Whenever we have problems with other people, it is usually the case that we are not taking the time to look at things from the other person’s perspective. If you take the time to look at things from the other person’s perspective, you will see that they have the same desires needs and emotions as you do. In order to be successful in any relationship, whether this is a business or intimate relationship, you need to be able to take that person’s feelings into consideration or there will be conflict.

Imagine that you wake up in the morning and you find yourself in a completely alien environment. Perhaps you woke up in the middle of the woods somewhere and you are somehow expected to do something that is completely new to you. If you contemplate what you might be feeling at that moment, you will get a very good idea of what someone might be feeling when they’re being told what to do. Now it will probably not be as extreme as the scenario that I am creating but by trying to put yourself in that situation you can have a basic understanding of what it would be like to be commanded to do something that is completely outside of your element. You might also realize what it would be like to be thrust into something without your input in any way.

Explain your decisions, don’t just assume that a person should follow your commands or conclusion because it is clear in your head. Always make sure that you take the other person’s feelings and thoughts into consideration because that person does not have access to your thoughts and beliefs. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and from that perspective see how they might be interpreting your actions or decisions. If you are having trouble seeing things from the other person’s perspective, try to imagine yourself again in that alien environment, being told what to do without any explanation whatsoever. Would you not feel angry, frustrated, perhaps even a bit frightened. You might even feel like a child without any power who has to put up with something that they do not find logical or just.

When you are in a relationship with anyone, you have a certain amount of power and as such you have a certain amount of responsibility. If you are a boss or a leader in business, you have a responsibility to treat all those that you are in charge of fairly. One of your greatest responsibilities becomes making sure that the other person understands your decision and is not completely blindsided by what they might be expected to do or put up with. If you do not explain any decisions that you make, there will be conflict in whatever relationship that you have. A friendship or an intimate relationship of any kind will not last when you assume that you can decide on anything without having to explain yourself to the other person. Your leadership position in business will also be compromised if you do not explain your decisions to others.

Take the time to explain your reasoning and the emotions that you are feeling. It might seem like a difficult thing, to open up to others so freely, but it is essential that you take into consideration what others might be feeling at the time. No one likes to feel like they are unimportant. This is how you make another person feel when you make decisions without taking them into consideration.

You might think that as a leader you can get away with this kind of action but as a leader it is even more important that you consider the feelings of the other people around you. This is so because as a leader you are incredibly dependent on those people that below you. If they do not act properly then you will fail and this failure will ensure that your leadership position will soon be over.

Whenever you make a decision, make sure that you explain yourself to others. Understand that the only way that you can have a decent relationship with others is if you consider their perspective on a regular basis. If your decisions are to be taken seriously and obeyed then you will need the cooperation of others. You will not have this cooperation unless you are able to explain to them why you have come to the conclusions that you have. Explain yourself and tell them what you think you would like to know if you were in that person’s shoes. In this way your relationships will succeed and your decisions will be respected and acted upon.

Getting things done can be a very a difficult or a very easy task. The difference between the two is time management. But time management requires more than just writing down something on a simple journal, it involves your ability to understand your personal routines and to use this to your advantage. Effective time management begins when you realize that time is precious and you should be a miser with it.

Being good at time management has many benefits. It should first and foremost allow you to reduce pressure and allow you to take a more relaxed approach to life. If you can schedule your time properly, you’ll have a clear definition of when you will be working on a certain task, how long this task will take, and therefore when you will have time away from this task to take breaks or do other activities. With this scheduled timeline, your mind is able to relax because it knows that it won’t be spending all its time doing this one thing. This is a very powerful way to get you to start working and to continue working until your scheduled time for this task is over.

By clearly defining when you are doing what, you logically understand that you have already defined your time in a manner that you find appropriate. If you are faced with many tasks all at once, without any kind of schedule, you will feel overwhelmed when you contemplate performing all these tasks in your mind. But once the schedule has been made, and you have given yourself a certain time to do each thing, you lose that sense of being overwhelmed because you now have a plan that seems logical and doable to you.

