I found myself thinking about an exercise I've been making a part of my morning routine. I wake up and think and feel how much I love myself. I've been noticing a lot of internal tension gets released during the exercise.

It hit me, one of the things that has been holding me back is that I keep doing these exercises (somewhat sporadically I might add) expecting to just arrive at something great one day.

That thought process leads me to what feels like an eventual wall.

I've only been letting myself go so far with self development because I feel like I should see some tangible results in life. Which coincidentally I have been, it's just not quite what I've envisioned. At least not yet anyway.

I keep coming back to: "Life is not a destination."

Something that seems to be deep rooted in my thinking is that one day I will "arrive" at life. It's just not true. After all life is what happens to you while you're planning.

So I'm taking that as my most recent kick in the pants and using it to be more present in what is happening within my life, while being ever more present and an active participant in my life.

Soctrates: "Do you know how to clean a windshield?"
Dan: "Yeah"
Socrates: "Wisdom is doing it!"

I've been thinking about it and seeing all the areas in my life where I "know" how things should be done, but that's the extent to which I do them. So I'm making a conscious effort to gain wisdom and do those things I "know" I should be.

One of which is that I'm learning how to customize/create WordPress themes, I'm doing that at the same time I'm trying out WordPress 3.0.

Wish me luck!

I've talked with numerous people who seem to write this way of thinking off as people who don't want to give to charity or some such nonsense.

But if you look at things from the perspective of people creating their own realities, we can see that if people are felt sorry for it's only strengthening the notion that they are where they are "meant" to be.

If we turn this idea on it's ear and instead treat people like they are in fact meant to be treated (like the universe is their playground, if you're wondering), we will instead strengthen the idea that they can in fact do anything they want. The biggest thing that anyone needs is someone to believe in them. Eventually it has to be themselves, but it never hurts to give someone help.

I saw a video that summed up the current economic state in the world. That is not my focus, as it would only feed the idea that we are victims of circumstance.

My reason for writing this is to propose that if we were to look at our lives part of a greater whole and understand the a whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. In this context, part of a country or in a much larger scope as a part of a species.

I had a thought (no, it didn't hurt ) about faith recently. If there are only two base emotions: love and fear. Then faith must be the absence of fear, because with faith we overcome the "uncertainty" (see fear) of life.

Simply imagine what the world would be like, if everyone lived their lives with faith.

Think about it, anything you want to accomplish, to do, any place you want to go, anything you want to read, etc., is a goal.

A great quote said I heard once says: "A goal not written down is a wish."

That's all fine and good, but writing down something like: "I want to be the world's best hopscotch player." is pretty vague. It's a start at least, but where do you go from there?

I'm glad you asked because I'm going to tell you.

Once you have an idea for something you want to do and have written it down you need to need to figure some other things out. They follow the acronym: SMARTY. Real, challenging, goals need to be the following:

• Specific (What exactly is it that you want?)
• Meaningful (Why is this important?)
• Achievable (If you want the moon, you're going to need to build up to it)
• Time Bound (You need a reasonable but challenging time frame to hold yourself to)
• Yours (Is this something you really want?)

So once you've decided on something and run it through your head and listed why things are important and why the goal is yours, where do you go from there?

Well it's time to start on an action plan, what are you going to do to achieve your goals?

Be specific, If my goal was: "After 30 days I want to be able to do 100 push-ups without stopping." The things I would need to do would probably be along the lines of:

• Take a baseline of where I'm at presently
• Everyday do as many push-ups as I can at one time
• Once I can't do anymore push-ups, do at least 10 negatives (letting myself down slowly)
• Re-Assess where I'm at every week

That seems to be a specific list of actions to take. I even gave myself places to re-assess where I'm at, that way I can see just how far along I am.

Which brings me to another important part of achieving big things, you need to have places to check your progress and see how far along you are. That way you can see if you need to push yourself a little harder or maybe you'll come to the realization that your timetable needs to be changed to allow for unforeseen requirements to meet the goal.

