Photo by Go Climb A Rock

Many of us who choose to pursue personal growth have “be more successful” or some such derivative, down as one of their chosen objectives for the future. For years I myself had “success” down as one of my guiding values in life. Despite holding myself to this value as best I could, I never really felt I was making headway…

In addition, a lot of people use the broad labels of “successful” and “not successful” in reference to themselves or others, without ever having a clear definition of what success is.

To many people, the concept of success is very much like that of enlightenment - it sounds fantastic; is something obtained at cost by a fortunate few; and is something we all feel we should want, but don’t really understand fully.

Don’t get me wrong… The pursuit of success - a commitment to excellence, and to achieving the things you have set out do to - is a noble aim, and is a path that we should all try to follow in a conscious way. However, by changing the way you view success, it stops being a dream that you hope to achieve in the future, and becomes something amazing you can experience now, and every day henceforth.

Success and Social Conditioning

Most of our common definitions of success are handed to us by society - by the people around us and the prevailing social culture and values. Success might be having a great looking partner; success might be having a lovely place to live; success might be having lots of money - we all have our own criteria that we use to define this most nebulous of concepts. Sadly, the one of the main themes in people’s understanding of success is that “success” means having more of something than most other people - be it money, confidence, results or possessions.

If you take some time to dig beneath the surface of how most people understand success, you begin to find out more about what success really means. Most definitions that people hold to are not “success” or “successful” in and of themselves - they are all just situations.

Situations are combinations of circumstances - the aggregate of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors acting on an individual or group. A situation is exactly the same for all the people observing it - it’s a tangible, measurable event.

What happens with most of us, me included, is that we turn a situation into a definition of success by comparing that situation to one that is more or less desirable. If the comparison is positive, we see our situation as successful - negative, and it’s unsuccessful.

Social conditioning has most of us believing that success is all about the positive or negative comparison of situations, which is ultimately about “having” - if you “have” a more positive situation than others, you are “successful”. If other people “have” more than you, then they are deemed “successful”.

Success as an Experience

As we start to cut through the social haze around how we define success, it becomes clearer that success is about the perceived intrinsic value of situations, belongings and people - it is not the extrinsic value, as viewed from the outside. Therefore, how you view success, and whether you feel you are successful or not is completely dependent on your unique point of view - the positive or negative comparison from your perspective. When you consider your comparison subjectively, real feelings of success are directly related to the experience of having these things, and is in no way determined by the value of the things themselves.

This is the key to changing the way we think:

If we define success as an experience - not a situation - then it becomes possible to start succeeding much more easily.

We all experience things every single day; some are simply existing behavioral patterns replaying themselves over and over; some are new things that have only just begun. Though you can’t magically change the things that you “have” - money doesn’t appear from nowhere, new possessions don’t just spring from the ground - you can very easily change what you’re experiencing, simply by changing your point of view.

Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.-
Obi Wan Kenobi

Success Mastery

Success Mastery is about changing the way you define success - changing the way you see things, and what you do, in order to feel more successful every single day - genuine success then comes from living your life the way you wish to, to the best of your abilities - and not from simply having lots of cool “stuff”.

Over the coming few weeks, I am going to be sharing a number of different strategies and techniques for helping you feel more successful. In the meantime, to help you get started straight away with this technique, you first need to work on your point of view.

The initial major change to make is the way you see the things going on in your life - ideally, the actions and activities you engage in daily will enable you to feel successful.

True success comes from living your life the way you want to, and from expressing the best of yourself.

If the things you’re doing at the moment don’t give you any margin for experiencing success, then starting thinking about the things you could be doing - the small changes that you could make, which will help you feel successful.

• Are you polite and courteous to the people around you? Well done! You’re a success!
• Are you as organized as you need to be in your life? Congratulations, you’re a success!
• Do you enjoy quality time with friends and family? Wow, you’re a success!
• Are you in a good relationship? Hallelujah, you’re a success!
• Could you eat a little better? That would make you a success!
• What about if you gave blood? You would be a success!
• Are you happy with the way you look? Damn, you’re a super-hot success!

Not only is this change surprisingly easy once you get started, it can even be fun! Spend some time going through all the areas of your life - look at all the things you currently do, and all the small but meaningful changes you could make - and see what you can start feeling successful about!