Perhaps the best thing about having a good schedule, is the fact that it clearly lets you know when you have leisure time to pursue interests that are more entertaining to you. By knowing when you work, you know when you don’t work. The mind requires this kind of scheduling because in this way it does not feel oppressed; a slave that is doomed to toil forever. Knowing that it will have a break soon, the mind will focus all of its ability in the moment without any reservation or laziness.

The most important part of good time management, is deciding what to do first. When you have many tasks to do, your mind runs wild pursuing each one and then changing its mind and pursuing another. By logically breaking down what you will do first, second, third, etc. you give your mind the structure that it needs to be able to begin. Before you begin you must know where to begin or else you will never get started it all.

A very important aspect of scheduling, and one that is seldom contemplated, is the ability to schedule certain tasks during the correct time. What this means is that when you schedule something, you should not just schedule things randomly but that you should consider your own personal feelings and abilities. I for example find it much easier to do heavy tasks early in the morning, I know others that need to do much of their heavy work late in the evening when the world is quiet. Think about the routines that you now have; when is it that you like to engage in heavy activity? When is it that you like to sit around and contemplate? When do you do your best creative thinking? Schedule your tasks with these thoughts in mind so that you go with the flow of your own energy instead of against it. This can make all the difference in the world when it comes to doing something easily or struggling to get something done.

Once you have found the task that you will be beginning with, and you have scheduled your time in accordance with your own energy levels and routines, you need to develop a strategy to be able to complete this first task easily. The best way to do this is to break down this first task, and any other task that you have scheduled, into smaller chunks.
So when you do schedule something, leave some space underneath your journal or whatever it is that you’re using to record your schedule, so that you can break down this task into even smaller subtasks. In this way any one task will not seem so difficult because you will be breaking it down even more, into very manageable chunks that will be far less intimidating and far easier to accomplish.

In order to have good time management, you need to be realistic. Many people love to create all sorts of scheduled lists about how they will be attempting one project or another. They stack on tons of things into one day and tell themselves that they will be getting this done without problem. Unfortunately for many this becomes a fantasy where once they see the length of the list that they have just created, they decide to perhaps engage in something else before they begin anything at all. The only way that you will get anything done is if you are realistic about the time that it will take for you to do something. You can’t just stack things one on top of the other without much thought or reason. If your mind does not believe that your schedule is possible, it will not even attempt to begin your day’s activities. Be realistic about what you can get done and how long this project will take. Make sure that you give yourself plenty of breaks so that you do not feel overwhelmed throughout the day. Take care of yourself and be honest or else you will not have the impetus to get going on anything.

Be a miser with your time because it is far more important than money. When you spend your money, and you are a wise spender, you are frugal and try to create a good budget which will satisfy all your needs. Your time is far more precious than money and you should be even more frugal in how you spend it because you only have a certain amount to use, and you are not getting anymore. Motivate yourself to create good time management so that you spend all of the time that you have on this Earth wisely. This does not mean that you should not goof off or have fun, what I’m trying to say is that you should schedule your tasks properly so that you do not waste endless time feeling sorry for yourself or being lazy.

Always make sure that you schedule time for fun things. The best reason to have good time management, to have a good scheduled itinerary, is to be able to have even more time to have fun yourself. Make sure that you schedule time to liven up old routines and tasks. If you go from one project to another without ever taking any time for yourself, you are essentially wasting time through poor scheduling; you are wasting fun time. Schedule properly so that you feel empowered and focused, but also schedule your time in a way that allows you to live more and have more fun in your life. Good time management allows you to have a better and more rewarding life.

On many occasions I have gone on about the great power of empathy. I keep making a big deal about it and telling you that it is the most important skill that you can develop. Many believe what I am telling them but they tend to have a limited perspective of how you can use the power of empathy.

Your ability to have empathic understanding of the world around you is very powerful, it can allow you to perceive things in a far deeper level and as a result it can give you an edge on everything in your life. To prove my point, let’s have a little fun with empathy..

