In order to become a more successful person you need to always have a plan. Success can only be achieved if you’re willing to take the time to think about your actions before you take them. Successful planning means that you take certain points into consideration and that you use them as a catalyst to plan your time effectively and to make sure that you have the correct strategy that fits within whatever time constraints you are working with.

Consider these points before you take action slight you become a success in whatever you do:

1. Take time to plan your actions; before you do anything have an objective. With an objective you know where you’re going and what you need to do to get there. Without the objective it becomes very easy to get distracted, diverging you into a direction that does not suit your goals at all.

2. Take intelligent action; once you know your objective and you know where you’re going, make sure that you take the right action to get you to where you want to go. Taking intelligent action means taking action that you believe will get you to where you want to go, anything other than this type of action is really a waste of energy and time.

3. Structure your time; a successful person must be able to manage his or her time properly. To do this you must be able to give yourself a timeline, the amount of time that you have to complete a task, and allow your strategy to fit into this timeline. You must also divide your time appropriately, you can do this by breaking large tasks into smaller ones and in this way have a far more clear time objective. This will also allow you to have a far clearer understanding of  when you are completing the small objectives that will eventually add up into your final goal.

4. Prioritize your time; it is a good idea to make a list of all the things that you need to do in order to accomplish your goal. In this way you are able to have a visual perspective on what you need to do and when you need to do it. Another interesting facet of prioritizing your time is to try and find ways to turn things that you need to do into things that you want to do. A good way to do this is to visualize yourself doing these needed things and in this way motivate your body to act naturally and without hindrance.

5. Do something, forget it, or get someone else to do it; intelligent action means that you must be judgmental about how you will focus all your resources. These resources are your energy, effort, and time. Make sure that you are making good sound decisions and that you only do things that will further your objective, and reject things that are wasting your time and your energy. You must also learn how to delegate certain actions. There will always be things that you can’t do or things that you feel you will not be good at. When you come across these you must be able to delegate them which means that you must find someone or something to do them for you. The possible need for delegation must be considered from the outset, which means that you are planning your actions before you begin taking steps towards your objective. In this way when it comes time to delegate, you will know what you will need to do in order to have your minor objectives accomplished.

If you keep these objectives in mind before you take action, success in your actions will be far more assured. Keeping these objectives in mind, you will eventually grow in skill and become far more confident in your ability to control the way that you operate.

There are situations that you can’t change. As hard as you try there will always be things that you cannot change. Time changes and through this change you change as well, there are times therefore when you will not be able to do things that you might be able to at a different time. It is possible that something can be beyond your powers at the moment, learn to accept this fact. It is even possible that there are certain things that you do not want to change at this moment, and that you are not allowing yourself to make this change now for reasons that you might not be even consciously aware of. Study your feelings so that you are more aware of what you truly desire and why.

There are people you can’t help. It is possible that helping some people is just beyond your power, there is a limit after all to what you can do as a person. Do not push yourself into personal destruction in order to try and help those that are beyond your capabilities at the moment. It is also possible that there are people that just don’t want to change. Do not waste your time trying to help those that do not want your help or will not try to help themselves. Sometimes this is a difficult thing to judge because there are those that would scream for your help but at the same time do nothing to help themselves. You must be able to discover these individuals for what they are so that you do not become entangled in a dependent relationship where others rely solely on you to do everything for them. It is a good idea to only help those that ask for your help and to try and discover quickly whether these people are willing to help themselves as well.

There will always be results that you will not be able to achieve. We are all different, some people are better at some things while there are people that are better at other things. To try and replicate what someone else can do perfectly can often times lead you to great folly. Realize that you are a unique person and that you are in a different place both, literally and figuratively, from anyone else. Never try to become someone else and never try to duplicate another’s results. As a unique individual find inspiration in others but remember that you must attain your own results based on your own personal feelings and beliefs about yourself.

There are times when you need to be very objective. Objective detachment allows you to see things in a far clearer way, and this can give you new perspectives on where you are going wrong. Objectivity though must always be used in conjunction with your intuition. Get in touch with your feelings and question these feelings by asking yourself “why?” you are feeling them.