In my example goal I would would say the first milestone would be the day I start, the things I would need to have achieved that day would be to do a baseline set of push-ups and record the results. From there I could extrapolate the needed increases in the number of push-ups I would need to be able to do at the end of every week. Say, when I started I was able to 27 push-ups. So I would need to increase that number by 73 at the end of thirty days. That rounds out to a little over an 18 push-up increase every week. So at the end of the first week my milestone could be to be able to do: 45 push ups. If I don't quite reach it (or not get anywhere near it) I could stop and evaluate where I'm at. If I didn't quite hit the milestone on the first week, I'd probably just brush it off and push harder the second week. If I didn't make the second milestone then I'd look a the goal and reassess whether it was achievable in the month time frame I set.

At that point, depending on how far from the 2nd milestone I was I might keep pushing or I might push the finish line back a week and see what happens. There may also be other factors to take into account, perhaps I might see that my nutrition isn't up where it could be and I might need adjust things there. Then *BAM* suddenly I'd be on  track.

If you don't hit your original target date, but do follow through and hit your goal, are you a failure? Well it might depend on what the goal was, but 99.9% of the time it still makes you a success in my book.

Now I did skip the emotional importance of this goal, so lets cover that.

Why on earth would I want to be able to do 100 push-ups without stopping? In my case, the muscular endurance would be great. There would also be an increase in strength. That and it would be cool to be able to do well beyond the normal amount of push-ups that the average male can do (I think it's 23). It would also mean I was well past prepared for the next Black Belt test I take, well at least that portion of the test.

Being able to look at something to evoke the feeling that you will have when you look back knowing you completed your goal is crucial. It will keep you motivated to keep going toward your goal until you ultimately accomplish it.

So now that we've talked about how to set a goal that you'll follow through with, I want to present a little form that I've been working on. It will allow you to give a basic description of your goal and describe what the goal with do for your life as well as what you will feel like when you accomplish it. There is a section to lay out a basic action plan and a section for milestones and dates. For the finishing touch, I set it up so that when you go to print the output it hides the data entry portion.

If you go to: http://www.hitchhiketheuniverse.net/utilities/goal_setting.php you can use the form. I'll have a version up that you can download and edit in a word document soon.

Until then, everyone enjoy!

P.S. If you guys have ideas for improvements, let me know and I'll see what I can do!

In the Elephant and the Twig (yes I'm recommending the book again), Mr. Thompson talked about Crabs and how fishermen catch them. They crawl into a cage, but don't crawl back out. Eventually the cage is full of crabs, if one does try to crawl back out others will pull it back in.

If you put this idea to the company you keep, such as your friends and family. You'll see how important it is to surround yourself with good people, or as a poster on my wall says: "Friends are like buttons on an elevator, they can take you up or they can take you down." That's probably why successful people really only seem to know other successful people.

The day before yesterday I was looking around Hulu and found they had the movie: Ghandi. I've never watched it all the way through and figured "why not?" The movie was very abridged as I'm sure the story of any really great person would have to be.

Under the player, there is a section for comments, there was one comment that was from what I could gather trying to downplay the man that Ghandi was. It said something about him having sex with his nieces, I wouldn't know anything about. But from what I do understand he was professed sex addict to a certain point in his life.

"Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment." -Unknown

Do we have to be perfect throughout our lives in order be great people? The more and more I learn about great people, the more and more I see that most of them have made mistakes. But rather than letting those mistakes define them, they took the experiences they had because of them and made better judgments later on. Those better judgments lead to even better ones which ultimately made them the people we know now.

"A mind once stretched by and idea, can never return to it's original dimensions." -Unknown

Every experience we have stretches and shapes our minds into something new. For better for or for worse, the mind is stretched beyond it's previous capacity. As a result your thinking is forever altered, thus resulting in an enduring change in behavior.

The best example from my own life I've found, is the belt that is tied around my waist when I'm in my Karate uniform. I've had various ranks over the years (all of them residing on a wall in my parent's house now). When I receive a new rank it's always fun to see how pressed and straight the new belt is while it's laid next to my old belt which has been stretched, pulled, and collected sweat and dirt from working hard.

No matter how much I might like my old rank to lay uniformly, it won't, it's followed me through stretching and expanding my world.

So don't be afraid to let your mind stretch and reshape, even if others around you are trying to pull you back into your cage.

But I'm going to write anyway and see what comes out of the aether while I'm at it.

My summer schedule is treating me pretty well, having half days on Thursday and Friday has been nice.