I am certain that if you have ever done any kind of grocery shopping, you have been stuck trying to pick the perfect fruits and vegetables. It can be said to be an art, the ability to find the perfectly ripe fruit or vegetable. Many look at the color of the tomato for example, perhaps tap a watermelon in just the right way, or smell a mango to see if it is perfect for consumption. But there are those fruits and vegetables that can be quite difficult to read. Avocados for example can be very difficult because unless you actually squeeze them, is really hard to tell whether they are perfectly ripe or just hard rocks on the inside. Cantaloupes or any fruit with a thick outer shell, can be quite difficult to gauge and sometimes it’s basic guesswork, trying to find that perfectly ripened piece of fruit.

How about if I were to tell you that you can use empathy to get a perfectly ripe fruit or vegetable every time. As I have told you in the past, empathy is the ability to take a part of yourself and to project this part onto another. To imaginatively project yourself into the other and as a result be able to perceive their perspective. But this is not the end of empathy, empathy can also be used to find the inner reality of certain things, or perhaps it would be better to say, feel the inner makeup of things around you. For example you could project a part of yourself into a tree, an animal, or even a brick. By examining your feelings and your subjective experience in general, you can discover the inner quality of these things that you are projecting into.

Using the above technique, you can project yourself into the fruits and vegetables that you are about to purchase and find out whether they are delicious and ripe. Next time that you find yourself in the produce section, or an outdoor market, try this technique; pick up whatever fruit or vegetable that you are looking to purchase, and as you hold it in your hand, imaginatively project a part of yourself into that fruit or vegetable. As you do so, explore your feelings and your inner reality. Very lightly, without breaking that empathic link that you have with that produce, try to imagine what this fruit or vegetable might taste like. Relax, let go of that tight hold that the ego sometimes has, and imaginatively become one with the produce that you are holding.

When I do the above technique, I usually get a feeling or an impression of how delicious and how healthy that produce is. This feeling is a very subjective one and it is therefore very difficult to explain in words but it is sort of like a feeling of goodness where somehow I know that the fruit or vegetable that I’m holding will taste great and is also good for me. You need to experiment yourself and see if you can discover your own understanding of the subjective information that you are getting. We are all different and we must all find our own subjective language and symbolism. But do not fret, it is not a difficult exercise and I do believe that we are all quite talented at it since it was one of the methods that our early ancestors used in order to discover whether the food around them was any good to eat. In other words it is an ancient skill that you are reusing in a modern setting.

You can still look at the color and the smell, these methods are still good and you should rely on them. But through this empathic method you should be able to develop a very good sense as to how good the food that you are about to get is. It is possible that you might make a mistake, for example you might pick up an avocado that is all black on the inside while you believed that it was perfect. Don’t give up and keep trying, because this talent like any talent requires practice and a bit of effort. The only thing I might suggest, is to stop squeezing that produce! It really sucks when you go into a store and you see people squeezing the heck out of this or that and then just walking away. Anyway, that’s just a little pet peeve of mine, hehe.

Empathy is not just for dealing with others, it can also allow you to perceive every aspect of the world around you in a far more precise and direct way. Practice your empathic skill and develop new ways to use it to your advantage. Empathy can be used to discover the inner reality and the inner makeup of anything that you see before you, even those things that are beyond your physical vision. For example it was through this kind of empathy that Einstein was able to discover many of his great laws and theories. You can use the same skill in very practical ways; next time that you are in the produce section, use your empathic sense to get the best quality food for you and your family.

Many often wonder what the greatest key to success is. The truth is that successful people in any field, people who get ahead in life, are constantly challenging themselves to trying new things. The one key factor of success is growth. If you want to be a more successful person, in whatever endeavor you wish to pursue, you have to be courageous enough to push yourself to grow as much as possible.

If we are not growing, then we are staying in the same place without change. Without change we cannot develop and increase our skill and ability. Without this increase in ability, there is no possible way of becoming better at anything. In other words, without growth there is no increase in ability and without this increase in ability you will always be stuck in mediocrity.

