you another little secret: No one is motivated to do something they don't want to do.  Finding the motivation to do something you don't want to do isn't really motivation at all. Likewise, promising yourself something nice for doing it is a reward, not a motivation. It's a bribe. It's nice but it's a very temporary solution.

The concept is really very simple and I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. The trick now is to find a way to do things you enjoy all the time.  Either find the time to do a lot of things you enjoy in your free time or better yet, find a way to do something you enjoy as your primary source of income!

The people who succeed most are people who do what they love. It's not just a cliche, it's the truth. And the truly great part about it is even if you don't get rich or successful, it's something you love doing anyway so it's not a problem.

Only an idiot would do something they hate all the time and think that reading some random article on some random website is going to unlock the secret to motivating them to keep doing that thing they hate. I know that sounds harsh. It is, but if you saw someone doing something they really didn't like and they asked you to say something that would make them suddenly like it, or want to do it.... you'd tell them they're an idiot too.

Want to be happy? Want to be motivated? Do something you want to do!

Facebook is an Interesting Social Experiment on Just How Many People Truly Are Sheep

It all started with chain emails which would state something like "forward this to every single person in your contact list or you will have 7 days of terrible luck" or something similar. Some even had interesting sliding scales where if you sent it to half, you'd only have 4 days of bad luck. Nice of these things to have discount options.

Now we have Facebook where status messages often contain "real friends will copy this status" insinuating that anyone who doesn't isn't a real friend.

The last craze to go around was the bra colour thing where women would set their status to the colour of their bra, supposedly in support of breast cancer awareness even though the majority of people really didn't know what was going on. This spawned the 'awareness' craze where anything and everything that people could possibly have became a status message that insisted that "people who care" would copy and paste it.

Did anyone really care about those follow up awareness issues or did they simply want to see how many people would copy them? It even went so far as to have one stating "everyone knows someone who is an idiot. This is to raise idiot awareness" and so forth. It was an obvious parody which garnered the same results. People copied and pasted.

Every time I see a Facebook status message that concludes with "copy and paste this to your status", I cringe and find myself deciding on if I should remove this person from my friends list.

The latest crazy is even funnier where people (mostly kids) are creating groups which promise you the world if only you'll suggest the group to every single friend you have.

I've seen people promise farmville items that aren't even in the game, some promise multiples of things you can only get once, some promise thousands of rewards coins in games like Mafia Wars or others like it. Some groups even promise to let you roll back to a previous version of Facebook if you don't like the changes they make.

And the instructions are always the same, stating that you must suggest ALL of your friends. Not all minus one, not half, not a few... all.

I shouldn't have to explain this but Facebook doesn't even track if you send to 'all' friends. How is this kid tracking it when he doesn't have access to their code? Also, Facebook doesn't offer the ability to roll back to a previous version, how would this random kid be able to do it?

Going one step further, how does this random person have the ability to track through Facebook's code and end up giving you extras from a 3rd party company that they have no affiliation with? Oh right, they can't. No extra Farmville land or Mafia Wars points for you.

This wouldn't be so bad, and would be almost comical if not for one small thing... people don't just fall for it once! They join group after group after group hoping that just one of them will give them this wonderful bounty that no one else can get and they keep suggesting all of their friends over and over and over again.

There is a lot of wool on Facebook.

The scary part is, these people are out there, in real life. They're your friends. It may even be you!

"Don't bother, I'll never figure it out" - The Self Fulfilled Prophecy

Recently I've had people asking me to explain things to them that they didn't understand. However, if they do not understand even the smallest portion of what I explain, they throw their hands in the air and tell me they just don't get it and should stop.

It's very easy to get frustrated with things you don't know or don't understand. You can see it from the earliest ages in almost every person alive, it's a human trait. Children throw toys that won't work, they get mad when they can't solve a puzzle, when they die repeated in a video game... and on and on. This translates into adult hood where you certainly have a better grasp thanks to years of schooling however it's not something that many people address directly and therefore never deal with directly.

What happens is that people get frustrated with common every day experiences such as dieting and finances. Most people simply don't know what foods truly are the best for them because they don't take the time to learn. Finances are a huge one; who really takes the time to learn all the investing terms and options, takes the time to find the best banks with the best interest rates?