You must always be prepared to walk away. If you have any doubt then you must always consider the possibility of leaving this battle for the moment. Walking away from this situation does not mean that you can’t win in other situations. Wasting your resources could be fatal and it could mean that you lose resources that you could use in the future to fight a battle that is far more important to you. Being objective and trusting your intuition will allow you to realize where you are making a mistake. This subjective understanding should also help you to see that there might be a need to just walk away from this one so that you can focus more energy, effort, and resources into another battle.

Can you accept this loss with graceful humility? The ego if allowed, can push you into doing very silly things. Don’t let your ego push you into battles that you know you can’t win, don’t let it push you into attempting things that you know you will fail at. The ego does this by projecting all sorts of feelings of vanity and as a result you do things because you did not want to be seen as a loser by others. Always realize that you are far more than your ego and that your ego is just giving you one perspective on the present situation. Humility is not cowardice; it is objective understanding, acceptance of this understanding, and personal control.

Learn to walk away when you have to. Save your energy so that you can win battles on a different day, battles that are most likely far more important to your overall goals. Be objective and realize that you will need to save your energy because there might be battles on a different day. Don’t allow your ego to push you into things that you should not be doing at the moment. Develop strong self-esteem by realizing that you are far more than just your ego.

No matter what you do or where you go there will always be someone that is critical of your actions or beliefs. It can even be the case that some of these criticisms can turn into very negative remarks and insults. Most of us can usually deal with these negative remarks and insults easier than we can deal with less aggressive criticism because it is far easier to dismiss hysterical remarks.

It is possible that some of this criticism is well-founded. It is always a good idea to maintain objectivity when others are being critical of you because it is possible that some of their critique is based on sound judgment. By staying objective and not losing your temper, try to see the other person’s point of view. Be empathic to the other person and it is quite possible that you might discover some good advice that you could use to your own benefit in the future.

It is also possible that this criticism is only negative in nature. When this is the case you must learn to deal with this negative criticism in the most effective way possible. It is seldom a good idea to confront this criticism in a head-to-head confrontation. It is much better to deflect and redirect these criticisms and then to finally make your point to view. In this way you can win an argument without direct confrontation and this can allow you to achieve more diplomatic solutions that do not burn bridges or cause more antagonism.

Here is a four point technique that will allow you to disarm negative criticism in a more diplomatic way:

Try to see some truth in what the other person is telling you. Identify this truthful point and then agree with the other person on it.

Show the critic that you care about his or her opinion. Identify with the other person and show them somehow that you are able to appreciate their opinion. A good way to do this is to mirror their body language.

Ask the critic more information about their opinion. Ask them to clarify specific points and let them state their point of view.

Finally express your own point of view using an “and” statement. How this works is that you first state  their point of view, then you follow this statement with an “and” followed by your point of view. In this way you are able to give your point of view in alignment with theirs which makes it seem like both points of view are in alignment and therefore in agreement.

In this way you should be able to deflect most criticism and be able to deal with even the toughest judgmental individuals. This is essentially a type of ‘aikido argument’ where instead of meeting force directly; you step out of the way of the argument, you redirect that energy around you, and finally impose your will on the opponent by placing your point of view in a higher or equal position to theirs.

In this way you are able to win the argument and to quell the criticism without seemingly opposing it. This is a very powerful technique and a very diplomatic one that allows you to engage with opponents without having to burn bridges that you might require in the future. You can disarm any criticism by following the technique above.

There are times when you just need to take a break. There are times in our lives we to seem to be flooded with things to do and there doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Looking at the machines around us, it is sometimes easy to identify with them and to believe that we to should keep going without stop. It is very important that you realize that you are not a machine and that unlike them you need to take a break.

We need a break at the time we think we have the least have time for one. When the clock is ticking and you have only a certain amount of time to get things done, it seems like an impossibility that you will have any time for yourself. It is quite possible though that you are not seeing answers that could solve your problems easily because of the fact that you are not taking a break and relaxing your mind. Sometimes we get hardheaded and believe that we have to plow on ahead or else nothing will be accomplished. This is a dangerous way of thinking because it does not give you any room to think of new possibilities. Taking a break usually allows you to relax and this relaxation is often just the thing that you need to figure out a new way to do things that will be far quicker and give you more time.