Growth comes when you take a chance and try something new. Growth comes when you’re willing to step out of your comfort zone and try something completely different, or perhaps do something that you have always done but in a completely different way. It is very rare to do anything perfectly the first time that you try, but it is because of all the mistakes, that you will develop new skills and abilities.

Never be afraid to try something different. Trying something new means that you’re willing to put yourself in a difficult position so that you can learn and experience new things. Try to see whatever mistakes you make as a learning experience, as an opportunity to become even more capable. When you try new things you will feel uncomfortable. If you can become comfortable being uncomfortable then the sky is the limit and your potential for growth is endless.

You will notice that the only people that really get ahead in life are the people that are constantly challenging themselves. They seem to know that true success only comes from moving forward and stretching themselves and their abilities. Truly successful people even seem to have the goal of trying to be a little uncomfortable on a regular basis. Great entrepreneurs for example will always push themselves to go beyond the competition and to offer more than anyone else has offered before. The great leaders of any field are always the ones that are willing to try new things, to push the boundaries of what is perceived to be possible.

When you are out on the edge, you are all alone. Being alone can be very scary especially when you realize that there’s no one there to catch you if you fail. But there is also great freedom on the edge because there’s no one there to tell you what to do. Push yourself to feel a little uncomfortable every day so that you too can push the boundaries of your possibilities and experience. See this discomfort as freedom and in this way you will be able to experience joy where others might only see tribulation.

The secret to great success then is discomfort, because it is discomfort that will push you to grow and to develop yourself. Discomfort is also the gauge which you must use to measure your potential for growth; if you are not comfortable then you know that you have pushed yourself into personally uncharted territory. Freedom and power can be found at this outer edge but there is loneliness there as well, and sometimes even a little fear. Dare to push yourself beyond your limits and experience the delight of feeling alive and free in the world. Those that can push themselves beyond their limits, will find success and joy in a life well lived. Those that cannot push themselves beyond their limits, will only find stagnation and complacency.

Emotions can be incredibly debilitating if we do not have a way of dealing with them. Emotions that we consider negative such as; anger, fear, sadness, can destroy our ability to act in a logical and coherent manner if we let these emotions go unchecked. Emotions can cloud our better judgment and can affect our ability to perform even simple tasks correctly.

I have mentioned in other articles that you should deal with these emotions by finding out the beliefs that are causing them. I believe that the best way to deal with any kind of negativity is through the study of personal belief systems. That by being able to discover what it is that you are believing about a certain sitiation, you can discover why you are feeling the way you are feeling at the moment. This is the only way to be able to stop negativity completely and I show you how to go about doing this in this article…

There are times though when we are out and about and cannot just stop in the middle of whatever we are doing to question our belief systems. Negativity can be stopped over time by discovering your beliefs, but what do you do in the meantime? What do you do when you’re being assaulted by emotions that are completely crippling your ability to act and think properly?

Well there are ways that you can deal with these emotions. There are ways to stop them so that you are able to continue in a productive manner. You can call it the fine art of ‘Vulcanism’; this is in reference to Vulcans who are a race of alien beings in Star Trek that can completely control their emotions.

1. The first method that I would like to discuss and present to you, which I have not talked about very much in the past, is the technique of the Here & Now. How this technique works is that you stop any emotion by completely focusing on the Here & Now. This is fundamentally a Zen Buddhism concept; it basically says that the mind is the cause of all negativity and emotional unrest, that the mind exists in the future and in the past but that it is completely absent in the present moment.

If you pay attention to your thought process, you will quite quickly realize that this thought process is usually lost in future scenarios or in past events. By focusing your mind on this present moment, you are able to stop that mental dialogue that never seems to rest. If you take a moment now to look about you, to see the things in the room before you, to hear the sounds that are now perceivable to you, you will be able to understand what is meant by focusing your mind on the present moment. By focusing more and more on this present reality that is all about you, you increase the power of the Here & Now.

