Way back in my second post on this site I said I was thinking about getting my own domain. I’ve now taken that step.

The new domain will be a big project and more directly useful for you. It will still be about me to an extent, but I will be more of a case study you can follow among other advice.

I’d like to thank everyone who is involved in wordpress.com as this is a fantastic service. It made me confident that wordpress was the right platform. For anyone thinking of getting their own domain, the wordpress platform (over at wordpress.org) is practically identical to the free hosting at wordpress.com

The new site is a bit basic at the moment. I’ve had to take a step backwards before I can take some leaps forward. That’s okay though. You should never be afraid of backtracking, especially if you find yourself at a dead end. In my case I saw the dead end a few months ahead, so I’m trying to save myself some work.

So, that said, take that step backwards with me now, and hop on over to improvehuman.com/blog

For the first time since I began meditating, life got in the way enough that I couldn’t meditate properly. Around 5pm yesterday I was a passenger in the back seat of my cousin’s car, and the conversation had died down. Rather than wait for an hour or so before I got home, I decided to take this opportunity and meditate there and then.

Obviously meditating in a car is not ideal, but it is certainly possible. There are many more distractions, and I obviously cannot achieve a meditating posture, but it is still practice and most of all it made sure I continued to build meditating as a habit.

Although I’ve cut a couple of meditating sessions short, and I’ve run late for a few, I haven’t missed one session this whole month. And since there are less than 2 days remaining this month, I think I can safetly say I’ve installed it effectively as a habit.

Here is a thought experiment for you to try.

You may have heard some people talk about how they view life as a game. How each challenge is just another obstacle to overcome in the quest to get to the next level. I even once heard the concept of things like healthy food and sleep being like power-ups! And bad food being the opposite of power-ups (power-downs?). It is an interesting perspective and I often use it as a motivator.

I was recently inspired by Steve Pavlina to take the computer game analogy to a new level. Recently he has been exploring the belief of life being a subjective reality. In this subjective reality we are all one conscious and reality is controlled by our our thoughts.

To explains this, he draws an analogy to computer games:

Imagine a first-person video game with an on-screen avatar that you control. You can move it around and interact with other characters in the game world. In an objective reality, you perceive that character to be you. You identify with it. Everything else within the game world is therefore “not you.”

As soon as I read this, I tried imagining my body was just a character that I had inhabited “as a means of influencing the game world and helping to make changes within it”.

This perspective was very, very strange. I was able to briefly disconnect from my body and truely see it as separate from my identity.

Possibly this was an out of body experience, but I’m not sure. It’s not like I could see myself float out of my body; but that makes sense because my eyes are part of my body. But then I didn’t go blind either.

What’s the best way of explaining it?

Imagine life is normally viewed as if you are playing a character in a game. You associate yourself with that character so much that you don’t think about the fact that you are a separate person playing a game. Or if you are reading a book, you associate yourself with the main protagonist; you don’t constantly remain detached and think of yourself as being someone reading a book. But this awareness doesn’t mean you can sense any more of the game or story world. You still have to play by the rules. At least until you find find the cheat book!

If you are playing a real game, or reading a book, this awareness is often accompanied by new insights. You become aware of things outside the game such as your hunger, thirst or the fact that the phone is ringing. In this thought experiment, I also found myself becoming aware of more. Apart from feeling strange, it actually provided some benefit. First of all I was able to view myself more objectively. But more interestingly I felt my negative emotions drain away. They just weren’t possible from this perspective. Positive emotions were not possible either. I guess it was some kind of mild bliss-state, but it is difficult to explain.

I’ve only been able to hold it for a few seconds at a time so far, so I’ll give it some more practice and perhaps I’ll understand these side effects a bit more.

Give it a go yourself, and see if you can experience the same effect.

A quick update on my fitness progression. I’m now at 13 stone (or 182 lbs). That’s a total gain of 34 lbs now, so 3 more lbs doesn’t look too difficult at all. When I reach 185 I’ll put pictures up.

At 6′3″ 185 lbs is actually still rather skinny, so don’t expect me to look amazing, yet.

But compare me with my original 148 lbs and I promise I look quite different.

I just watched a quick video on You Tube about evolution of the eye. I’m always drawn to the comments below these videos, possibly because I find it fascinating how pointless they usually are. Due to the lack of monitoring of the comments they usually quickly turn into an extremely heated debate.

Debates are wonderful things. They show the human mind at it’s best. Unfortunately debates also show us at our worst.

There are many ingredients required for a worthwhile debate, but I think I may have just spotted the number one reason most debates are pointless.

Seeking the truth (which should be the primary aim of a debate) takes time. In some cases a LOT of time.

Most debates I witness are constrained in someway by time, and so they never get resolved. If we are going to make maximum progress we need to keep debating with the same people over and over again, not have the same debates with many people.

