Tag Archives: Success

Party time

Well, what will I write now, being in the middle of a party. And writing in a situation like this reminds me of stories about successful people, how they do it, doing things like I am doing right now. Like writing my daily post no matter what, even though I guess this post will be pretty short as I think it is better for everybody if I stay with the party instead of writing a post that in the end is not that important. As I guess nobody would really care if I write this post today or not, as I don’t have that many people reading these daily posts and I don’t send any e-mails to inform people there is something new on the site.

And yes, of course I am doubting more and more if what I am doing here makes any sense, or especially if anybody would read it some day. As as far as I know my daily posts are not really read by anybody. And also I may need to learn a bit more flexibility, so it might be a better option to skip my writing on a day like today. And yes, as you may or may not know, I did skip some days, but not many. And not for reasons like today, for ‘having a party’. I skipped only on days where I was really on the way or I was really, really down and felt like I could not write.

So what is true about those stories about success, about doing more, doing different than ‘other people’. Like I do right now, as I am sure not many people would do what I am doing right now. Will my persistence and discipline really pay off on the long term? As until now in my feeling this site has not been really successful, at least not in adding value to other people by most of my posts, at least if I look at the traffic to the site, at most of the pages, or the posts. Or should I be a little more flexible, a little less stubborn. And yes, as you can read today, until now I still choose to do my daily writing, as somehow I believe that my persistence and discipline will pay off, also in the long term, for the site, for the visitors of the site. And yes, for the short time it somehow pays off already, as I learned an awful lot about persistence, discipline and the habit that I have developed with this daily writing. So I think it’s good I just finished this post.

Another day has passed

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Another day has passed and it is late again. And yes, I did some useful things for Inspiration for Success lately, even today, as e.g. I changed the categories into tags in my personal blog. And I think last Saturday I added two sites to the page about top inspirational sites. And just now I added a paragraph about not so inspirational sites on that page, even though after writing it I realized it was kind of a negative paragraph and I try to avoid negative things.

But right now, with this post, with my daily post, I am still confused and a bit lost how to continue with it. As I want it to be inspirational and not some kind of complaining diary, even though while writing this that is kind of the origin of my daily writing of a post in this site. As I wanted to take you with me on my journey to success, so you would know how I got there, through all my struggles and doubts and such. I wanted you to find my site, my writing based on what I am going through, or was going through, as when you read this of course today and my current situation are past history.

So where do I stand with this, with my journey towards success? In my feeling not that good, as I still don’t have money, my business is still not doing well and my relationship could also still be better. But on the other hand, ‘only’ two years have passed since my deepest down in life, since I had the feeling I had nothing left, no relationship, no money, no friends, no place to stay, no nothing. But even though in a more material way I didn’t make any progress, in a spiritual way I did. As somehow my mindset changed and somehow I developed self confidence. And I am wore aware of my negativity, my negative thoughts and feelings, meaning I have developed awareness of those things and that means again that I can change them, control them. As indeed, the start with those things is awareness, as of course if you’re not aware of how negative your thoughts are and how negative (or positive) thoughts influence or even define your life, you can’t make changes.

So yes, I made quite some progress. But still, if I compare myself with Justin Bieber or Leonar DiCaprio or Steven Spielberg(?!) or many other people who became famous or rich at a relative young age, then I am far behind. Ah, and of course I forget people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. And I guess these people are exceptions, just being fortunate enough to be somehow priviliged being born at the right time, being at the right place at the right time with the right skills and meeting the right people and such.

And don’t get me wrong, this is not contrary to the Principles of Success I am writing about. As these principles say that you somehow can create your own break, meet your own right people and be in the right place at the right time. Except for the average person that may take a little longer than for those famous people who did something very fast or at very young age. It may take up to twenty or thirty years for the bigger kinds of dreams and successes and this figure is mentioned by Napoleon Hill himself, but also e.g. by Seth Godin.

So well, I guess there is hope, for you as well as for me, if you did not achieve the success you are looking for yet. Even though once I was taught ‘there is no hope’, which I guess is very true. Again, confirmed by Napoleon Hill and many, most or all successful people. As Napoleon Hill states that ‘there is no such thing like something for nothing’ and most famous and successful work or have worked very hard to get where they are. And no, I don’t believe in ‘hard work’. On the contrary, as there were periods in my life where I worked very hard and very long. And it did bring me money, quite a bit, but certainly no lasting success.

So right now I believe more in doing what you love and following your heart. And then the ‘work’ goes by itself.

So listen to your heart first, if you didn’t do that yet.

How to write an inspiring post

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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.

Improve my blogging, my writing

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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.