If you keep doing what you have been doing you will only get what you have gotten. When we are under stress we sometimes settle for what we have and what we have accomplished because we think that there’s nothing better that we can do. As I said though, while you are under stress your ability to think becomes highly hampered. A personal break then becomes highly important because it can also allow you to discover a better way to get a better product.

We are all biological creatures and not machines. Machines can go on forever and they don’t need to sleep. If a machine breaks something, you can just replace that part in the machine will keep going. Human beings on the other hand need to follow a more natural cycle. While this might seem like we are weaker than the machine somehow, the reality is that we are the creative entity and as such we cannot be replaced. As a human being you need to take care of yourself and rest when your body says that you need rest. If you do not take these breaks you will hamper your creative force and your ability to act. If you continue you might also end up damaging yourself physically and unlike the machine, that has parts that can easily be replaced, your damage can be more permanent.

There is no better break than to distance yourself from the problem or the task at hand. When you get the impulse to just stand up and walk away, it is a good idea to just stand up and walk away. You’ll find that if you follow these impulses you will refresh your mind and very soon you will get another impulse to return and continue your work once again. Distancing yourself, even if it is for a few minutes, gives you a better perspective and a fresh outlook. It is sometimes amazing how quickly we can recuperate our energy if we just follow our natural feelings and impulses to just walk away and forget about it for a while.

Learn to take a break. Remember that you are human and that you are working on it different sphere than the machine. Taking a break when you need to take a break will make you far more productive in the long run and will reduce physical injuries.

Finding our personal motivation is very important. Our motivations are really our values and these values are essentially the most important things in our lives. These values are very important because they are the underlying motivating factors of our lives. You can say that they are sort of like our guiding principles that point us in the direction that we want to go and also set the standard of how we’re going to get there.

Finding out what your motivations are, will greatly increase your personal focus in life. This personal focus will allow you to develop greater personal happiness because our happiness is really based on our ability to successfully implement our values in our lives. Knowing your personal motivating factors is also very important because it makes choices far easier. By knowing what motivates you and therefore what is really important to you, you are able to make choices far easier because you are more aware of where you want to go.

A good way to find out what motivates you is by asking yourself the following questions:

If I could have anything I wanted in life right now, what would I have?

If I was living my ideal life right now, what would I be doing?

What does success mean to me? What does success mean to me personally (not to friends, family or society at large but to me personally)?

What one thing would make me completely happy?

If I was able to do it all again, knowing what I know now, what would I do differently?

By answering these questions honestly you will discover what really is important to you. Always remember to answer the above questions honestly, discovering for yourself what you truly want and not what the rest of the world wants from you. It is very important that you find the personal distinction between your personal motivation and the motive forces of the world around you. What I mean by this is that you must identify your personal values and separate those from the desires of those around you. There is a difference between what you want and what the world wants from you, the sooner that you can discover your own personal motivations, the sooner that you can start living your own life. Use these questions to find your inner values and in this way the true source of your ‘personal’ happiness.

Time is a very precious thing. We are only given so much time on this Earth so its always a good idea to make sure that you are spending your time wisely. It is also possible that others could rob you of time if you are not careful and discerning as to how and with whom you want to spend this precious resource.

The most important thing that you can do to stop wasting this precious resource is to develop a greater sense of self-worth. Self-worth might not be directly related to time and time management but it is actually a characteristic that is crucial and being able to discern how to spend your time wisely. There are many people that will demand your time but there are a few people that are worthy of the time to you have to give. You need to have a strong sense of character in order to stop this waste of your resource, you need to realize that you are important enough to decide for yourself how you wish to spend your time.

Without strength of character, you will not have the courage and the will power to be able to tell others to leave you alone. This strength of character is developed through your own understanding of your personal self-worth. Understand therefore that you are a special person and that what you do in this life matters, that you do have a purpose just like everyone else on this planet and that you are born as a free human being with the right to choose how and in which way you will use your time.

