101 Tasks in 1001 Days

Yesterday, I stumbled across a site called Day Zero. Basically, the idea is to create a list of 101 goals, and complete them over 1001 days (approximately 2.8 years). I was intrigued, and decided to create one, not sure if I'd actually DO it. But after the amount of time it took to MAKE the list, I'm gonna do it.

Apart from the four tasks I wrote last night, I completed the entire list today. I put my entire life on hold and just tackled this list all day. Thirteen hours after I began, and about ten hours of work, I had my list. And I have it here, to post for you guys.

I'll be blogging about my progress through the list. This'll replace the progress report (but completing 30 30-day trials is in there, so I'll be writing about that too).

If I give up, I will be honest about it. I won't just let it fade.

Here is the list.

Completed Tasks:

86. Donate 20,000 grains of rice on www.freerice.com (20,000 / 20,000) COMPLETED July 8, 2009.

6. Sort out your Magic card collection. COMPLETED July 24, 2009.

Incomplete Tasks

Magic

1. Compete in a Grand Prix, a Regionals, and a PTQ.
2. Attend Nationals (qualified or not)
3. Earn money playing Magic.
4. Complete 10 drafts on Magic Online, only paying for the first one. (Go Infinite)
5. Defeat: David Dang, Justin Cheung, Desmond Ng, Jacky Zhang and Michael in a fair match of Magic. (2/5)
6. Teach 10 new players to play Magic to a reasonable level (Can consistently win at least one match at FNM) (0/10)

Gaming

8. Finish Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn on Hard.

9. Finish IWBTG on Very Hard.
10. Finish: Spyro 4, Spyro 5, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy. (0/6) (Finish being “Finish the main plotline” not necessarily everything.)
11. Finish FF1 and FF2 with the worst party possible. (0/2)
12. Complete an entire LP.
13. Finish a roguelike.
14. Play a full game of Risk. Offline. With other people.
15. Create the Top 100 Greatest Gaming Achievements list.
16. Finish creating the Ultimate Roguelike Challenge.
17. Do a live video speedrun of IWBTG: 12 hours on Medium mode.
18. Write a game walkthrough.
19. Learn to play backgammon, and get halfway decent at it. (Able to hold your own online)
20. Get 5,000 Gamer Points on XBOX Live. Get an Xbox 360 first. (0/5,000)
21. Get Wii Fit, and use it.

Health

22. Eat only raw food for 3 days.
23. Become a vegetarian permanently.
24. Be able to touch your toes while standing up.
25. Achieve your ideal weight (as recorded on the World Health Organisation website) for my height.
26. Try 20 different fruits (2/20)
27. Complete the 100 Pushups program.
28. Complete the 200 Sit-ups program.
29. Complete the Couch to 5k challenge.
30. Try yoga and pilates. (0/2)
31. Go vegan for a month.

Growth

32. Get a girlfriend.
33. Get your P’s.
34. Adapt to Uberman polyphasic sleep.
35. Move out of home.
36. Give blood.
37. Advance beyond the newbie level in a martial art.
38. Complete 30 30-day trials (7/30)
39. Do the 40-hour Famine, and get some sponsors.
40. Learn to cook 10 staple dishes. (Staple means you could easily eat it once a week for a year and not get sick of it or sick from it) (0/10)
41. Design your own blogging website from scratch.
42. Take a professional IQ test.
43. Get certified in First Aid.
44. Do a time log.
45. Complete a 5-minute video, 10-minute podcast, 30-minute live chat, 60-minute Twitter conference and 60-minute Facebook conference on your blog. (Last 3 when I get a good amount of traffic) (0/5)
46. Get Site Build It! and build the new blog with it.
47. Perform 3 days of volunteer work, for 3 different charities. (0/3)
48. Write ‘Discovering Your Passion’ on your personal development blog. It must be at least 2,000 words.
49. Go overseas.
50. Gain your passport
51. Visit Uluru. (Also known as Ayers Rock)
52. Join Toastmasters.
53. Have a lucid dream.
54. Get a job.
55. Reach 500 blog posts (90/500) (This will be updated by 10’s)
56. Inspire 10 people to complete 30-day trials successfully. (1/10)
57. Read or listen to 10 books specifically related to personal development. (0/10)
58. Do 50 things that at least one person tells me I won’t or can’t do. (4/50)
59. Participate in the World’s Greatest Shave.
60. Go rockclimbing. Successfully reach the top of a wall.
61. Complete 20 guest posts for other people’s blogs. (0/20)
62. Get 20 people to write guest posts for you. (1/20)
63. Concede 10 arguments, not because you’ve lost, but because you don't want to argue. (0/10)
64. Get 5,000 unique visitors to your blog. (300 / 5,000) (This will be updated in 100’s)
65. Earn $1000 in one month on your blog. (Best so far: 0/1000)
66. Turn 10 small-talk conversations into deep and meaningful ones. (0/10)
67. Get a Certificate in Business Management.