Here are some areas where you could experiment with changing your perspective, and start experiencing more success:

• Your Blog - Do you see blogging success as being in the Technorati Top 100? Or enjoying a steady stream of AdSense income? Why not see success as running a useful blog, with regularly updated content that offers something of value to people?
• Your health - Do you imagine health-success as being a muscle-bound Adonis? Or maybe a slinky sylph-like siren? Try a different definition - being healthy enough to keep up with your kids; eating a bit better every day; choosing positive hobbies to keep fit.
• Your Job - Is your “success” measured annually in your hoped-for payrise? Would you be better off seeing success as being part of keeping the company running? As a facilitator for the success for the business as a whole?
• Your Family - Is the “success” of your family measured by the size of your house, or your choice of holiday destination? Or is it by the happiness and well-being of the people in it?
• Your Purpose - Is your life purpose only going to be successful in years to come? Why not feel incredible about living it now? Trust me, even knowing it is quite an accomplishment!

The power of this approach lies in it’s simplicity and ease-of-use, and the fact that it can bring about great changes in life experience, almost as soon as you start trying.

If there are areas in your life where you are putting in the effort, but aren’t getting the results you think you should - try changing your perspective, to see if you can find a new path of success for yourself.

Make sure to check back soon for some exciting new strategies to help you feel abundant and successful now.

Photo by iboy_daniel

I love to read. I love to watch sci-fi TV shows. I love to make Impossible Bottles.

We all have hobbies that we spend our time pursuing, and which are intended to bring some relief, respite or recreation into our lives. There are as many weird and wonderful hobbies out there to try, as there are people to try them. I think it’s an important part of our individuality to have hobbies that we enjoy and that help define us in some small measure.

I believe that having hobbies that we enjoy is a great thing - I also believe that not all hobbies are created equal.

Hobbies that Harm

While the vast majority of hobbies are relaxing, fun and occasionally frivolous - there are some hobbies that have negative effects on us, or on the people around us (I am not judging any particular hobbies, nor those people who indulge in them - this article is here as food for thought).

Although harm is quite a strong term, I am not implying a physical kind of harm or injury - I am merely using the term to illustrate hobbies that have an adverse effect on our lives.

Hobbies that harm might be those that take up an unnecessarily large amount of time or resources, or which cost a great deal of money for little apparent enjoyment.

Characteristics of Hobbies that harm:

• They take up a great deal of time, when your time is limited
• They cost a lot of money, in relation to the enjoyment gained
• After spending time on your hobby, you feel exhausted or negative, not happy
• Your partner feels that your hobby is negative or a waste of time
• Your hobby brings you no appreciable benefits
• It has negative impact on people around you, or the environment
• They encourage an unhealthy level of competition with yourself or others

Hobbies that Heal

These are the positive hobbies, the ones you really love - they may still cost a great deal of time or money, but they are more than worth it. They leave you feeling relaxed, rejuvenated, exhilarated - whatever state you were hoping for, they help you achieve it.

A hobbies positive value is not intrinsic to the value of the hobby activity itself - It’s positive impact is related to how it makes you feel.

Hiking might leave you feeling exhilarated. Reading might leave you feeling relaxed. Team games might improve your sense of camaraderie and belonging. The very best hobbies leave you feeling in a state of joy.

Characteristics of Hobbies that heal:

• It engages you, stimulates or motivates you
• It leaves you feeling happy and relaxed
• Any costs incurred are deemed to be worthwhile
• It’s creative, imaginative or mentally stimulating
• It makes you feel happy
• It encourages healthy competition
• It brings you to a state of joy

Evaluating your Hobbies

Not many people give conscious thought to their hobbies, and to the time you spend on them - I think it is a crucial step towards getting more out of your time, and more out of your hobbies.

My recommendation is to write a simple list of all the activities you have in your life that you like to spend time on - no matter how bizarre or socially acceptable they are - and for each activity, try to guess-timate how much time you spend on that hobby every day, or every week.

Once you have a clear perception of how many hobbies you have, and what time costs they have, you are in a position to begin evaluating them consciously. As you next go to spend a little time on one of your hobbies, take a few moments to ask yourself these few questions:

1. Why do I want to do this activity?
2. What benefits does it bring to me?
3. How does this hobby make me feel?
4. What does this hobby cost me?
5. How does this affect other people?
6. Is there anything I could do which might have the same effect?

Once you have consciously considered these questions, you will have a clearer idea about why you are drawn to that hobby, how it will make you feel and what impact it is has on you. This information can help you decide whether you want to give up or continue; whether you can do something better or more interesting; whether this hobby is a positive or negative influence upon you.

Whatever you decide to do with the particular hobby you’re considering, you’re deciding from a more conscious, more aware perspective - which will help you make the right choice over how you spend your hobby time.

If you have any particular hobbies that you enjoy, or are not enjoying and still doing - Please share them in the comments. I love discovering new things to try, and your story might help encourage others to start new hobbies, or to bin old ones.