Focus your debating time on a select few people and you will actually make some progress.

My eyes were shut tight, my teeth clenched, my body stiff, my heart racing. I forced myself as far into the corner as possible, screwing myself into a trembling ball. I was hot and sweating with fear, and I had nowhere to hide. I was cornered, and I knew hiding under my desk would not save me.

I could do was hope. 9 out of 10 times that hope came through, but it didn’t feel like it was going to this time. I listened as the footsteps climbed the stairs towards my room. I tried to will them with my mind to turn right and not left. I knew this was useless but I tried anyway. What did I have to lose from trying?

My ears were stretching to hear even though I had covered them. Then I heard a distant knock. I heard my brother’s door open, and then my father’s words : “Phone call for you”

As soon as I realised it was not for me, a calmness flowed through me. I pulled myself from under the desk, took a deep breath and looked into the mirror.

I shook my head.

And I told myself this had to stop. My social paranoia was becoming extreme. I had to sort it out.

It was ridiculous. I knew it would just be one of my friends calling me to play computer games or something. Why was I so afraid of these situations; why did I have these panic attacks?

At that point, I didn’t really know the reasons; but I was aware of one thing. If I didn’t get it under control, if I didn’t fight through that fear, it would hold me back for the rest of my life.

I knew very well that I couldn’t trust myself to face my fear in the short term, so I committed to taking on challenges down the line. I decided to go to college and make new friends rather than stay at school, I took a job in a shop which would involve dealing with strangers, I decided to go to university where I knew I would be stretched socially, I decided to join a drama group and eventually took on the roll of running the group, and I decided to direct a film which would force me to become a leader. I made these decisions, and I forced myself to meet these challenges.

10 years have passed since I used to hide under the desk out of fear of the phone. I’ve come a long way. Without fear I’ve now stood in front of a crowd a hundred strong with enough confidence to make them laugh.

I’ve faced my fears, and step by step I’ve become stronger.

However, reading a post over at Creating Passionate Users I was reminded I still have some distance left to travel. Most of all I still fear going out on my own and starting conversations with strangers – the small talk thing I just cannot do.

Which is why I’m planning (when I have the funds together) to go on a journey around the world to challenge my remaining fears and build my confidence strong. It will be the final stage of a decade long fight with my social fear.

Thankfully I was not prepared to sit back and let my weaknesses control me.

If you saw someone in desperate need of help, would you offer your assistance? Imagine that person was slowly killing themselves or ruining their life in such a drastic way that they may as well be dead. Someone who is becoming a criminal. Someone who can’t get off the drink or drugs. Or maybe someone on the streets. If you could help these people turn their lives around, would you do it?

I know I wouldn’t.

That’s a difficult thing to admit, but I can’t really deny it. As much as I would like to think I would change someone’s life, the evidence is that I just ignore these people. This has been bothering me for some time. It has been nagging at the back of my mind, that I would like to do more and give more, but I don’t. I definitely have strong plans to do so in the future, but it has bothered me that I can’t do anything now.

It is in fact true that I can’t do anything on this scale now. I’m still trying to establish my own independence, and if I tried to pull someone out of the gutter now, I’d probably get dragged towards there myself. When trying to be selfless, it’s important to remember to be selfish as well. The more we look after number one, the more power we develop to help others.

But if I’m really being honest with myself, my current situation isn’t really holding me back. There’s nothing really stopping me from doing a lot more than I do right now.

Nothing except me.

But rather than beat myself up about the fact that my personality is far from perfect, I can use that realisation to start making changes.

I’ll begin small, and build.

Have you ever had days where you wanted to do something on the spare of the moment, but you couldn’t because you were stuck at work?

This happens a lot during the summer. Your friends invite you to the beach, but you’re so far behind with work that you have to decline. Else, you accept and spend the whole time worrying about not working.

Many of us want to live spontaneously, but that kind of attitude normally leads to the complete opposite. When you abandon your responsibilites, you soon run out of important things such as money. If you enjoy life now and worry about it later, you will pay for it down the line. Short term rewards lead to long term punishments.

Being rigid is the opposite approach. But while this can lead to success in some aspects of life (usually lots of money), you loose so much freedom that money is hardly worth it. You may have a plasma screen, but who cares if you don’t ever have time to watch it?

The solution is found somewhere in the middle. You need to work hard now in order to reap the benefits later. This calls for lots of discipline because you have to know when you can afford to take time off and when you can’t. If you want to have guilt free spontanity, you must be rigid and disciplined most of the time.

One of the things I’m currently working on is getting ahead enough on my work so that I can decide, at a moment’s notice, to stop and take a week off. So while other people have to plan their holidays week’s in advance, I want to be able to take a break on a whim.

One of the biggest reasons a new habit fails to stick is all the excuses. These can actually be legitimate, but even legitimate excuses can be combated. The trick is to predict them and work out solutions in advance.