What results is a very large frustration; not only in dealing with your weight and money/bills but also in knowing full well that you need to know more but just don't.

This is the part where I should explain that you can easily walk into any bank or go to any dietitian and they'll explain anything and everything.

But I won't because you and I both know that it won't make any difference. This is a motivational article, not an informational one. What you are lacking is not only the motivational requirements to get up and out of the house to seek out a professional and spend time learning, but also the desire to actually learn from them.

Here is how it works; you don't know certain things because you don't care to know it. You get more frustrated learning it than you do not knowing it. Am I right?

I've had to re-explain things so many times to some people because they simply have no interest in learning it. They ask me to explain it, sure... but the explanation doesn't sink in for one simple reason, they didn't know it before, they won't know it after, they don't care to know it now. They just ask because it makes no sense to them at the time and they ask out of frustration, not a desire to learn.

It's a very childish attitude when you get to the bottom of it but as I said, it's a human trait. We all do it.

Do you know why successful people are successful? It's because they took the time to learn. They didn't just learn business management, or take "how to be successful" seminars by over paid speakers in some random convention. They learned as much as they could every day that they could. Want to learn about diets? Read some books. Want to learn about finances? Read some books!

You don't have to go back to college, you don't have to even have a high school diploma. You just have to put aside that really childish, frustrated, temper tantrum throwing little voice in your head that makes you want to scream when you are faced with something you don't understand and instead, ask for some clarification.

We live in a very exciting time with the Internet at out fingertips, Libraries are still out there and best of all, real live humans who will actually set aside time to just talk to you and not even charge you a penny.

You just have to want it. And that means putting aside a very basic human trait.

The only reason you're dumb is because you want to be. Stop wanting to be. It's less frustrating.

Needs vs Wants - You Know the Difference, But Do You Use the Wrong Word Anyway?

How often have you heard someone say "I need a coffee."? Do you say it yourself? How about "I need a smoke" or "I need a beer" or....  well, you know where I'm going with this.

When someone says something like this to me, I respond with "Really? Do you really NEED that?" which usually results in them rolling their eyes or other responses that brush off my dumb sense of humour. I'm not joking though.

Usually the response is "it's just an expression" but so is "if you say something enough times, you start to believe it." Even if you know you don't really need that coffee, you've been saying it out loud to yourself and to anyone that will listen every single morning for years, even decades! And what happens if you wake up one day and the coffee maker isn't working? Or the coffee shop is too busy to stop in and you're running late??

Your whole day is ruined isn't it? You can account all kinds of terrible things that happen that day all to that missed cup of coffee that you told yourself you needed.

If I was to ask at that point "Do you really NEED that?" I bet there would be no more rolled eyes, no more brushing it off. The answer would be an undeniable "yes!"

It's because you've convinced yourself so completely that you really need that coffee every morning. Now, I'm not a doctor but I'm fairly certain a daily 12oz cup of coffee is not a daily requirement for our existence.

I hear it all the time from the funniest things like "I need to have bread with my eggs" to "I need to pierce my eyebrow." And people don't even realize they're saying it wrong because it's become such a normal part of every day speech (not the eyebrow piercing part but the 'need' part).

But even if you and I know the difference and think it's so very obvious that "need" isn't really what we meant when we said it.... we still said it, and our mind still believed it. And we still fell apart because we didn't get it.

You don't need a team of scientists on this to prove that it's true. We convince ourselves so deeply that we need something that eventually, we do need it. Like a drug, we can't cope without it.

You could argue that it's simply the act of drinking coffee every day that makes us feel terrible when we don't, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong but would you have had that coffee every single morning for so many years if it was just something you wanted, rather than needed?

Think about all the things in your life that you want to have and ask yourself if you've made those things a daily event. When you convince yourself that you need it, you prioritize it. And you make it happen until eventually, you have to keep having it even when you don't want it anymore... all because you once said "I need a coffee."

Why we Like to See Others Fail, Fall or do Something Stupid

If you were to ask anyone, they'd tell you that the reason they like to see people fail, fall or do something stupid is that it's funny... and there's certainly no denying that it truly is funny.
Would you believe, however, that people didn't always find it funny?