Existing in this present moment takes a lot of personal focus and discipline. The mind, because it has been given so much free reign, will very quickly take off into the future or the past. It takes a lot of discipline on your part therefore to try and stay focused on this present moment and not to deviate. But you do not need to become an instant Zen master, all you need to do is to remember that if you ever find yourself in an emotionally crippling situation, what you need to do is to focus your mind as completely as possible on the Here & Now. If you can do this, then your mind will not be able to wander into a terrible past or a horrible future. By being completely focused on the present moment, you will forget about whatever might have happened in the past and will not worry about whatever might happen in the future. I this way your emotional state will be quelled,  and you will be able to attain a very powerful unemotional state.

2. Another method to be able to stop those negative and crippling emotions when they present themselves is to learn to relax. It is impossible to be able to feel anything, other than joy and comfort, if your body is completely relaxed. Any emotion, especially the negative ones, create a tension in the body as a person’s electromagnetic energy increases. Tension increases electromagnetic energy, tension also traps electromagnetic energy in the body like a kink in a hose, if there is no tension then there is no possibility of emotional escalation because it is this energy that is needed to feel emotion.

If you can completely relax your body then you will be able to control all emotion. Next time that you have some kind of emotional situation, try to pay attention to how your body feels. Try to notice where your body is tense and how strong that tension is. You will notice that any emotion, aside from joyous complacency, will cause a tension in your body that you will be able to feel.

You can will yourself to relax this tension if you are vigilant and can identify what part of your body becomes tense; use your will to relax this tension. If you are not able to maintain this level of focus and intention yet, a great way to relax this body tension is to focus on your exhalation. Next time that you feel a debilitating emotion, take a deep breath and hold that breath for a couple of seconds and then exhale in a quiet sigh. That exhalation should be done by completely relaxing the body and letting the exhalation happen by itself. As you inhale try to tense every single muscle of your body, hold that inhalation/tension for 2 to 5 seconds, and then completely relax your body. As your body relaxes completely, let that exhale come out on its own without any effort on your part all. If you do this correctly, you will feel a wonderful sense of relaxation as your blood pressure lowers. Your body will relax completely and any kink will be released, the energy accumulated in this tension will be released and all emotion will be washed away. Do this relaxing breath as often as you need to.

With these two methods you should be able to stop any emotion that you feel. In this way you can even control what kind of emotions you want to feel, but this is something that I don’t actually recommend since I do believe that negative emotions have a place and a reason. You can for example let yourself feel all the positive emotions in your life but completely cut out all the negative ones with the above two techniques.
This though would not be something that would be good for you in the long run. Negative emotions are usually signals that we are unhappy with a situation; the reason for this is always a belief that we have that relates to this situation. If you do not express these emotions, you will not be able to discover the reasons for these emotions. If you cannot discover the reasons for these emotions then you will not be able to grow spiritually and objectively. Negative emotions are a catalyst for change, they feel unpleasant because they are trying to tell us that that we need to change something now. Without the energy that they provide, we will not have the impetus or mental focus to be able to search out that problem and to change it.

Use the above to techniques when you need to control crippling emotions that are not allowing you to perform correctly at the moment, but don’t define these emotions as evil or unconstructive. Sometimes emotions are part of our intuition and they can help us to discover things that we are having trouble understanding logically. For example it could be that you might want to work with a certain person but that you feel something negative whenever you are close to that person. This could be your intuition telling you that this person should not be trusted. Its ok to not feel happy and loving all the time.
It is also the case sometimes that emotions cloud or judgments and we trust people that we shouldn’t because somehow they have been able to tug at our heartstrings. My advice to you is to first feel those emotions and then to turn them off to see if there’s any difference in your judgment from one perspective to the other. It will be then up to you to learn to recognize the difference between intuitive feeling and overzealous emotion. Trust in your being, trust in the power of your whole self.

With control comes power. Hopefully with the two techniques above you will be able to empower yourself to control your emotions when you have to and to be able to feel them and express them when you think you need to. To permanently stop any negativity that you feel, and to be able to understand your greater being, you will need to discover the belief systems that are causing all your emotions. Use the above to techniques wisely to control your emotions consciously.