Entertainment

68. Read the Lord of the Rings series (including the Silmarillion) (0/4)
69. Watch the following movies: All the Star Wars movies, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather. (0/8)
70. Read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever and the Second Chronicles (0/6)
71. Do a 1000-piece jigsaw.
72. Watch the Matrix trilogy. (0/3)
73. Finish a Colossal crossword.
74. Finish a Sudoku on the highest difficulty.
75. Find at least an hour’s worth of music on YouTube that’s positive and inspirational. Turn it into a playlist.
76. Do a real, physical maze.
77. Read 12 books from Time’s Top 100 list. (2/12)
78. Watch 10 movies in cinemas. (0/10)
79. Watch 12 films from Time’s Top 100 list. (3/12)
80. Finish a Terry Pratchett novel. You’ve never got into it, but it’s supposed to be good.
81. Read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. In order. (0/7)
82. Ask 5 people what their favourite book and film is, then read and watch them. (0/5)
83. See the following films you should see but haven’t: Taxi Driver, Fight Club, Clerks, Raging Bull, Cape Fear, Goodfellas, Scarface, The Shining, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 2001: A Space Odyssey. (0/10)
84. Read all of Raymond E. Feist’s books.
85. Write 10 short stories. (1 novella = 3 short stories) (0/10)

Miscellaneous

84. Go skydiving.
85. Bring in doughnuts for your entire class or work colleagues (whichever applicable) one day.
86. Complete a piece of homework the day I get it, and hand it in the next day.
87. Edit a Wikipedia article to include useful information.
88. Find 10 geocaches. (4/10)
89. Create a treasure hunt for someone / some group.
90. Learn to “click” your fingers.
91. Learn to eat with chopsticks.
92. Go scuba diving.
93. Purge my entire room of crap I no longer need.
94. Learn some basic dancing.
95. Learn to fence.
96. Build a computer for yourself. Buy the components.
97. Learn to cook 10 staple dishes. (Staple means you could easily eat it once a week for a year and not get sick of it or sick from it) (0/10)
98. Learn to type with all 10 fingers.
99. Climb a mountain. (Any hill over 610 metres.)
100. Buy a really good chair as my desk chair.

Added Tasks:

101. Complete the Unholy War on Hard difficulty (both sides) (0/2)

And there you have it. 101 tasks. 1001 days. One epic personal growth challenge. Game on.

Explanations:

1. In Magic: The Gathering (a card game I play) a Grand Prix is a huge (hundreds or even thousands of players) tournament open to everyone, a Regionals is a tournament to qualify you for Nationals, and a PTQ is a Pro Tour Qualifier. The winner of the PTQ is qualified for the Pro Tour: 3 of these tournaments are run each year featuring the game's best. All of them are at a level higher than my level right now, hence why they are on my list.

5. The 5 names are professional Magic players who appear at the tournament I go to. They are almost never beaten save by each other.

9. IWBTG is I Wanna Be The Guy, an insanely hard platformer. Even on it's easiest difficulty setting, most people never defeat it.

12. An LP is a Let's Play, a run-through of a game by video or screenshot. I intend to do mine on IWBTG, in video.

13. A roguelike is a genre known for insane difficulty, turn-based strategy, and permadeath: your save is erased if you die. Very difficult to finish.

44. A time log is a log of everything you do in a day. It helps improve productivity and focus.

46. Site Build It! is a program designed to help you make an income-generating website.

48. Discovering Your Passion is a mega-post I want to write: once I know how to discover your passion, that is!

52. Toastmasters International is a public speaking organisation that builds character, confidence and skills in public speaking.

89. A geocache is an item like a notebook, enclosed in a container at a specific GPS co-ordinate, as specified on the geocaching website.

10 Ways To Find The Challenges In Your Own Life - Part 2

6. Start a big project.

Big projects are challenging. Start that project you never got around to, like writing a novel. Set yourself a minimum amount of progress each day, and start a 30-day trial to keep to that minimum progress. You'll find it's quite rewarding to work on a big project, and then finally complete it.

7. Confront your fear.

Things that might seem challenging to some people because of fear may be easy to others: but don't let that stop you from accepting it as a challenge. If it's challenging to you, it's a challenge. Facing your fear is a very challenging thing to do: but any day you face your fear is bound to be an interesting one!

