Inspiration for Success
About inspiration, motivation and success
The Universe said something like ‘relax’ to me today. And at first I didn’t want to listen, but finally I gave in. And instead of chasing people for meetings I found some very nice people visiting me and had a very nice dinner with a friend in the city later on.
So yes, better listen to the Universe, like when you feel tired and just know you need rest.
So also right now it is time to relax a bit more.
Tomorrow more.
Yes, it is still in my mind how to write an inspiring post. And I still don’t know how to do that, as it is quite late and I don’t feel like writing. But of course that is none of your business as an inspiring post should inspire you, and knowing about my current feeling or status is probably not that inspiring. Or is it?
As I just finished installing Caesar IV on the PC of a friend of mine. And over the day that started to worry me, as it was one of the few things on my planning list for today. And it was supposed to be a pretty straightforward thing as I had done it before on one of our own PC’s here. So I knew a bit what to expect, except the PC of my friend runs Windows 8 where our own PC I installed Caesar IV on runs Windows 7. But as the game, a pretty old game not made for newer versions of Windows, ran on Windows 7 without too many problems, I expected the installation a bit similar to the one before, not really straightforward, but doable within a few hours and without too much effort. How wrong I was, as the installation of .NET 3.X is quite different on Windows 8 compared to Windows 7. And it needed to download something, which didn’t work and that didn’t make much sense to me.
Anyhow, I did manage to install the game, and that is kind of the inspiring part of this post. As I used quite some of the Principles of Success to get this task done today. At first I used the principle of decision, as I decided quite a while ago that I will finish my daily to do list, no matter what. And I have become pretty good at that, as it is very rare that I fail to finish all the items on the list that I have marked as ‘definite’. So with this list I have developed the habit of planning things and finishing them at the time specified. And keep in mind that this is not particularly difficult, as when I started with this habit I started with just one little thing per day. So I was 99% sure I could finish that thing. And I did that for quite a while, weeks, if not months, to get started with this.
And still, recently I didn’t feel like doing a lot of things. And I have been on a short holiday. So for the last weeks, months, my daily planning has been pretty empty, like many days where I planned nothing. And over time I learned to specify things more specific, like adding the word ‘maybe’ or ‘probably’ or stating something like ‘if pushes through’. As I noticed that for some things you depend on other people and as I don’t think it is healthy to force other people to follow your planning I am very careful making statements about that (thanks Mike, for pointing out to me how this works).
So also today I thought I had a pretty simple list that could easily be finished. How wrong I was, as somewhere during the evening I really started to believe that this game installation might not work out today. However, for those things the principle of persistence comes in handy, together with the earlier mentioned decision. As those two things just made me push through where other people, or I myself before I learned all this, would stop, would declare defeat or failure. But I didn’t, as somehow I have developed to just go further, a lot further, than I used to before. And finally it did work out, although in this case it might not have worked out today. But it did.
And most important what I learned, what I can confirm also from what Napoleon Hill and many other famous ‘self help’ writers state, is that it doesn’t really take a lot of effort or energy. As it is just a habit I developed. It is just ‘something I do’.
So well, even though it is later than I wanted, expected, and even though I feel a bit tired and didn’t really feel to write a post, I think I managed to write something useful which even might be inspiring. So maybe I am also slowly developing the habit of writing, writing inspiring posts. How successful is that?
And what about you? Do you finish things? Have you developed habits that help you finish things? And yes, looking back it is all worth the effort. As with all these things I have changed, where the major change has been that I have an awful lot more self confidence, which I think is a big thing.
Recently I have been thinking a lot how to improve my writing, improve this site. As I think my posts are not really that inspiring. And I still compare myself to other bloggers I follow, like Alden Tan, Leo Babauta and Marc and Angel. And I consider them better than me.
But while opening their sites to add the links I realized that Inspiration for Success is different. As Marc and Angel write about practical tips for productive living. And Alden Tan writes about personal development. And Leo Babauta somehow stands for something like ‘simple living’. So at least my focus is different. My focus is ‘success‘. And I wanted Inspiration for Success to be different, inspirational. As most ‘success sites’ are about hard work and motivation and such. And I don’t believe in those things. As they didn’t work for me. As I worked hard and was very motivated. But that didn’t help me keep my job, my income. And yes, it did bring me quite some money. As when I was working hard I earned quite a bit. But it didn’t last, so I know there must be more than just ‘hard work’ and ‘motivation’ and ‘persistence (read stubbornness)’.