When you feel that someone is taking your attention away from things that you consider to be true priorities, you need to have the courage to tell them that they are wasting your time and that you have no time for them right now. There is no need to be rude but there are times when you need to be frank about your feelings so that others have a clear understanding of where you’re coming from. With a well-developed sense of self-worth, you will not suppress feelings that are telling you that you could use your time more wisely.

Self-worth is also the developer of that strength of character that you need in order to stay focused on achieving whatever goal or objective you have. This strength of character is needed in order to realize that you have to stick to it if you want to succeed. Sometimes we purposefully distract ourselves from our objectives because we don’t believe that we are strong enough or worthy enough to achieve them. Make sure that you understand that you are a strong and worthy person and that you are entitled to all the good things in the world, and that you are also capable of attaining anything that you want.

If you’re having trouble figuring out whether what you are about to do will be a waste of your time, ask yourself the following four questions:

1. Does what I’m about to do fit in to my final objective(s)?
2. What are the benefits of me spending time in this way and on this issue?
3. What will it cost me if I spend time on this?
4. Is this something I feel like doing right now?

These are very good questions in determining whether what you are about to do is worthy of the cost. This cost is your time and this time is very precious because as I have said you only have so much of it. You can’t afford to lose any of it on something that you don’t want to do or that is not part of your overall objectives in life.

We have all heard of the positivity movement. This is the movement that tells us that in order to better our lives we must try to stay as happy as possible. With good intentions they expound the idea that happiness is the key to greater happiness. What is meant by this is that they believe that you should try and suppress your negative emotions while at the same time trying to express as much positive emotion as possible.

As I said, this is a well-meaning group, that tells you that the best way to be happy is to fake it until you make it. Generally this movement believes that positive emotion and positive thoughts create positive outcome. Some of these groups also believe that by creating more positive emotion you can also create greater material abundance, that positive thought and happy feelings are responsible for material abundance.

While I do agree with the proposition that thought creates reality, I definitely do not believe in this positivity movement. The reason for this is that this movement would have you squelch any negative emotion that you might have as soon as possible. While some of their techniques are good at redirecting and refocusing your thoughts; suppressing emotion in general is a very dangerous prospect. When emotions are not allowed to have their full reign, they do tend to grow in power. While suppression of these emotions might stop them for a while, they will resurface again in the future and when they do resurface they tend to be far stronger. Emotions are there to show us our beliefs, if we do not use these emotions in the right way and discover what beliefs are causing them, we will find other ways to try and confront the source of our problems.

My contention with the positivity movement, which is directly related to what I stated above, has to do with the fact that its precepts do not allow for conscious development. This movement tends to expound the idea that human development is attained through material success and material wealth. That the ego is all powerful and must be maintained within a small rigid set of boundaries. I have noticed that some of these groups even try to stifle any kind of empathic abilities that the ego might have, believing that these empathic abilities will only allow negative thoughts to enter a person’s mind. Since these negative thoughts must be avoided at all cost, any negative emotions that you might have while identifying with others are censored at all cost as well.

My assertion has always been that while thoughts do create reality, thoughts are created by what we believe. Emotions are there to show us these beliefs and allow us to examine them closely and change these beliefs when they are not suiting our purposes. More importantly I believe that our purpose in this life is not material gain but consciousness expansion. This consciousness expansion can only be achieved if we allow ourselves to experience our complete selves, which includes the full range of emotional feelings. By experiencing our feelings as fully and as completely as possible, we can begin to realize our place in the universe and our greater spiritual reality.

Achieving material success is a positive thing because this material world is here to show us how to manipulate our consciousness. If we do create our external world with our thoughts then the external world is sort of like a feedback mechanism that shows us what we are doing right and wrong by materializing everything that we project through our psyche. As such material wealth and happiness are true and worthy goals. If these goals are pursued properly they can lead us to great consciousness expansion and spiritual understanding in their own way. Material success though is only the beginning and there is a point where we must grow beyond our mere desire for material abundance and begin to search for more spiritual abundance. This spiritual abundance is really an expansion of our consciousness into our inner reality, where all physical creation happens and where the source of our lives becomes apparent. From a spiritual abundance standpoint, material possession can be seen as a good beginning but a VERY limiting one if we focus solely on it.