The more you face your fear, the more courageous you become. And the more courageous you become, the better a person you are. Confronting your fear is an excellent tool to gain personal growth.

8. Make it more creative.

If some menial work isn't challenging, turn it into a creative exercise. The method varies on the task, but if you're interested in a challenge, thinking up the creative aspect can be a challenge in itself:)

9. Don't use help.

Don't use the help that you might otherwise get, unless it's essential. Play a game without using anti-AI strategies, or looking at the hints section. Give up soft drink without taking up a similar drink (I did that: stuck to water and milk). Things that make the task easier can turn it into a challenge if they're removed.

10. Choose a difficult task.

Saving the simplest for last. If you choose a task difficult enough, you won't have to come up with ways to make it more challenging, you can just go full-tilt at it. The obvious approach is sometimes missed, so I decided to include it here.

Well, this turned out to be more of a minipost, but it's full of value, so hopefully you find it useful. Enjoy!

Until next time, may you be challenged just the right amount.

Minipost: Progress Report

Day 27 - Breakfast Trial

No changes here.

Day 27 - No Soft Drink Trial

I've decided, at least temporarily, to go back to drinking soft drink after the trial has concluded. Other than that, no change: 3 days to go!

Day 25 - Sleep Cycle Trial

With this cycle, I actually get more done in the holidays, since I'm not sleeping as long. I'll probably keep this, except for days when it becomes inconvenient to do so.

Day 16 - Fruit Trial

No changes here.

Day 1 - Vegetarian Trial

The big reason for this update. Today, I began my vegetarian trial. I was going to wait for the No Soft Drink Trial to conclude, but didn't want to wait. So instead, I started early. I now have a heap of vegetarian food available. I have some not-burgers, some not-schnitzel, some vegetables, and some curry samosas with peas and corn in them. I had pasta, but I ate that for dinner.

I have a feeling this'll be my most challenging trial yet, but I'm gonna stick to it. I've stuck to the other ones, after all, and have four completed trials under my belt. The weirdest thing is though, most people don't learn. Most people still think I'm going to fail this trial: but they failed to notice how well their exercise, sleep cycle, blogging and no soft drink predictions turned out:) 30 days to success!

10 Ways To Find The Challenges In Your Own Life - Part 1

As a follow up to 5 Great Reasons To Go The Extra Mile, I've decided to write this post about finding the challenge in your life. It's not too hard, if you know where to look.

1. Do two things at once.

Figure out a menial task you have to do, that you've been putting off. With a little imagination, you can turn that into a challenge, if you add another simple task. Maybe you have to take out the garbage. Keep a balloon in the air the whole time you're doing it, right up until the bin liner's in. It seems juvenile, but the very act of challenging yourself constantly will make you resilient in the face of true challenges.

2. Do it faster.

If something's going to take longer than you'd like, do a speedrun. Don't want to tidy your room? Try tidying it in 5 minutes! In your mad dash to get everything done, you'll almost forget it's work! Plus, you'll get a lot more done in a day if you do this.

3. Go bigger.

If you have to do something, do it bigger than intended. Playing Chess? Try playing two games at once against two different people! Now THERE is a challenge! Unless you're playing someone better than you, which is a challenge in itself. (Although challenging them to play two games as well as you may throw them off...)

4. Step outside your comfort zone.

Doing something you've never done before is always harder than something equally challenging in a field that you have lots of experience at. Plus, a wide variety of experiences makes you a more well-rounded person. Although even fields in which you have a lot of experience in can be challenging if you take on a new type of challenge (For example, I had to write the words 'Cut off one of your legs' in this paragraph, under pain of death from my sister if I didn't. No kidding.)

5. Do it the hard way.

Do a task without using the easiest way possible. To do this is very easy. Think of a task. Think of the easiest way to do the task. Don't do it that way. That's a great way to condition yourself to challenges. If you do it the harder way, doing a difficult task the easy way will seem like a cakewalk.

That's all I have time for today. So join me tomorrow, when I give you ways 6-10 to find the challenges in your own life.

5 Great Reasons To Go The Extra Mile

Yesterday, I wrote that I was intending to do my Certificate IV in Web Design, a 12-month course, in just 6 months, with a combination of getting credit for my Cert III and taking some extra classes. Today, I'm going to explain why, and why going the extra mile is a good thing in the field of personal development.