There is nothing more powerful in sustaining a relationship then to acknowledge the other person’s feelings. A relationship does not necessarily mean a relationship between lovers; a relationship can happen any time that you are engaging in any kind of communication with someone else. Even a small conversation with a clerk at a grocery store is a relationship and this relationship can greatly benefit by having you acknowledge the other persons feelings and subjective state.

In an earlier article I discussed the importance of empathy. I told you there that empathy can actually be a very powerful way to become more flexible and dynamic yourself. If you have read this article, “Empathy, the most important skill of the 21st century“, and you would like to know the benefits of this ability in a more concrete fashion, then you might be interested in contemplating the points below. Through empathy you will be able to subjectively feel and understand the other persons reality. You will be able to feel their feelings and you will be able to understand some of their thought process. This can be a great advantage for you if there is something that you want from the other person.

It is the case that any relationship involves the desire or the need to get something from the other individual. You should not see this in any negative way, a politically correct establishment would have you believe that you should always do everything selflessly and that doing something because you want something is a type of the evil. But this is not how the world works. We are all here to help each other and every interaction, even the interaction with the environment around you, is an interaction of mutual cooperation. You cannot exist without the cooperation of everything and everyone around you, and they in turn cannot exist without your help.

Those that do not believe in this cooperative interrelation, believe themselves to be lone individuals apart from all others, struggling to survive in infinitely competitive environment. This is not the case, if it were the case then this world would be a hell that would be impossible to maintain. Our world is maintained, created and supported because of the constant cooperation between every single individual part of it. A relationship is based on mutual cooperation whether this mutual cooperation is perceived or not. When you interact with anyone, you want something from them and they want something from you. A politically correct world would tell you that this is mutual selfishness but this is actually group cooperation at its best. The failure is one of perception, where people are able to, for the most part, only see their own perspective and nothing else.

If you can realize that you are in a cooperative environment, that it is good and natural for you to want something because in this way you are helping yourself and the other person at the same time, then you will be able to participate in mutual cooperation in a more natural and less guilt driven way. By developing your empathy, you will be able to discover what you want and what the other person wants from any mutual interaction, and in this way easily come up with a solution that is of benefit to you both.

When you can truly empathize with the other person, make sure that you acknowledge the other person’s feelings. By doing so you will let the other person know that you understand where they are coming from. That you understand what they are feeling and wanting from this situation. You will let the other person know, by acknowledging their feelings, that you see him or her as a real person that deserves your respect. By acknowledging the other person’s feelings you create a sense of mutual respect which will make mutual cooperation easy and inevitable.

As you acknowledge the other person’s feelings, express your own feelings and desires as well. You can do this verbally or through body language, just make sure that the other person understands where you are coming from yourself. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings and express your own, and then go about finding a solution that is beneficial to both of you. There is no need to pretend to feel something that you do not in order to try and get your way. Through honest empathic engagement, you can begin to experience a relationship with others that will be far more beneficial to you both in every way.

I have mentioned on a number of occasions that empathy is one of the most important skills that you can have in life. I would dare say that empathy is the one skill that has the ability to take humanity into the next level of awareness. Empathy, once you have become proficient at it, will be a catalyst that will completely change the way that you interact with others.

Empathy can be a great advantage when you have to interact with others. It is very important for example that you always acknowledge the feelings that another person is having at the moment. There are many books and groups out there advocating some kind of social rapport, their final outcome being some kind of persuasive skill where you are able to get your way. They tell you about all sorts of tricks and techniques that you can do to make it seem like you are indeed in the exact same subjective place as the person that you are trying to persuade. How about if instead of trying to get one over on a person by making it seem like you understand what the person is feeling, that you actually learn how to empathize with that person and to truly see and feel where that other person is coming from?