I’ve found that since creating my early rising challenge, other new challenges are a lot easier. So far I’ve carried out my meditation twice a day without fail. I’ve been a bit off with timing a couple of times, so I need to work on that, but I’m still doing pretty well.

However, it’s only been eight days, and after the first week habit forming tends to get more difficult. It’s easy to slack off at this point, so the next week will probably be the biggest challenge. Keeping the focus for a month is the key, and to do so we have to make sure we are ready for the excuses.

This is why I predicted the following likely excuses, and have prepared solutions to combat them:

Stress

Many take up meditation to help calm them during stressful times. Yet it is precisely during these times that we often lack time, and so let meditation slip. It is important to realise that meditation will help you see your stresses with a clearer head and allow you to deal with them more effectively. Trying to rush around when we have a lot to think about, can actually slow us down. Breaks are always important, and meditation is probably the best break there is. In stressful times you will actually cost yourself time by not meditating.

Appointments

Time also interferes when we have lots of appointments that we must meet. Ideally you would make appointments for times when you don’t meditate, but this may not always be possible. I take pride in being on time for appointments so I would not turn up late in order to meditate.

One possible solution would be to fit in a shortened meditation. Maybe just a minute or so. While this perhaps won’t be that beneficial it will make sure I keep the habit ingrained.

A better solution would be to look for places where you can get some kind of meditation in – even if it isn’t ideal. For example, if I have a dentist appointment I can meditate in the waiting room, if I’m on a flight I can meditate in the plane, if I’m on a long car journey I can pull over and take a few minutes to meditate in the car.

One I’m particularly looking forward to doing is if I’m with a friend, I may ask if they mind me finding an empty room and taking a few minutes to meditate. I’m sure some people will think this strange, but who cares? You will be revealing something about your personality that a lot of people will admire and start to identify you with.If you’re confident enough, you can even encourage others to join in.

Forgetting

The other major excuse is that I simply forget. This has actually happened and so I ended up meditating a bit late. I didn’t foresee this one, but I can stop it happening in the future. One step I’ve taken is to run through a guided visualisation of the moment where I should be meditating (right after I finish revising). This should be enough, but I’ve also added a safeguard and written a note inside my revision book. There’s no way I can forget now.

I’m bound to come up with more excuses, but I think I’ve got a handle on the major ones.

I have a new article posted on my main site. This one describes a method for improving your visualization skills. Although I cannot always achieve this, on occassion I can close my eyes and see images from my imagination that look totally real. The method I used to achieve this is outlined in the article. You can read it here

Thankfully I’ve never become addicted to anything serious like drugs, alcohol or street racing. But I have been addicted to more boring things like television, radio, email… and now RSS feeds have rekindled my Internet addiction.

So as I’m interesting in where my addiction will be displaced to next, I’ve decided to deal with my Internet addiction.

So how does one do that?

Usually with an addiction I would just give it up cold turkey. By completely giving something up for a month, you break the habits and false yourself to find other ways of behaving.

But I need the Internet. I don’t mean that in some kind of addicts I ‘need’ one last hit, kinda way. I actually do need it for work. Eventually I’d like to try giving it up for a month, to force me to communicate in other ways, but it’s really not a good idea at the moment.

So instead I’m giving it up in the mornings.

Except on very odd occasions where I have something urgent to complete, the Internet is not needed in the mornings. I can do research, check email, publish what I’ve written and so on, all in the afternoon. That leaves me to concentrate on writing in the morning.

So I’ve been experimenting with this. I’m still sitting at the computer, with the connection to the Internet still live, and only a click away from opening up the Firefox browser. But I’m being really good and resisting the urge to go hit the Internet waves.

And there certainly is an urge. In fact I’m getting withdrawal symptoms. There are moments lasting 10/15 minutes where I’m not getting any work done because I’m convincing myself not to surf the Internet!

In these early days I’m full of excuses for why I ‘need’ to use the Internet (and now I do mean an addict’s need). A couple of situations are legitimate, but I have to be really careful about what I convince myself is important enough to bend the ‘no morning’ rule and what is not. Therefore if I decide that I need to use the Internet, I make sure I spend ten minutes trying to convince myself otherwise.

For the few hours this probably slowed me down quite considerably, but it’s already starting to pay back in productivity. I’m getting much more work done in the morning. In fact I’m generally finishing more in the morning than I used to in a whole day!

So far a big success then!

The biggest challenge to my sleeping schedule since I completed my sleep challenge is upon me. The second series of ‘Lost’ is about to hit UK televisions everywhere and usually I would be hooked. But instead of watching it, I’m heading off to bed.

Thanks to the old video recorder I can avoid disrupting my sleep schedule, watch it at my convenience and skip over the adverts.