1. It keeps it interesting.

One thing I noticed about the pace of TAFE was that it was so SLOW. It was so slow that I got bored, and actually didn't do as much work as I should have, and had to catch up in the end. Taking some extra classes should break up that monotony, by keeping it at a faster pace. I would hate to live a boring life, so I take pains to make my life more interesting. I'm almost never bored, because I keep thinking of ways to make my days more interesting and exciting.

2. Challenges are good.

If you don't challenge yourself, you aren't likely to do too well in the field of personal growth at first. The more you challenge yourself and triumph, the more you condition yourself to continue trying even when it's difficult. The challenge doesn't necessarily have to be in the category of personal growth. When's the last time you deliberately took on a task you didn't have to, purely for the challenge of it? I could name loads of challenges I make myself do.

• I challenge myself with video games. I take on difficult games, like I Wanna Be The Guy, or tackle other games on a harder difficulty setting, like Sonny 2. In Fire Emblem, I refuse to use certain tactics that take advantage of the AI's shortcomings, because I want to fight like I would fight a real opponent, not a programmed machine.
• I challenge myself with 30 day trials. I probably don't need to name these.
• I challenge myself to come up with new topics for blogging, and not rehash ideas from other sites.
• I challenge myself to come up with original decklists for Magic: The Gathering, and original openings for Chess.

The phrase 'But that's too easy!' comes from my mouth often. Yes, I COULD choose the easy route: but that simply isn't challenging enough to excite me.

3 . It improves your skills.

If you're taking on more challenging material and more challenging tasks than your peers, you'll accelerate faster, and learn more. I learn more about blogging good posts by thinking up original material than I would rehashing old stuff. Now if only I could apply those skills to generating TRAFFIC. Now there's a challenge!

4. It improves your productivity.

Put it this way: if I do something in 6 months that takes someone else 12 months, you're twice as productive. What are you gonna do with that extra 6 months? Find another challenge! There are lots of challenges out there. I might find another Cert IV to do, something that will help me achieve my goals. Life has so much stuff to do, you'll never be able to do it all.

5. You'll experience more.

By challenging myself to do more stuff, and do stuff quicker, I simply get MORE out of life. I experience more things, have more fun and move faster than most. Packing your day full of enjoyable challenges is far more fun than watching TV for 12 hours. Challenges are interactive: they get you to think and have fun and be active. Think of one of the most fun days you've ever had. Were you sitting on the couch watching TV? No: you were almost certainly doing lots of stuff, having fun, having lots of energy and interacting with lots of different experiences in the one day. It's the kind of day you slip into bed with a smile on your face at the end of no matter how tired you are.

Now what if every day could be a miniature verison of that? What if every day, you could experience new things and have lots of fun? Why wouldn't you do it? Some people might think that trying to do a qualification faster is sucking the fun out of life, but to me, it's MORE fun. I'm gonna have trouble finding a job though. A regular old boring job just won't suit me:)

So don't settle for a normal day when you could have an extraordinary day. Don't settle for a regular life: order a double! Enjoy it while you're here. If you only get X years, you may as well put more into them. If you can get 18 months worth of stuff done every year, it's like living to be 120. Of course, if you don't like life, I wouldn't recommend it. For those people I'd also recommend the post How To Be Happy.

Until next time, may you see the challenges in everyday life. (I was going to write "Until next time, may you go the extra mile." but that was too easy, so I made myself think of something a bit more challenging!)

Null Time: Time You Spend Doing Nothing At All

How much time in your day could you afford to lose, and still get the same amount done each day? For me, it'd be a reasonable amount. I'd say I could afford to lose 3 hours each day, and still maintain the same level of productivity. Those 3 hours are spent watching TV, playing video games, and surfing the web. Note that all leisure time isn't null time: null time is generally when you're doing something because you can't think of anything else to do.

So therefore, I have 3 hours of 'null' time each day, on average. Now, here's the thing about null time. If you replace null time with anything, it's better than nothing. For an example, let's take getting a job. If I were to get a job that took about 10-12 hours out of my week, if it were 3-4 hours a day for 3-4 days, that wouldn't be so bad. Getting a job wouldn't be a very good use of my time, but it'd be better than null time.

Getting rid of null time is something I've been steadily doing since I started personal growth. I estimate I probably had about 5 hours of null time per day last year: and that was with school. Although some of that null time probably should have been spent sleeping.

Null time isn't a blanket statement to circle everything that isn't the best use of your time. Null time is time that provides NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER. If you spend all day on a task that should only take 2 hours, is the extra time null time? Some would say yes, some would say no. Could you have completed the task in the 2 hours it takes most people? How long should it have taken you, working at the rate you do? Any leftover is null time.