It can be a very scary thing, for the ego, to try and empathize with another person. The ego feels like it might lose itself or that it might lose out because then the other person will have control over it. Through its limited understanding, the ego believes that it cannot possibly be able to see both its own personal perspective and the perspective of someone else. It believes that it will be lost if it empathizes too much with someone else, that it will lose its perspective and will therefore be at the mercy of the other person. This belief can scare you to the point that you will never be able to identify with the feelings and thoughts of the people around you.

The ego is not wrong or evil, it is just trying to help you by doing what it believes it has to do to be able to put you in a superior position. You can think of the ego as a small part of yourself that has been given the task of dealing with this objective reality in the best way possible. For thousands of years of human interaction, the ego has discovered some hard but strategically powerful methods to deal with the incredibly competitive aspects of reality. The ego will do what it has always done, which is to do its best to make sure that you survive in the best way possible.

But the ego can evolve if you let it. By understanding that the ego is a small part of you and not the whole, you can begin to grasp your ability to be able to use your ego in a more expansive way. By discovering the limitations of the ego, you will be able to see outside of it in order to realize a broader view. You can see past any egotistical view and discover a more holistic understanding of the things that are happening before you. By being able to see things beyond your ego, you can begin to train your ego to be more aware and more capable; this is the most important skill that you can develop in the 21st century.

If the larger part of you can realize that it can see its own personal perspective and also completely empathize with the subjective feelings of another person, then this realization can allow the ego to learn new things. If you can make these realization yourself, you can slowly train your ego to understand the fact that it will not be eradicated or overcome when it is able to empathize completely with the subjective reality of another person. Your ego then will start to become far more capable and flexible. This perceptive increase by the ego will allow you to have a far greater range of possibilities which can increase your success. In other words by expanding the range of the ego you are actually doing exactly what the ego wants; which is to become a more successful survivor.

When the ego has expended in this way, you can begin to empathize with another and see that person’s perspective and yours at the same time. Your ego will not be threatened, it will not shut down or try to block any perceptive feelings on your part. Without this interference by the ego, your perceptive abilities will increase and this increase in awareness will expand you as a spiritual person and as an objective being trying to survive in a three dimensional reality.

To empathize with someone else you have to essentially put yourself in that other person’s shoes. The best way to begin to do this is to imaginatively project a part of yourself into the other person and then allow yourself to experience what they are feeling. You might want to pretend that a part of you goes into that other person and that you enter that other person so that instead of you having one body, you now have two bodies which you can perceive from.

If you have worked on your ego, then it will be quite easy for you to be able to perceive what that person is perceiving and feeling, and to also be able to stay centered where you are. You will realize that you can either see completely from their perspective, only from your perspective, or from your perspective and their perspective at the same time. You will not fear losing yourself, of being overcome by the other persons feelings and will. You will not even be scared of any terrible negativity or pain that other person might be feeling because your ego will realize that even though it is empathizing with that other person, it is still itself intact. You can then let go of this empathic grasp at any time and not feel like you have to put up with feelings that you do not want to feel at the moment.

Instead of trying to develop some technique where you pretend or act as if you are in rapport with what the person before you is feeling; how about if you learn instead to empathize for real? How about if instead of trying to put one over on the other person, by acting like you really care about what they feel, you actually truly experience what they feel? How about if you become truthful instead of trying to deceive yourself and the other person? You can become far more than you might currently be letting yourself become. Learn to empathize with others and you will learn to help yourself and them simultaneously.

One of the most difficult aspects of getting anything done is getting started. Procrastination can be a very difficult obstacle to overcome and unless you discover ways to overcome this inertia, you will never begin any worthwhile project. Okay, so we have decided on what our goals are and we have made a list of all the things that we want to do, but how do we get started on this list and overcome this very difficult first obstacle?