I finished reading The Elephant and the Twig by Geoff Thompson. So many simple truths. "If your life is not right, change it until it is." Funny enough while I was spending some time contemplating ways to make things right, I got a knock at the door. It was someone going door to do selling some locally produced food. Winder Farms, the saleslady gave me a sample of some really tasty chocolate milk, and some really good orange juice. She told me they don't inject the cows with hormones to cause them to lactate, which is something I was wondering if I could find.

I really like drinking milk, but one of the things I would like to make right in my life is to have clear skin. I've read that the hormones in diary can cause your skin to go nuts. So I figure why not give it a shot? But then again milk is such a great source of nutrition, so this seems to be great way to compromise between the two.

For trying the service out they gave me a breakfast bundle of various foods as well. A half gallon of orange juice, a half gallon of chocolate milk, a loaf of cracked wheat bread, a box of organic pancake mix, a dozen eggs, and a pound and a half of apple-wood smoked bacon. I cooked up some of the bacon and now my apartment smells like it. I never thought I would enjoy the lingering smell of food so much.

One thing I am realizing I need to work on is my food intake. It's an addiction of mine that I need to over come. I eat so many things that aren't the best for me. Bacon may be on the list but I'm going to get rid of processed sugar first.

I've also been putting some more thought into starting my own business. The idea I came up with the other day still seems pretty solid, but then again I'll be doing pretty much the same thing that I'm doing for a living right now. Which isn't something I would all that excited or passionate about doing. Thinking about the base idea though, I think it may still have some merit, we'll see what else shows up out of the aether.

I've also been working on an idea that I came up with for a site application. I couldn't find the original code that I wrote so I've had to start over. But then again version two is much more functional and also easier to use. Once I get some polish on it, I'm going to make it available for everyone to use.

Something worthwhile to offer site visitors rather than just some narcissistic ramblings.

Wow it's fun being vague

Turning obstacles into opportunities?

I got a wake-up call the other day in a part of my life I was excelling in. While I am making leaps and bounds in some of the bigger areas, it was brought to my attention that I am a dismal failure in the smaller areas.

I have a nasty habit (something I thought I got over last year) of showing up late for things. I thought about it and realized that I've had some image of myself being above showing up. Strange to realize, but a powerful realization to come to.

What I've found really useful is the realization that came afterword.

The realization that the discipline to do the small things in life is what opens our lives up to do much larger things.

The small things in life such as keeping our living space clean and watching how much sugar we intake (yes, examples from my own life) are what open up to larger things. After all if I for instance want to run my own business how can I expect to run one properly if I can't keep my house clean and stop myself from eating processed sugar simply because I don't feel like cleaning or because I a base part of myself wants the taste of sugar.

It's like building a house, the foundation may only be a small part of it, but it's the most important part. If your foundation is not set squarely and level anything you build on top of it will not withstand things that try to shake it from the outside.

Yes I've setup Google Ad Sense on the site. But I haven't gotten enough click-throughs for a check (it's coming ). I opened the envelope and was rewarded with a 100$ Ad Words Credit.

So I setup an Ad Words account and redeemed the credit. It also required that I put some more money into the account so I did that as well. Now I have a pretty good chunk of change sitting in the account.

While I was setting the account up I couldn't help but get the feeling that this was the Universe trying to tell me something. So I figured I'd create a portfolio site and show off some of my other work. The overall impression I got was that the Universe is telling me to get off my butt and "plant some seeds" as Geoff Thompson put it in his book: The Elephant and the Twig (for more information on the book and downloading it see: The Elephant and the Twig).

I set up the account and then went to the Karate Studio and taught my classes. After class I got talking to one of my students who owns a Mechanic's shop here in town, apparently a good one (I like his philosophy on repairs and I'm probably going to Kat in there when some stuff breaks that I don't care to get dirty fixing). We got talking about business and he gave me a few tips, I'm thinking they are above where I'm at now. But it's pretty cool to be friends with another business owner.

On the way home I stopped by Borders and picked up: The Complete Idiot's Guide to: Starting Your Own Business.

I started reading it and there were a few bits of interesting information, the author posed a simple question in the first chapter. He asked: If you could work for yourself and make the same amount of money, would you?

I myself answered yes, I rather like making money from my own ventures.