I'd like to direct you here to the Law of Forced Efficiency (credit to www.stevepavlina.com for part of this) which basically states that if you have a certain amount of stuff that must get done, you will find a way to get it done. Hence why I intend to do that. The Certificate IV for Web Design is intended to take one year, instead of the six months I thought it would be. So because I can probably get credit for three months of the course thanks to my Certificate III, if I take some extra classes, reducing my null time, I should be able to graduate in six. I don't know what I'll do with the extra six months, but I'm confident I'll think of something.

So if you carry away nothing else from this post: carry away this: The best way to get rid of null time is to push yourself. If you don't push yourself to do anything, that's precisely what you'll do: nothing. And anything's better than nothing.

Until next time, may you do a little extra.

How To Accept Your Negative Emotions Without Being Overcome By Them

Some people think that in order to be happy, I must block out my negative emotions. This isn't true. In fact, negative emotions can be quite useful if you accept them, and their role in your life. Negative emotions are like feedback. If something is wrong, your negative emotions will tell you. The idea is to use those emotions to trigger changes in your life, without giving in to them. For example, if you're feeling angry towards someone, you obviously have some unresolved issues to work out. When you work them out, you'll be a lot happier. If you're scared of something, you know you need to face it. If you're terrified, you know you need to face it...someday. Just not today.

Once you accept your negative emotions and treat the causes of them, you'll find that you don't actually need to block them out: they'll stop coming unless they have a message for you. If you're trapped in a cycle of negative emotions, they've been trying to make you aware of your problems for some time. However, you need to break free of the cycle before you can treat it. How do you do that?

The key is people. If you hang out with positive people all day, you'll find that you'll start to break free of your negativity while barely even exerting effort! If you hang out with negative people, it'll take a heroic effort to break free, and you'll have to fight to stay at the new level. I know which one I'd prefer.

One thing I try to do with my mood is to make myself one of the positive people that people who want to improve their lives can hang around. If I can do that, I can be a direct influence on everybody I know. That's a good feeling. And thanks to the phenomenal power of Facebook, I can now help and inspire people I don't even know personally! My profile link is here. Feel free to add me as a friend: I accept any and all friend requests.

So what are the different negative emotions trying to tell you? This won't be correct all the time, no emotional frame can be, since everyone is different, but usually, these should be correct:

Guilt - There are two possibilities here. 1) You've done something bad, and haven't made amends for it. Perhaps you haven't told the person what you've done. You need to cleanse yourself of that act.

2) You're beating yourself up over something that had to be done, or you had no control over. You need to learn to forgive yourself, something I intend to write about in a future post. For now, simply accept that you need to forgive yourself. That will help.

Apathy - You're trying to escape something. Entering the negative emotions will seem like a step backward, but it's the only way to happiness. Confront what you're being numb to.

Fear - There's something you have to do. Figure out what it is you have to face, and face it.

Anger - There are two possibilities here. 1) You're feeling frustrated because you KNOW you can do better. You KNOW you can push harder, but you simply haven't made the leap yet.

2) You're on the wrong path. You're angry because on one level, you simply haven't made the commitment to the correct path yet. Knowing when you're on the wrong path is difficult, but usually you'll feel dread as well as anger when you're on the wrong path.

Note that you can experience negative emotions through dismissable stimuli, like thinking about them. I felt a twinge of dread just by writing the word 'dread', but I recognise it as false. PERSISTENT emotions are the ones you need to pay attention to, not something that's gone in 5 minutes.

So pay attention to your negativity: it's like a barometer for where to improve. Don't try to escape it: but don't let it take over your life either. Be strong.

Until next time, may you realise what your problem was all along.

3 Good Reasons Why 30 Day Trials Are Effective

I've written a reasonable amount on this topic, but it's scattered all about the blog. So I'll consolidate all the information in one place: why should you do 30-day trials as a means of personal growth?

1. They are definable.

Unlike many methods of personal growth, it's very easy to measure a good 30-day trial. Either you're succeeding, or you're not. Note that I'm using TRUE/FALSE trials. Either I'm succeeding, or I'm not. Either I eat two pieces of fruit, or I don't. Either I get to bed around 10:30, or I don't. Either I don't drink soft drink, or I drink it.

Many other methods of personal growth, you don't know if it's even working. With a 30-day trial, you know how well you're going.