Do not follow any movement or belief system that tells you that you must hold onto only certain thoughts and emotions and to quell all others that do not fit within a certain parameter. Question any belief system that tells you that empathy and empathic understanding is bad for your being. Question any notions that tell you that you must suppress any part of yourself. Realize that these belief systems are very old and that they are based on the basic premise; that by doing a certain positive thing you will get a reward, but that if you do certain negative things you will be punished. This belief system is no longer functional in our evolving society, it is based on a limited egotistical belief which can be directly traced to a limited understanding of the complexity of consciousness. The reverse is also true of course, you should not follow any belief system that tells you that annihilation of the ego is the answer. The answer is an expansion of the ego where it is able to process far more external and internal data and as a result grow and become far more flexible in its nature. This egotistical growth cannot be possible through suppression. Learn to become more yourself and grow in all ways.

Empathy is an incredibly powerful tool. It is the ability to see from the perspective of the other and in this way to be able to experience, to a greater or lesser degree, what the other is experiencing. Some would have you believe that empathy is dangerous and that it can cloud your ability to function correctly. This fear is expounded because there’s a belief that the ego, or your personal self, will become completely overwhelmed by what you feel while you are experiencing things from the other perspective.

Science tells us that empathic ability is impossible. That at best empathy is just a form of very creative imagining and that this kind of information could not be substantiated and therefore it is mostly useless. Science uses experiment, and logic to be able to arrive at its conclusions. While its methodology, when done and performed correctly, is very powerful and illuminating, it is not as powerful as the human ability to sense through great empathic ability. Logical deduction and induction can never compare to the direct knowledge that is available to anyone who is able to project his or her consciousness into the other and in that way access information directly from the source.

Logical deduction or induction is achieved through stationary consciousness. What this means is that the self (or the ego) looks from within its shell into the outer world and uses different techniques in logical processing to try and come up with new information. Experimentation through trial and error can then prove or disprove these logical hypotheses. Empathic understanding on the other hand is made possible by an expansion of the self (or the ego), by sending forth a part of self that is able to become one with the object of its scrutiny. The person doing this empathic expansion is then able to perceive his or her own ego while at the same time he or she is able to experience the other as well.

Empathic awareness is far more dynamic and vital than current accepted methods of external perception. It naturally involves the imagination and combines these imaginative thoughts and directly experienced feelings in order to give you a very clear picture of the perceptions of the other. Through these perceptions you are able to directly become aware of data that could not be attained through logical deduction or induction. This gathered data could also be experimented upon so that fine scrutiny of the data could be made. Unfortunately since this type of information gathering is seen as unreliable, impossible, and dangerous, we are all segregated from this incredible human tool.

Empathic understanding and awareness is perhaps one of the strongest information gathering tools that we have as humans. Einstein did not discover and formulate his great ideas through logical induction or deduction, he used empathic intuition and in this way was able to directly perceive the nature of the photon. His mathematical work later confirmed his theories but it was in no way responsible for discovering these theories. Empathy is a great tool that is at your disposal, learn to use it and you will discover an entire universe that had been hidden from you until now.

If you want to discover a little more about empathy and empathic awareness I suggest you read the article entitled, “Empathy.”

Believe it or not we are all constantly lying to ourselves. We all pretend to ourselves that we did not see a certain thing or that we did not experience this or that. It is amazing how powerful our minds are at being able to completely ignore certain data in order to make us feel better.

The first big reason why we lie to ourselves is that we are trying to avoid pain. Quite often when we do not want to experience a negative feeling, we will often overlook internal thoughts and external sense data. This is actually a great coping mechanism that allows people in very stressful and traumatic situations to pool their resources by focusing completely on just trying to survive. This is similar to the mammalian diving response where the body reduces the amount of blood to the extremities and focuses most of the blood in the heart and the brain. This is also done by the awareness; when something becomes too traumatic and too hard to deal with, consciousness removes its awareness from them in order to focus itself completely on trying to survive the situation. Just like the mammalian diving response, this conscious response is there for good reasons and is very useful under certain extreme conditions.