Years ago people would feel bad for those who failed or try to help prevent someone from doing something stupid or help to prevent them from doing something stupid again. However today, it's amusement which we can build sites around and entertain ourselves for hours as we go from post to post.

It's entirely up to you to decide if such a change is right or wrong but I do find it an interesting commentary on how we as humans have progressed. Is it that it that we care less about our fellow man? Is it that our senses of humour have changed over the years? Is it that we just didn't get the joke back then?

I'm not a psychiatrist and don't pretend to be one (because I'd be pretending to be a very bad one) but it's been my observations over many years that what it boils down to is one very simple concept: for a very brief, flashing moment before the laughter starts, we feel really really good about ourselves... that we're "not that guy!"

It's the idea that if we can't rise up to be great, at least there's someone failing or falling or doing something dumber than we are. It only makes sense that if there is a 'higher' point in life that there has to be a 'lower' point as well. So what we do subconsciously is find or even push people 'lower' to give the illusion that we are 'higher'. It's not a perfect analogy but you get the idea.

We see it every day from bullies on a school yard to your typical Internet 'haters' that frequent any social gathering.  Those that feel they can never be better than they are try to associate with and push others down.

But think about this, they may seem to be lower on the ladder than you... but they may be failing, falling or doing something stupid while on their way up that ladder and they'll pass you as you stand there and thinking you're superior.

Everyone is good at something - Not Just a Cliche, It's a Lie!

I've always had a problem with the "everyone is good at something" mentality... I mean, why does everyone have to be good at something? Isn't there almost 7 billion people on this planet? Doesn't it stand to reason that with that much diversity, there has to be some people who are simply pathetic at everything? I know there are some people who seem to be really good at everything so why not the opposite?

I'll tell you why, it's because people need to tell themselves something to help them feel better about themselves. When you aren't good at anything, you tell yourself "everyone's good at something!" and suddenly you feel a little better about yourself. You convince yourself that you just haven't found what that one thing is yet.

It may just be me, I'm a sadist like that, but I think it's simply more frustrating and depressing to have people tell me that all the time, only to keep prodding along not being good at anything.

Instead, I'd be a lot happier knowing that not everyone has to be good at something. It's ok to not be Gretzky playing hockey, or Jordan playing basketball or Gates taking over the computer industry. Reassure me that I don't have to win the Olympics to be "just like everyone else".

I know what you're thinking, the purpose of the statement is to give you hope and to motivate you to get out there and try some more. But you have to realize that when someone is down, when they feel defeated, when they feel that they just don't fit in with the rest of the world, a statement takes on a whole other dimension. Suddenly you feel like everyone has expectations of you that you "know" that you can not meet. It can be very demoralizing.

Instead, you should pay attention to the people who tell you just be happy with who you are. You don't have to be good at something to be loved or even respected. Be confident in yourself even if you're convinced that you'll never rise up to be anything great. Because most people don't and that's ok.

That doesn't mean to stop practising or to stop trying new things. You should still keep the search going and keep experiencing new things because even if it turns out you're not good at any of those things, at least you have those experiences, those adventures, those memories! And who knows, maybe you actually will find something that you are good at too! Maybe!

Don't beat yourself up if you truly aren't good at something, sure you suck because of it but so does almost everyone else. Us "average" people out number the "good at something" crowd 1000 to 1. We can take them in a fight.... even if they're good at fighting.

Failure is your best teacher, but why all the extra homework?

When Thomas Edison was asked why he didn't just give up after failing the first 1000 times trying to make a light bulb, he said he didn't fail, he just found 1000 ways it won't work.

This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you that persistence and hard work pay off, like it did for Thomas Edison... I'm not.

If you haven't figured out the message in the story, my little words of inspiration won't help you. In fact, I bet you've already heard that little story before and yet here you are, looking for more motivation because it simply wasn't enough.

Leave this site and go find some other motivational site. I can guarantee you that you'll see that Thomas Edison anecdote on every motivational site you find. So if it didn't work before, and doesn't work now... why are you still searching?

Wait wait wait, there's a reason I am asking and asking the way I just did. Think about it... let me put it this way. Have you found 1000 sites yet on motivating you?  Now go back and read the Thomas Edison anecdote again and see if you can figure out why I asked.