2. They improve motivation, willpower and self-discipline.

As I've written about before, 30 day trials are an excellent way to build motivation, willpower and self-discipline. The differences between the three are:

Willpower: The initial sprint that allows you to lock in the first few days. When your will is iron, and you're pumped up to do something, that's willpower. It won't last for long though. So you need motivation and self-discipline. You can do a 3-day trial on willpower alone: not so a 30-day trial. There's a reason the 40 Hour Famine only lasts 40 hours. Incidentally, last time I tried it, a year or two ago, I failed. Today, I believe it would be an easy challenge for me.

Motivation: Your reason to do the trial. When things get tough, and you ask yourself why you're doing the challenge, you should be able to come up with a good answer. If not, you're not motivated. Try as you might, you can't motivate yourself to do something you don't believe in. Try motivating yourself in high school. Usually you'll subside on spurts of willpower, not motivation.

Self-Discipline: The endurance skill. This allows you to put your nose to the grindstone, and keep it there. When half of you wants to throw in the towel, and you're tired, and there's still a voice inside you that says 'Don't quit.' that's self-discipline. Unlike willpower, self-discipline is dependable and reliable: IF you train it up. If your self-discipline has atrophied, you need to build it up slowly before taking on bigger and harder challenges. Training my self-discipline is precisely what I've been doing with my trials.

3. They improve your capacity to grow.

Completing a trial improves your motivation, willpower, self-discipline...and confidence. The more you grow, the easier it becomes. If you can complete a 30-day trial, you have the inner strength to change every aspect of your life. It's empowering to complete one. It's empowering just to stay on the path after other people around you have failed: you know you have the strength to carry on. And when you have the strength, you pursue personal growth more. And with all the time you have to grow, rather than try to change everything overnight, why not try to build your self-discipline, willpower, motivation and confidence so that lesser problems just fall into place, unable to stand before your strength?

So 30-day trials are a strength booster, a confidence booster, and they improve your personal growth tools. What's not to like? People have complained that I talk too much about 30-day trials: but they're very effective (and at least I don't take up a third of every post with them anymore).

For more information on 30-day trials, I'd recommend What 30 Day Trial Is Right For You? and How To Succeed At 30-Day Trials.

Until next time, may you be on Day 10 and bask in the glory of getting past Day 7.

Minipost: Progress Report

Wow: it's been a week since I wrote a progress report! Amazing.

Day 22 - Breakfast Trial

Doing great. I've been eating a variety of breakfasts, from fruit to leftover chicken.

Day 22 - No Soft Drink Trial

Still a self-discipline challenge, but I'm nevertheless doing it.

Day 20 - Sleep Cycle Trial

No changes here.

Day 11 - Fruit Trial

I've still only been eating apples and bananas. I need to broaden my horizons and try new fruits. That's something to get to work on.

Well, the main part of this update is: in less than two weeks, I shall be starting my Vegetarian Trial: my biggest trial yet. I'll be doing it over the TAFE holidays, which may or may not make it any easier.

I need to start doing some research. If anyone can recommend a good Vegetarian 101 article or series of articles online? The main thing I'm wondering is what kind of foods I'm going to need to eat to make up for the lack of meat in my diet. Protein won't be a problem, but Vitamin C might. Amino acids should be fine IF I eat a variety: but I need to know how much variety. I'll be doing some searching myself over the next few days, but for the next couple of days I have a lot of work to do for TAFE.

I should also start a new trial, perhaps: or maybe I should start to transition into one big trial every 30 days rather than lots of littler trials. I'll have to do some thinking: my life is a burst of activity at the moment.

What 30-Day Trial Is Right For You?

Sorry for the lack of blog activity lately: I've been on a slow computer and motivation hasn't been as high as it usually is. I'll be back on my regular computer tomorrow, and I'll have some catching up to do.

Now, for today's topic, I'm going to be blogging about what 30-day trials are right for you, by taking you through a series of steps to help you choose one.

Step 1: Why?

Why do you want to do a 30-day trial in the first place? A 30-day trial isn't easy for many people, especially people who simply aren't used to testing their self-discipline. So if you don't have a good reason, you probably won't succeed. Now, please don't e-mail me asking if Reason X is a good one. It's if YOU think it's good. Something I consider stupid might inspire you, and something I think is a noble cause may make you think 'Eh'. It's up to you. The reason needs to be compelling to YOU AND YOU ALONE. Nobody else.

Step 2: Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit.

Next, we want to classify it into one of these four areas (possibly two).

Body is the physical. Diet, exercise, manual labor: anything that requires physical effort more than anything else, and has a physical effect.

Mind is mental. Things that improve your concentration, skills, knowledge or attitude. Anything from being more positive to learning Spanish can go hear. Mind trials change your thinking, and way of looking at the world.