It is always a good idea to begin by identifying some of the things that will present themselves as different aspects of procrastination. One of the most insidious allies of procrastination is called ‘busywork’. Busywork is basically work that you think you need to do but that really is a way to avoid doing what you should be doing. I for example love to engage in tidying around the house and my desk whenever I contemplate doing something that I’m not too excited about. For example whenever I’m about to engage in a big writing project, and I am not as excited as I should be about this project, I tend to find all sorts of things that I should be tidying up. Make sure that you do not get stuck doing busy work or else you will delay or completely stall any attempt to get going on a project.
Avoid busy work by creating  schedules for yourself. By scheduling a starting time for your work, you give yourself that extra ‘oomph’ that you might need to start your work on time.

Another evil little ally of procrastination is the inability to focus on the project that you want to accomplish. How this obstacle presents itself is that it acts like a little voice in the back of your head, telling you that you are focusing on the wrong thing and that you are limiting yourself to other possibilities. Focusing can be difficult because it means that you are eliminating other possible choices and accepting limitations. If you listen to that voice that is telling you that you are limiting yourself by focusing on getting something done, you will never get started on anything because you will think that you are wasting your time and making a mistake. You are basically creating a way to waste your time by endlessly contemplating the idea that you are wasting your time. That is a genius way to get yourself to not do anything ever at all!
If this little voice comes up, then accept the fact that you need to deal with it. Take the time to logically write down the reasons why you need to accomplish the project at hand. To that list add a list of the consequences of not accomplishing your goal. Examine this list and logically conclude on the reasons why you need to get this task accomplished ASAP. Never ignore this little voice, it could be trying to tell you something important that your conscious mind might have missed.

Perhaps one of the most powerful allies of procrastination is the fear of imperfection. Quite often we will not begin anything because we are so fearful that we will not be able to perform in the way that we think we can. If we think that by trying to do something we will discover that we are not quite as good as we thought we were, then we will do anything to avoid doing that one thing.
As a true dreamer myself, I have huge amounts of self-delusion about my own ability. It is quite often very difficult for me to begin some things because a little voice inside my head is telling me that if I attempt this I will discover just how ineffective and inadequate I really am. Don’t let this ally of procrastination hold you back, remember that it is far more important to be productive then to be perfect. Let go of yourself importance, the only way to be able to get better at something is by doing. Screwing up is just an gage that is showing you a better way to do something next time.

If you are ever having problems beginning any one thing try asking yourself the following questions:

Is my priority for accomplishing these goals too low? Honestly question yourself about how important the goal that you are trying to attempt is. If it is low priority, are there other things that you could be doing instead? If it is high priority, are you clear in your own mind how important this goal is?

Are there things in this project that I’m not clear about? Is it the case that there are things that you do not know or that you are not completely clear about? If you’re not clear or if there are apprehensions because you don’t know something, you can prevent any initial action on your part.

Have you scheduled the time for this goal? In order to do anything you need to schedule the time to do it. If you say you’re going to do anything but you cannot schedule a certain time to do this thing then you will never get started on the project because it will always be on the to do list sometime in the future.

Do you feel overloaded? Does this task that you want to accomplish feel like it’s way too much? Is it possible that you are doing too much already and that beginning a new task just seems like you are trying to take on too much? Make sure that you take the time to clearly define your time schedule so that you do not feel like you are doing too much at any one time. This definition can also help you to begin difficult projects because it will logically allow your mind to see that this new goal is doable.

Are you scared? This might seem like a funny question but there are times when we are scared that we might actually succeed or fail in that task that we are going to attempt. This fear is a good friend that might be trying to tell you that there are certain unconsidered ideas about the task or goal that you are about to engage in. There are times we find it incredibly difficult to begin something because we actually don’t want to get that one thing done. If you are fearful about this task that you are about to begin in any way, find out for yourself if there is a reason why you don’t actually want to accomplish it.

You overcome many of the obstacles above by consciously questioning what they are bringing to light. Through this conscious questioning you come up with your own reasoning, that will nullify the power of the allies of procrastination. It might seem like a lot of questioning before you begin any one project, but in a short period of time you will discover that you will not have to question yourself or your motives very much and that your procrastination will be a thing of the past. Think of procrastination as a friend that is trying to make sure that you have ‘covered all your bases’ before you start any project.