action

Stop Waiting for The Perfect Time

Vlad solving a rubik's cube.

by Vlad Dolezal on September 9, 2011

There are some big changes coming here on Fun Life Development. More details at the end of this post.

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One of the most common reasons people hire me as a life coach is that they feel stuck. They’re in a position that drains their energy and passion for life, but they just can’t seem to get out of it by themselves.

Now, there are many possible causes of that. Each client is different. But in my experience, one of the most common ways people get stuck is waiting for the perfect time to make a change.

Let’s say you’re unhappy in your job. You tried sorting it out with your bosses and co-workers, but you just have irreconcilable differences. So you decide to leave… but first you need to finish a big project.

Then the economy is bad, and you’re afraid to get stuck without a job.

Then you get a loan for a new car, and can’t afford to quit just yet. You need to pay it off first.

You keep waiting for the perfect time, when you can quit comfortably without any downsides. But things keep coming up. And coming up.

The perfect time never comes.

You get stuck in a vicious circle. Things always come up. There are always downsides. But that’s exactly the thing – for most big, life-changing decisions, there will always be downsides. The perfect time never comes. [click to continue…]

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Act Immediately Or Act Later?

Post image for Act Immediately Or Act Later?

by Vlad Dolezal on March 18, 2011

I was recently reading Oscar Del Ben’s post about leaving things for your future self. His point can be summed up with this quote:

Whenever you postpone an action to a later time, what you’re doing is playing a trick to yourself by relaxing responsibility to a future you. It’s like saying: “Hey, I hate doing this, but let’s do it tomorrow”, without considering that tomorrow is the same you that has to deal with whatever you left incomplete.

While this is a good point, I thought it’s a bit incomplete. (Also, it doesn’t have enough robots in it). So I decided to expand on it a bit and share my own approach. It revolves around the idea of potentials.

What exactly are potentials?

I first came across the idea of potentials while reading the robot sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov. In there, robots have positronic brains, and every decision they consider sets up some attractive and repulsive potentials in the robot’s brain. Whichever has the highest net potential ends up being the robot’s chosen course of action.

So, for example, if a human orders a robot to kill another human, this sets up a strong attractive potential in the robot’s positronic brain, because the Second Law of robotics states that a robot has to obey any orders by a human, as long as they don’t conflict with the First Law of robotics.

But the First Law says that “a robot must not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”, so this sets up an even stronger repulsive potential, and the robot ends up disobeying the order.

The funny thing is, these “positronic brain potentials” are exactly equivalent to human emotions. [click to continue…]

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GROW #4 – Way forward

GROW #4 - Way forward

by Vlad Dolezal on September 8, 2010

This is the fourth (and last) part of a series of posts explaining the most powerful model I use with my life coaching clients. Read The GROW Model – Introduction to find out what it’s all about.

Alright! It’s time to take all the planning you’ve done so far, and use it to make your ideal goal a reality!

In this part, we’ll focus mainly on how to make sure you take action, once you decide what you want to do. Because it would be a shame to figure out exactly what you want, what needs to happen to get there and come up with many great ways to move towards it… only to fall victim to procrastination.

Luckily, I have a quite a few tricks up my sleeve to help you with this one ;) [click to continue…]

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Forget Affirmations, Action is The Key!

by Vlad Dolezal on July 2, 2009

Imagine James Bond. Do you ever see him muttering under his breath “I am happy, confident, and attractive.”?

No. Because he already IS all those things.

Now take a few seconds to picture someone who’s saying those affirmations to themselves.

What kind of person do you see? Someone who’s not very confident? Not that happy? Not very attractive?

Right. Because the only people saying such affirmations are those who AREN’T feeling very confident and attractive. They’re trying to talk themselves into believing those things. As Robert M. Pirsig says:

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow.

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths, or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because the dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Funnily enough, affirmations can have the exact OPPOSITE effect than what you want. It’s all because…

Action creates beliefs

In my post on developing abundance mentality, I explain how the Chinese managed to convert an unprecedented number of American prisoners to communism by changing their beliefs. And they did it by simply getting the Americans to take little pro-communist actions, until they could no longer take the disparity between their actions and their thoughts.

If you act enough as if you were something, you will become that way.

But here’s the funny thing: What kind of person tries to talk themselves into feeling confident? That’s right – an unconfident person! By using affirmations, you will do things that an only an unconfident person does.

Enough of that, and you will BECOME unconfident, even if you weren’t before! Way to go, Dr. Watson.

Thankfully, there’s a solution…

Stop talking, start taking action

Instead of talking yourself into feeling confident (which only an unconfident person would do), figure out what kind of actions a confident person would take.

Then take them.

Then you’ll leverage the same principle for your benefit! After taking enough action that a confident person would do, your brain will say “Hang on a second, I’ve been taking all this confident action… I can’t be an unconfident person!” – And BAM! You will become a confident person.

Sure, taking action is tough. At times you’ll feel scared. Some actions you won’t even be able to take until you develop some confidence.

But that’s how real progress works. It takes some discomfort and pushing your comfort zones. Affirmations feel like a feel-good what-you-want-to-hear solution to me. As if you can develop all the positive character traits without facing any discomfort.