So I continued reading, while I was I kept running through my initial idea of doing web design. I don't think it really fits me. I did however come up with an interesting idea that at first search on Google I haven't seen anyone else offering the service I have in mind. It could be a really novel idea or it could be a not so good one.

I guess I'll find out soon enough. If anything else it'll be good to go through the process of really planning out how a business will work and analyzing whether or not it will actually succeed.

I'll post some more updates about things as I go along with this.

Everyone wish me luck!

On the way back I was talking my 14 year old cousin about school and such. He was describing male displays of power and things that result from not having a fully developed Frontal Cortex.

It's funny to see things from this side now, I can only imagine what was going through my parents heads when I was that age.

From another context I also found it interesting to listen to how many problems he thought he could solve with violence, especially while I'm reading the Little Black Book of Violence.

After getting back to my parents house, I hung around for a while and while was sitting down my knees just were letting me know that they had spent 3 hours in the car. Just funny to think about, seeing how far my mentality toward violence has come and then feeling a little bit older in body as well (no I don't think I'm old or anything just laughing at life).

In a newsletter I subscribe to from Iain Abernethy, there was a link to a book written by Geoff Thompson. Mr. Thompson is giving the book away for free, all you have to do is sign up for his newsletter (which I highly recommend doing anyway).

I downloaded the book and have been reading it the last couple of days. It's titled: The Elephant and the Twig. It follows a lot of the formula of other works such as Think and Grow Rich and The Secret. But it has some funny cartoons interlaced. The book seems to be mostly about the author's own experiences and how he came to where he's at now.

I'm not saying the book is a cookie cutter work by any means. I do find it funny/reassuring that so many successful people seem to have the same story to tell. An interesting tid-bit that I came across yesterday was the importance of taking a break from life. It's something I've known (as I think all people instinctively know), but he presented it in such a way that I really see the importance of it and what it can do for me. He also pointed out that even if you truly can't take a break, you can still go somewhere with "good air" and it will help you gain a fresh perspective on things.

I hope there are some of you who will discover something good while reading the book and the newsletters he puts out. As well he also puts out podcasts to go with a number of his articles.

Here's the link: http://www.geoffthompson.com/newsletter/Joinnewsletter.asp

Everyone make it a great one!

I finally beat Portal the other day, yeah it's an older game but oh well. It's definitely worth playing! I've also been playing through Fallout 3, I'm not very far and I've been cheating somewhat (adding money to my inventory using the debug mode), but I more just like playing games rather than getting really good at them. Speaking of games, I bought a used copy of Final Fantasy 3 for my DS yesterday, I'm a couple hours into it already. So far it plays just like most of the games in the series and the story is very reminiscent of the original Final Fantasy. Oh well SquareSoft has a formula and it works. (Then again I haven't played much of 12 and I haven't touched 13 yet)

Long story short, I've been letting myself be a gamer again and I've been happier. My biggest problem seems to be making time for everything. Oh well life is never perfect and it's always in state of flux, just have to keep making time for activities in various parts of life.

In my psychology class on Friday, my teacher pointed out the rise in Narcissism. The whole "Look at me!" mentality, it's got me thinking: "Why do I have this person blog? Do people really want read about my life?" Then again, I do want to live my life in a way that inspires others to make their lives great. (Still have a long way to go.) I've been thinking I really need to spend more time on the more informative parts that I've been talking about. Hell, I still need to post the install article for my Cold Air Intake.

On the life development side I need to get my butt in gear and work on defining success for myself and figure out what my dreams are. Seems kind of sill to think about, but at the same time I don't have any clearly defined goals at the moment, no emotion to help propel me forward. I have been doing some spring cleaning, mostly just organizing my room and making sure to clean the catbox out regularly and taking the trash out when it needs it. I don't know if it's because of that or maybe just the awareness of how little time it actually takes to do things that make a big difference. But, today has been moving by slowly or maybe it's that I'm used to feeling like I don't get much done and today is different.

I also had the thought that I spend too much time doing nothing, and as: Jane McGonigal pointed out at TED the opposite of work is not play, it's depression. (If you want to watch the video see my post: <a href="http://hitchhiketheuniverse.net/2010/03/20/epic-wins/">Epic Wins</a>) By spending time cleaning house and taking care of responsibilities it creates much more pleasant environment to be in.

Very surprising.

Everyone make it a great one!