And then again, starting a new life in The Philippines, I started working hard, was very motivated, very persistent also. And it brought me a little, but not for long, not anything lasting.
So there must be more, next to all those things I read about ‘success’ and ‘motivation’ and ‘hard work’ and such. As it didn’t work for me.
And then I found ‘Napoleon Hill’. And the word ‘inspiration’. And recently I found something like ‘getting a break’. And yes, all those things, these more recent things, have given me a lot of insight in ‘succes’. And yes, I have gotten a lot of confidence now, self confidence. I am more myself, so to speak. And a few days ago, on October 19, 2014, I realized that those things are unimaginable more important than ‘money’, than financial success. But still, I don’t consider myself successful still. As there is still not enough money coming in to support myself, let alone support others or pay my debts or even the interest on my debts.
So how to go from here, how to apply all that knowledge I have now. How to ‘monetize’ everything I know, about success. And now, I don’t mean financial success anymore, even though I believe more and more that needs to be part of it, at least for me, as I always wanted to be rich, yes, in money, and I still want t be. But that’s me, not you. For you success may mean something completely different. And yes, also for me there is more, there is one more thing more important than money. But I still need money to achieve that, to nurture that, so money is still important.
Well, enough for today, even though this post is not finished yet. But it gives food for thought, food to nurture the seeds that I planted. So let’s wee what I can do tomorrow to go back to my goals and dreams, in my life and in this site. As I am quite sure I have the tools now to make both successful. And yes, somewhere hidden in this site, similar to what Napoleon Hill states in Think and Grow Rich, also lie the seeds for your success, for the things you want in life. So yes, you may want to keep reading everything in this site. And the sites and pages it points to. As I am quite sure there is a lot of knowledge hidden in this site that will help you on your road to success, on your road in life.
I was recently reading Leo Babauta’s blog and ended up in his page about the first birthday of zenhabits. And I was a bit jealous, or actually a lot, as I read that within a month after starting his blog he had a few hundred followers, readers. And right now, after almost one and a half year Inspiration for Success I think I hardly have any followers. And I know there are many reasons for that, like now it is 2014 and not 2007 (when there were hardly any bloggers and blogging was probably hardly known). And I am not, and have not been, pushing this site, this blog, very hard. And I guess I am not as good a writer, a blogger, someone with a lot of value to other people as Leo Babauta and many other successful bloggers are. As I just found what I guess is probably his most recent post, on the homepage: pushing past the dip. And it just reads easy and is inspiring, even though I might have been just impressed as it is based on The Dip written by Seth Godin. And that book and Seth Godin had and still have great influence on my, on my thinking.
But anyhow, my blog posts may not always be that inspiring, while thinking now I think this site is still some kind of masterpiece, even though it is not fully finished and of course never will be.
So maybe the big question is how I would get out of my chicken/egg problem of not having enough readers and probably not having any people using the inspirational tools I made a start with (and yes, they are working) and creating better stuff, spend more time.
Maybe the answer is pretty simple though. Maybe I should just do a little more effort and then everything will go by itself. Was already thinking about that, but I will plan something.
Thanks for listening.
Yeah, I gained a lot of self confidence lately as you may have read in my recent posts. But despite of what Abraham Hicks says, the last few days I have been very tired, kind of sick, and I can’t get out of that, well, feeling?
So no matter what I tell myself, I just feel, well, kind of sick, tired, gloomy. And yes, I did some things today, made some progress, but didn’t really feel inspired. And on top of that my partner was in ‘blaming mood’, so that didn’t help either.
But yes, I remember Abraham Hicks also said something about being in ‘that’ place. So I guess I am in ‘that’ place and it seems I don’t have any access to places that feel, well, ‘good’ or maybe inspired.
So maybe just accept that I am in ‘that’ place and just wait until it’s over and just try to get to the place I still have access to and that feels ‘best’, for now.