Heart is emotional. It's your social and emotional intelligence. How connected you are to people, and how you feel about things belong in this part.

Spirit is the hardest to define. Essentially, the more closely aligned something is with your passion, purpose and beliefs, the more spiritual it is. Anything that helps your passion and purpose is Spirit. This blog is Spirit for me.

Once you've classified it, we can move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Results

While the focus should always be on the journey THROUGHOUT the trial, while picking the trial itself, imagining the results can be a good idea. This is being more specific about Step 1. Do you want to be smarter, happier, healthier, thinner, etc. What do you want to get out of it. Is it just a test of your willpower and discipline?

Step 4: Choose.

Now you want to choose a trial that is the path of least resistance to your goal. Want to be thinner? Go on a diet and exercise plan. Happier? Practice positivity techniques (and read How To Be Happy on this blog). The path of least resistance is usually moronically obvious once you think of it and you'll realise that's what you wanted all along.

Now that you've chosen a trial, you'll want to read How To Succeed At 30-Day Trials (featured on this blog) to move on to the step of taking on the trial, and hopefully winning. If you fail, just try again at Day 1, and don't give up. It can change your life. It's certainly changed mine. So now what are you waiting for? Figure out a trial, learn some tips to do it, and dive in.

Until next time, may you start your own Trial.

4 Ways To Break The Shackles That Bind You

1. Avoid drugs

I'm not just talking about illicit drugs here. Society's drugs of choice are alcohol and caffeine. Both of them cloud your thinking, not just when you consume them, either. I've been drunk, and I've been addicted to caffeine, and they have no productive use whatsoever. They dumb down your mind and suppress your willpower. And don't get me started on nicotine. The stupidity of anyone who willingly poisons their body with such chemicals like TAR is simply beyond me. And why? Because they get momentary pleasure from it? Don't be an idiot: don't suppress your problems with drugs. Face them.

2. Identify your distracting behaviours.

Substances aren't the only thing people use to numb themselves to their problems. People do other distracting things, like eat, or web surf or play video games or watch TV. None of these are bad, but when you use it to escape your worries rather than confront them, you lower your consciousness by not embracing the truth of your situation. Rather than try to deflect your worry, you should embrace and accept the feeling and confront what it is that's bothering you. Otherwise the cycle could continue for months, even years if not interrupted.

3. Learn to trust yourself.

One reason that some people fail to get anything done is because they don't trust themselves t0 do it. When I started the No Soft Drink trial, I thought I might not manage it: but I TRUSTED myself to give it my all, and I fought through the inevitable resistance rather than give into it. Because I promised myself I would. So many people discount this. It's probably far more important than you think. People joke about knowing they won't do something. TRUST YOURSELF TO DO IT. The only way to build trust is through experience. If a 30-day trial is too much for you, try a 3-day or 7-day trial to start building self trust. If you trust yourself enough, you'll succeed. (Incidentally, this is how I succeed in managing multiple trials when other people around me fail to do a single one. I trust myself.)

4. Be passionate about what you do.

The best way to break the shackles of apathy is to be passionate about what you attempt. Get your head and heart behind it so that you emotionally want to do it, AND logically know you should. If you are able to do this, it probably doesn't matter if you don't have much self-trust. It won't feel difficult at all to stick with something if you're behind it enough.

That's another advantage I have. I choose trials that I know will benefit me, and I also want to do them for the challenge of it and for the fact that I know each one improves my willpower, discipline, motivation,and self-trust.

So there you have it. If you keep your mind clear, consciously overcome what worries you, trust yourself utterly, and are passionate about what you do, then even the greatest challenges will seem trivial. And then you'll need to ask yourself: 'What do I say when people ask how you can do challenges that other people cannot?'

Until next time, may your obstacles shrink before you.

Note: I also completed my No TV Trial today: one that was described as masochistic by some, and one that no person other than me has yet said 'I could do that if I wanted to.' This in itself shows the power of my method, I would say.

5 Sources Of Negativity To Remove From Your Life

1. The news

One big source of negativity that many people plug into daily is the news. Most news programs have most of the program dedicated to deaths, injury, damage to property, and so on, with only a couple of minutes of 'feel good' news at the end of it. The next day, people gripe about all the negative portions of the news. What good does it do? If something's that important, you'll find out about it eventually.

2. Negative people

This is one of the hardest ones to eliminate, especially if some of the people who drag you down are close to you. Do a quick exercise: Write down the 3 most positive and 3 most negative people in your life. Then, once you've identified the negative, tell them. Tell them it's lowering your consciousness and unless they make an effort to be more positive, you can't associate with them anymore. It may cause some friendships to break, but it's worth it in the long run. Replace them with positive people.