Is this the ultimate truth? I don’t know.

All I know is that taking action definitely works for me. And affirmations didn’t.

So try it yourself, and see what happens!

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Update on 90 Day Free Hugs Challenge:

The free hugs challenge started yesterday! From now until 28th September, you have a much easier time to take action and go giving out free hugs. So if you’re at all interested in giving out free hugs check out the 90 Day Free Hugs Challenge.

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How to Be Remarkable

by Vlad Dolezal on May 16, 2009

Have you ever wondered what makes people remarkable?

People like Aaron Stanton, who had a great business idea, but after years of trying, he couldn’t get Google to listen to him. They wouldn’t even HEAR about his idea! So he decided to take drastic measures:

“In just three days, I will be getting on a plane to California. There, I will go to Google’s headquarters, and I will sit in the lobby until somebody hears me out.”

Within days, he had thousands of people online following every step of his journey. And he got his meeting with Google.

What is “being remarkable”?

Being remarkable means being worth remarking. In other words, worth talking about.

When you do something that a lot of people talk about, congratulations! You are now remarkable. Now let’s figure out how to do it!

The right kind of remarkability

In our deepest hearts, we all want to be important. And more often than not, that means being remarkable – having people talk about us, inspiring masses, being famous.

Some people go about it the wrong way. They manage to achieve fame by recording videos of themselves doing stupid things. Umm, great… but what then? They get their 5-minute flash of fame, and when that burns out, they’re left with just ashes.

But there is another category of remarkable people. People who don’t just do it for the fame, but because they have a great idea they believe in.

Like the guy who went and gave everything he owned away, keeping only $100 in cash, and moving to a town where he didn’t know anyone. He did this because he believed anybody can get themselves out of poverty, if they really want to. He decided to put his beliefs through the ultimate trial by fire – by doing it himself.

He managed to get out of poverty in just under two years. (And then he went and said “Of course this doesn’t prove anything. I’m young, healthy, and white.”)

These people have one thing in common. They have something they deeply believe in, and take inspiring action to do something about it.

How to be remarkable

You too can be remarkable. It’s not that hard.

Granted, you won’t turn into an Oprah overnight. But getting started on your journey to being remarkable is surprisingly easy. Here is the core approach:

1. Decide on your message

There’s something you believe in that you want to let more people know about. I know that for a fact. Just take some time to think about it, and decide on one message you want to promote right now.

It might be using Linux. It might be vegetarianism. Or the therapeutic benefits of sea-turtle herding. Whatever.

(I recently re-named my blog to Fun Life Development, because I finally (after about 17 months :p) decided what my core message is. A light-hearted look at Personal Development, without losing any of the effectiveness. Life is fun!)

2. Think of a simple way to spread the message to more people

If you want to spread Linux, all you have to do is buy some blank CDs and a permanent marker, burn a couple of copies your favorite distribution, and start handing them out to people.

Or, if you can get together a few friends, you could set up a small temporary stall, along the lines of “get informed”. Use a laptop to demonstrate the latest Compiz goodness. Get passerbies interested. (I’m pretty sure passerbies is not a word, but hey :) )

It doesn’t take a lot. Yes, your first steps might not be very remarkable. That’s ok. You won’t go from Neil Nobody to Chris Guillebeau overnight. The important bit is taking action early, and taking it often.

3. Take action!

’nuff said.

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Here are a few quick tips to get you started:

  • start a blog
  • find like-minded people in your area, and form a mastermind group
  • contact people who are already spreading a similar message, and team up with them or ask for advice
  • get started TODAY

And that’s it. Stop reading about being remarkable, and start doing!

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Good Ideas are Common

by Vlad Dolezal on March 10, 2009

Hop to any library, and have a look at the self-help section. Hundreds of books, all full of great ideas on how to completely transform your life.

Or send a few e-mails to successful businessmen, asking them about their secrets for success. The chances are, you will get responses that are packed absolutely full of amazing value.

But you know what? You can’t just release the value packed in those ideas into the world. It’s not ready.

It’s a bit like instant soup. Still missing one vital ingredient.

ACTION.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. What’s really rare is implementing those ideas.

Why do you think philosophy majors suffer the highest unemployment rate of all college graduates? They have plenty of ideas… but ideas are next to worthless without implementation!

In fact, a lot of us personal growth enthusiasts tend to drown ourselves with good ideas. It’s like watering a plant. Without water, your plant will die. With just the right amount of water, your plant grows and blossoms into absolute beauty. But give your plant too much water… and you will kill it, just as readily as if you gave it no water at all.

And that’s what we tend to do. We read tons of RSS feeds, news articles and books, listen to podcasts, and so on. We consume so many ideas that we sometimes forget that ideas alone have no value whatsoever. You need to add ACTION to create real value from ideas!

That’s why Leo Babauta is so successful with his principle “Do less. Get more done.” When you first hear it, it’s like “What, give my plant less water? But water is essential for life! Surely my plant needs MORE water!” But if your plant is already overwatered, the solution is to give it LESS water.

And the same applies to you. Stop drowning yourself with ideas, and remember – ideas only have real value if you apply them.

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