Who am I writing to or for

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I am still subsribed to zenhabits.net and today I found an interesting post about blogging, about writing onine, as I do here, in this site, today, now. And it made me think that I am not really writing to someone, except that my writing is still focused on people who are looking for success, like I still do. And going back to the history of my writing, of the history of this site and why I am writing every day maybe it is useful to analyze a bit more, as I have already been planning, how to continue with this site, with my writing every day.

Anyhow, the first thing that came up while thinking who am I writing for is that my original idea was that all my writing would start making sense if and when I have achieved the success I am looking for. As from that position you could read all my complaints and defeats and maybe failures and whatever I wrote, to see that no matter what, no matter how you feel, no matter where you stand, you can still get where you want to be, you can still achieve the success you are looking for.

But what is success anyhow, as somehow I still put myself down that I didn’t achieve success yet. But that is only by my own measurement, by relating everything to what I have defined as success and everything that I have defined as failure or defeat to where I stand, to what I have achieved. And yes, looking at my desire document I am not successful by measuring to the ultimate goals I have written in there. But somehow I am living my desire document and somehow I achieved major milestones in relation to my ultimate goals. As you may or may not know, when I wrote my desire document, virtually everything in there was impossible, literally impossible. But looking back, soon after I wrote it, my one and only major goal turned into something like very likely or very probable, And slowly, over the last two years, my desire document became my life, as everything in there now somehow is at least possible, where I can even say that everything that is happening in my life right now is somehow related to the desires and goals that are written down there.

And I can’t really explain how that exactly works, but it is somehow logical looking back, and all gets back to the six steps as written down by Napoleon Hill. And somehow I made large progress on where I want to be and who I want to be and how I want to live, because at least I have turned my life around in a way that related to e.g. the financial debts I have, I at least stopped borrowing extra money and started paying some things again, even though my debt still is going up because of unpaid interest and such. But I did make a turn, and I guess you could call that a success.

Some other successes that are worth mentioning is that since I started making my bed, our bed every day, I literally never skipped one day doing that, although there were some circumstances like sleeping elsewhere or not sleeping at all or having some weird schedule. Basically the only thing is that I sometimes have done it late at night, just before going to bed, but I still did it. Another thing I did was putting one peso every day in a box, no matter how little money I had. And again, I started that habit when I had no money at all and didn’t even know how to buy food or feed the dogs one week from the day I started. And the weird thing with that habit is that one day I decided to put five peso in that box instead of one, as at that time I was not that tight on money anymore. And one or two months ago I decided to increase the daily amount to twenty peso and also with this habit I never failed. And there are more things I improved, turned around, like making a daily planning and executing that planning every day, even though the last few weeks I didn’t really make a planning on paper. But I still did it, even when not written down. And not to forget my daily sending of an inspirational quote, my daily writing of a post in this site, my daily update of my online gratitude diary and my almost daily writing of a post in my Dutch blog. As I hardly ever skipped any of those things, except my daily writing in my Dutch blog, but that is also something I gave myself some leeway like ‘only when it feels good’, so also here I have been pretty successful, I guess I could even say very successful..

So looking at the above I guess I can just say that I have become much more successful in many things after starting with reading Think and Grow Rich and working from it. And I think the most important thing here is that I have programmed myself for success, or at least have programmed myself to be more successful than before. And another major thing is that my outlook in life, my outlook towards the future fully changed. As right now I am much, much more determined to achieve the things that I have decided to achieve, no matter what. And again, also here the Principle of Success ‘decision‘, comes in handy, As I basically don’t change any decisions anymore, even though I have no clue where that goes, as over time things change, so also somehow goals needs to change, e.g. when you reach a goal. But somehow I didn’t encounter that ‘problem’ yet, so there doesn’t seem to be a problem.

So have I become successful, have I achieved success? Well, not really to my own standards, to the goals that I have set, as I didn’t achieve any of them fully. But looking at the above I guess I can consider myself pretty successful. So I guess I have some right now to write about success, to write about how to achieve things, as I am certainly on the right way.

So going back to the original question of who I am writing for, or maybe who I have been writing for, I have the feeling I have been writing to myself mostly until now. But in the background I have also been writing to people who are in a similar situation as I was when writing a particular post. And yes, today I have certainly been writing to myself, as in between the lines I read a lot of perfectionism, meaning that I am way too hard on myself.

So looking at the above I guess I can change my outlook on my blogging here now, as I can consider myself much more successful than I was before, and I guess even more successful than most people. So next thing is what to write about from now, or how to write, and maybe most important, for or to whom, as I think the suggestion of Leo Babauta of keeping your audience in mind is a very good suggestion.