3. Small annoyances

That lightbulb that flickers, or needs to be a bit brighter. That door that always squeaks. That chair that wobbles. These are things that never even make it onto a to-do list, but together they can certainly lower your mood. Set aside a day, or half a day, to deal with the annoyances. Oil the hinges, get better bulbs, prop up the chair, or fix the chair. You'd be surprised how much effect a few annoyances can have on your mood throughout the day.

4. Your own negativity

As you start removing the environmental negativity from your life, you need to focus on improving your own mind to become more positive. As I've talked about, you may not be able to choose your emotional response to every situation, but with hard work, you can change your emotional state: that is, the state you gravitate to in the absence of influences. Are you usually negative? If so, you need to change that or all the environmental changing will be for naught: but it will make it easier to make the shift to positive.

5. The negative areas

This one's the one that will probably take the longest, but will also have the greatest effect. If you're overweight, or don't have as many friends as you'd like, it's up to you to change it. If you don't feel good about your life, how can you make positivity your natural state? That's where personal growth comes in. Luckily, there are plenty of online resources to help you: this blog among them. A lot of the personal growth tips in it are about positivity. I would recommend reading How To Be Happy, located on the right side of the screen under 'Best of Grow In 30 Days'.

Once you've started work on all these areas you'll notice your positivity skyrocket. The more effort you put in, the more you'll get out. And the more positive you are, the more motivated you are to continue, and so on. Soon, you'll feel better than you have in years. All you need to do is make the commitment to expunge negativity, however long it takes.

Until next time, may you see all the good in your life.

Good Things Come To Those Who Fail - Part 2

Firstly, I've made the decision to not do a progress report unless I actually have something to say. Which I don't.

Now, let's get right into today's post!

Previously, I talked about how terrible my first blog was, and how through learning techniques and skills, I was able to make a better blog (This one). Today I'm going to talk about how you can learn by failing.

The simplest technique to failure is to simply go out and do it. If you want to become a blogger you could become a mediocre blogger within the hour. Go to www.blogger.com, sign up, and then write a post about whatever. It's not hard. So how can I write a whole blog post about this? Because a lot of people have a number of lame excuses that prevent them from even trying: so we'll work on dissolving those today.

Procrastination

Procrastination is your way of saying 'I don't think this task is important enough to do right now.' So what you need to ask is 'If I want this so badly, why is it not important?' If you come up with enough good reasons not to procrastinate, you'll probably be motivated enough to start. Then, do a 30-day trial to blog / write / sing / speak / whatever else every day. If you can't make 30 days, it's not looking good for you. Do you REALLY want this? If you do, you'll get off your ass and do it.

I Suck, Why Even Try?

Let's pretend for a moment that you DO suck as badly as you think you do. How will sitting around moping make it any better? The only way you can get better is to get experience! Whether that be reading about the topic, getting someone to mentor you, or practical experience, it's the only way you can progress past the 'sucky' phase and into the 'getting better' phase. Where will you be next year? If I started something I was passionate about now, I wouldn't be in Sucktown a year later, that's for sure.

Almost Nobody Makes A Living Off This.

Success in most fields with a low barrier to entry like singing or blogging is not based on a coin flip: it's based on hard work and dedication. When people say 'I only have an X% chance of making it' it means 'Only X% of people have the dedication to succeed'. If you're not one of those X%, ask yourself: do you INTEND to make a living off this eventually, or is it just a hobby? If you want to make a living off it and you're willing to put in the work that the X% do, you're in luck. If not: well then. Pick another method of making a living buddy: if you don't do the work you won't get the reward. Tough.

I Don't Know How

Okay. You don't know how to start a blog, or write a song. Fair enough, right? I mean, it's not like people can learn of readily available, even free, sources nowadays. I mean, the Internet's not about the fair exchange of information or anything. Sarcasm ends here. What if someone offered you a million dollars to make a halfway decent song or blog in a month? All of a sudden, lack of knowledge doesn't matter. It's all about DOING it. You'll be willing to learn it. If you want it enough, you'll do the research. Do you want it enough?

So by now, you probably see a pattern. He/she who wants something enough will find a way to achieve it, and he/she who does not will fall by the wayside. So ask yourself: do YOU want it that badly?

Until next time, may you have no doubt as to what you want.

NB: This post was written in a harsher tone than many of my posts. Some people respond better to being riled up than to coddling. I'll return to my usual tone tomorrow, but will occasionally deviate to do these kinds of posts.