Not everything is a world changing invention. Not everything is a HUGE success. Sometimes successes and failures come in nice neat little packages that we don't even recognize...  including, being unable to motivate ourselves. And for a moment, you asked yourself... why are you still searching when it's just not working? Why are you still trying?

Well, if you can't keep trying at the small stuff, do you think you'll quit when it comes to the really hard stuff?

Remember, you suck because you fail and keep trying.... but you'll suck a heck of a lot more if you fail and quit.

Life is a Highway - It's Not About the Destination, It's About the Journey, Right?

There are pot holes, sink holes, rock slides, head on collisions, drunk drivers, road kill, blinding lights, traffic jams, pollution, road rage, car jackings, etc.

I forget where I was going with this...

There are a lot of references to life being a road or path or some other surface that we'd travel down. I think the reason for that is that we can't visualize the passage of time so we substitute it with some great distance we need to traverse. This helps us to create an image in our head from which we can make all kinds of metaphors and comparisons.

The problem is that I don't have to go down a road; I can just stand there. But I can't suspend my life in an instant; stop and look around. I can't just sit down and relax until I feel like going again. I have bills, responsibilities, children and a whole host of other reasons that make it impossible for me to just stop what I'm doing for a while. I have to keep going down that road whether I want to or not.

The sad reality is that many people do sit down, many people do stop travelling. Whether it be because they quit, they get side tracked, they're tired or they're simply a procrastinator... they continue down that road regardless. Most of us want to do all kinds of things on that road but for one reason or another... we simply don't. We think that we can just put it off for a while and get back to it because the road will always be there.

It's not a road, it's your life.

You're life is only so long and if you don't make the most of it... you'll come to the end of the road and realize that it's too late to make things happen. It's too late to get moving those feet. The road didn't wait.

The Things We Take For Granted - We've Come So Far, But Lost Sight of So Much!

Let me tell you what I know about you.. you're not happy. I don't mean at this very moment or even this week... but with life in general, you're not happy. Even if you deny this, there are times when you're not and there will be more.
Let me put a few things into perspective about just how stupid that is (I don't mean you, but rather the fact that it's true for everyone).

Do you realize that humans have been treking around this big ball in space for a few hundred thousand years... not just a thousand, not tens but hundreds of thousands. Now, think about what life was like about 100 years ago; the car was just being invented, phones were around but chances are your house didn't have one, the toilet was outside in an outhouse, they didn't even have encyclopedias much less wikipedia, there was no flying in planes... life was very different!

Now think about this, most people lived in small towns, say... 1300 people. They never had any problems finding their significant other, raising a family or growing old together.

Today, most people live with 1300 people in their building! They live in cities of millions and is that good enough? No. Online dating/match making sites are the hottest thing there is right now because so many people are scared they'll never find that perfect love and they need to look all over the globe!

What the hell happened?!??

Imagine living in Europe during a time when a plague raged through the entire continent and you knew that even if you were one of the very very lucky that survived, everyone you knew was likely going to die. Imagine living in Asia in a time when you knew that Genghis Khan could come through at any moment and destroy everything.

Today, most people feel like they have nothing to live for despite having a cell phone, home phone, 9 email accounts, a fax machine, instant messaging and a bunch of other ways for people they know all over the world to be able to reach them.

What the hell happened?!??

A few hundred years ago, most people never left their town, much less travelled the world. Most people never even saw pictures of anything out of their city! They heard stories or perhaps made one voyage from one place to another for a new place to live but consider that a few hundred years ago, it would take YEARS to travel across North America from east coast to west coast.

Today people can skip across the continent in under 5 hours, get to the other side of the planet in 23 hours or so.... even just get in their car and be in the next city in a few minutes! But people have no desire to do that, no time, don't care.... or, they get themselves down about how "impossible" it is to just get up and go somewhere.

What the hell happened?!??

Grab your mouse, open a book, watch a movie... see what life was like and you'll notice that those people weren't the miserable sacks of self pity pessimistic bunch that we are today and ask yourself...

What the hell happened???

If only I could win the lottery

You might as well wish that Tinkerbell would show up and sprinkle you with pixie dust so that you can fly too. It's just as likely.