Unfortunately this conscious response is not always the best response in all situations. In order to overcome and to become stronger, you must be strong enough to face any situation. We lie to ourselves when we believe that we are not conscious of certain things. This relates directly to the second reason why we usually lie to ourselves; the belief that most of our awareness is based in the subconscious and that we have little power over our perceptions and actions. This is not the case since our entire perception is conscious and we have access to any information that we want. The problem is that we have not taken the time to train ourselves to be fully aware of our conscious thoughts and feelings.

The best way to begin to stop lying to yourself is to become more and more aware of your conscious awareness. You do this by strengthening your attention and focusing this attention on your conscious mind. It is possible to perform any daily task and still pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that you are having at the time. Since most people do not make this a priority, they take it for granted that this is not possible and that there is no benefit in doing this. It is very possible to develop the type of attention required, and it is also a very beneficial. The great benefit is obviously the fact that you stop lying to yourself, by realizing that you are far more aware than you think.

With this increase in awareness, you can start to take responsibility for whatever action you take. In this way you also overcome a very powerful lie, this lie has you believing that you have no control over the circumstances that you face. By being more aware of your internal conscious world, you realize that your internal perceptions allow you to know ahead of time what a certain course of actions will create. So if you believe that bad stuff happens to you all the time for no reason, please then realized that through the conscious awareness that I speak of, you can become very aware of why these bad situations are happening and therefore discover ways to stop them.

To stop lying to yourself means that you see life as a challenge and not as something that is done on to you. Perhaps the hardest thing that we can do in our lives is to be honest with ourselves. To be honest with yourself might seem like the hard road but it is the only road that leads to self growth and greater personal awareness. This greater awareness is the key to a more fulfilling life and in my opinion it is the only road worth taking. Stop lying to yourself and grow in all ways.

There are often times when we want to change something about ourselves or our environment. Change, if it is positive, is a good thing because it means that we are growing and expanding ourselves. Changes also a way of keeping things fresh and making life less dreary. Change is also needed when life becomes difficult and you need to change something in order to make things easier again. Quite often change means an alteration or a modification of a bad habit so that we are able to prosper instead of be consumed by a habit that is negative.

In order to successfully make any modification in ourselves, we must make sure that we have the correct strategy. Change can either be hard or difficult, it greatly depends on how we go about it. In order to have an easier time with any personal modification, always make sure that you take the seven key components into close consideration:

Clear goal or objective; make sure that before you make any kind of change you make this goal or project as specific and as clear as possible. The more specific that you are the easier that it will be to meet your objectives.

Research; before you begin it is always a good idea to do as much research as possible on your intended goal. Here is where you find out what you need to achieve in order to make the changes that you want.

Action; before you begin you must also find out exactly what you need to do make this change possible.

Accountability; besides yourself, it is always a good idea to have someone else be witness to your efforts. If you can, tell a friend or a relative about your intentions, in this way you increase your personal motivation and you have a witness that can give you feedback on any successes or failures along the way. Make sure therefore that this person has your best interest in mind.

Feedback and modify; change takes time and as you progress during your modifying efforts, make sure that you routinely take time to check your progress and see how you are doing. You must do this on a regular basis because it is quite easy to get off track and the sooner that you realize this misalignment,  the easier that it will be to correct any mistakes. This is the time when you must look at your progress and ask yourself, is there anything that you need to change in order to make this goal more achievable?

Point of triumph; this is your 18th hole. This is the place that you reach where you will know that you have achieved the goal that you have set for yourself. This is a very important point because it’s the one that will let you know when you have made the kind of change that you intended. You must make this point of triumph as specific as possible so that it is very clear when you reach it.

A final point that I will mention and one that I highly recommend is that you reward your achievements. One way to do this is to make sure that you fully emotionally appreciate the accomplishment that you have made. Appreciation and strong emotional recognition of your accomplishments can be an incredibly powerful way to motivate yourself to make more change in the future and to make sure that the change that you have made is more permanent. You can also if you want treat yourself to a fine little reward as an appreciation for your find success. A treat like this can be a motivator and also a fine way to get you really excited about the possibility of change, and finally about your success in accomplishing your goal. Change can either be hard or easy, in order to make it easier and far more successful make sure that you keep the above key points in mind.