Let me tell you a little secret... a big lottery win won't help you. I'm sure you've heard that upwards of 2/3 of all lottery winners go bankrupt within 5 years, right? And I'm sure you tell yourself and all those that will listen (all 2 of them) that you'd be different and you'd be smart with your money! Right?

Well, you're praying on a lottery win, and you have no money now. So you've already proven yourself wrong.

Little girls eventually stop wishing for a pony, little boys eventually stop wishing to be super heroes.. I think it's time you stopped wishing for a lottery win. You would go bankrupt, your family would hate you for not giving them millions and buying them houses and you would find that you still have all your life problems plus more!

Want magic? Here's some magic for you. Stop saying "I will be smart when I win the lottery" and start now.

If only there was more time in the day!

How many times have you said "if only there was more time in the day!" ?
Ever ask yourself "Then what?"

I would wager all that I have (a bottle cap and nail clippers) that you would still be a miserable failure even if you could get that wish.

Think on this: You work 9-5 and the next day, the work is still there. There's still more work to do. So then one day you do extra and work 9-8 and yet, the next day the work is still there. So another day you do nothing but work from 8am to 10pm and the next day?? You guessed it; the work will always be there.

I would venture to say that 99.99% of the people who say they want more time would just fill it with more work. That hard work would ultimately get them no where, and eventually they'd still find themselves saying "if only there was more time in the day!"

Stop wishing for fairy tale scenarios and come to the realization that either you change how you organize your time or you're doomed.

Or take the much shorter route and just realize that you're doomed.

Over come your fear of public speaking

There's only one thing you have to remember when trying to over come your fear of public speaking and that is... no one cares what you have to say anyway!

Think about it, you're looking for help getting motivated, you're reading up on self help crap... I mean... uhm... insightful, brilliant advice... and you're a scared little pansy. Who wants to hear what you have to say???

So don't be scared, no one is listening.

And if you find yourself in the rare position that someone is listening, say... family members or some pets... then you've already over come the hardest part! Being a loser!

400 page books on Time Management

Ever buy one of those? I bet you didn't find the time to read it, did you?
The only thing more ironic than the book existing is you buying it.

The author is supposed to be this self proclaimed expert on helping people learn time management... I'd say they don't know their target market half as well as they think they do.

If being a failure was a race..

If being a failure was a race, you'd finish second... because you can't even win at that!

in 10 years time...

So I found some old college classmates of mine on Facebook (a site you don't know about because you have no friends) and it occurred to me that a LOT can happen in 10 years!

Some friends were over seas, even on the other side of the planet, some had done over 20 different jobs since then, some had big families, some were still single... even 2 classmates married each other!

And it dawned on me just how much you can accomplish in 10 years, and how far you can be from who you are, to who you will be in 10 years.

Then I started thinking about how much time I had wasted doing nothing really, and learning nothing and being nothing. Then I started thinking about how stupid I was and what a failure I've become and then I realized... I could get up and make things happen so that in 10 years, I'll be a completely different person doing something totally different and be truly happy!!!

Then again, nah... screw it. I screwed up the last 10 years, I'll probably do it again so why bother? Sound familiar? It should. I'm your subconscious.

You suck.

Setting goals

Goals are what set people apart, there's successful people and then there's you.

Successful people set goals, and work hard and achieve them and move on to better goals.

You, on the other hand, set goals and think about all the things you don't have, and how you'll never get them, and work hard and don't achieve them and set lower goals and fail at that too.

But hey, at least you have a list of stuff you don't have and can't do! That's something... right??

Maybe it's better to just not set goals.

Happy all the time = freak!

Ever seen someone who's just happy all the time? For no reason, no explanation, no sense.. they're just happy! And they smile all the time, and seem to bounce all over and talk all weird, like... not monotone?

Freaks!!!

It's funny, in this day and age we see people with their heads down every day, miserable people, complaining people, crying people, homeless people, helpless people and people just lost in general.... and it's ok. It's normal. It's what we expect to see when we walk out the door and find ourselves in a crowd.

But someone who's genuinely happy???  Strange!!! Not natural!

You can't help but think "What's wrong with that guy??  He's just not right!"

Funny how that is, isn't it? Imagine if it was the other way around.

Nah....