The only sacrifice is I have to wait an extra day to find out what happens next. But you know what, the knowledge that tomorrow I can get up early, be wide awake, and get lots of productive things done, really makes it a no brainer.

Just nobody tell me what happens, okay?

As I said a couple of days ago, there are several types of meditation. For clarity here, I’m going to divide them into just two:

• meditation that helps you think more
• meditation that helps you think less

These categorisations aren’t perfect, but I’ll roll with it for now.

The first type is often known as visualisation and takes many different forms. This type of meditation usually has some kind of goal attached to it, and can be brilliantly effective. Today, however, I’m concerned with the other type of meditation. The type that helps you think less.

Basically the idea is to develop a pinpoint focus on one thing (such as your breath, an object or a mantra) and to clear your mind of all other thoughts. I know this is incredibly beneficial because I’ve carried out the procedure numerous times in the past. However, I’ve never successfully made it a habit, and it is when it is a habit that it will be most beneficial.

Procedure

There are many different ways of doing this, but I’m going to stick to one where I focus on my breath. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the different methods, but as with so many things it’s usually best to just pick one (even if randomly) and try it out. I’m going to stick to this for one month, and then decide if I want to change things.

The first step is to find a comfortable sitting position with a good posture. Many postures like the Lotus can take a while for the body to comfortably acclimatise to, and this can be distracting for the meditation, so I find it’s best to stay out of those postures until you can do them easily.

The main meditation postures can be found here. My posture of choice is the Burmese Pose which is described on that page. I find I can sit in this position quite comfortably for a good length of time which makes it ideal. I can get into the full lotus, but at the moment I can’t stay there long enough because I lack the flexibility.

If you find it difficult to stay still and concentrate, many people find Asana Yoga to be easier. Asana Yoga still trains the concentration, but the body is moving as well. I found this helped when I was getting started. But, as with many things, the best choice is usually individual.

The second step is very easy to describe and understand, but difficult to perform. I’ve personally chosen to focus on my breath. The idea is to focus only on the breath and nothing else. If a stray thought appears, you acknowledge it and then naturally return to thinking about the breath. This can be more difficult than it sounds – even if it sounds difficult! In this meditation the idea is not to try and control the breath, just to observe. As you become conscious of subtle changes in your body and breath, you will naturally make subtle changes to how you breathe without even realising it. These changes then spill out into your everyday life.

There are, of course, many more benefits of meditation. I shall no doubt get into these benefits in the weeks and months ahead.

For the past 56 weeks I’ve been trying to put on weight.

I’m naturally very thin and very tall, which is not the best combination. Last year I decided once again to rectify this situation and put on some muscle. After a year, I’ve been surprisingly successful!

So far I’ve managed to put on 32 lbs. I started out weighing 148lbs at 6′ 3″ and today I’m 180lbs at… um 6′ 3″

Being so tall, 180 lbs is still pretty thin, but I don’t look ill like I used to. (At some point I’ll post some before-pictures and you will see what I mean.)

The goal I set 56 weeks ago was to reach 185lbs, and I’m really pleased with myself for getting so close. When I do reach it I’ll probably take a break and maintain over the summer before continuing for another 15lbs over the winter. I’m not really sure what my final weight should be, but I’m hoping it’s 200lbs because of it being a nice round number!

Sundays are my day for updating my stats, so expect me to post measurements on a weekly basis from now on. Here are this week’s:

On the 1st May my plan is to start a new habit. The habit is meditation; something I’ve unsucessfully tried to intall as a habit several times. I’ve successfully mediated in the past, but I just haven’t made it a habit.

The plan is to meditate twice a day for 30 days. 10 minutes is the minimum amount of time I will spend on each meditation.

I need to work out the best times. I’ve been working on improving my morning ritual over the past few days with great success. Somewhere I need to fit in 10 minutes of meditation; but where is best?

Do I do it as soon as I wake up?

After my revision?

Just before my shower?

Just after my shower?

I’m not sure what the best time will actually be, but rather than think about it too heavily I’m just going to follow my instinct and do it straight after revision. I can always change my mind later, but that feels right.

Now what about the evening?

My evening is less structured than my morning so it could be more difficult. Generally at the moment I am working out at about 6pm. Dinner is usually after 7pm, but is often later than 8pm. I can’t do it just before dinner, as it will be too difficult to get the timing right. My thinking is to do it around 5pm. I want to remain a bit flexible so that I can do it as soon as I finish my work. This will allow me to go straight from meditation to working out. I’m not sure if that is the best order, but I can always switch it around later if need be.

So:

• at least 10 minutes of meditation in the morning straight after revision.
• Around 5pm, at least another 10 minutes of meditation.

There are different types of meditation and tomorrow I will explain which one I’m going to do and my exact procedure.

I absolutely love the 2005 film Batman Begins. When I watch it, I feel like taking on the world and making a difference. It’s not just the desire of dressing up as a bat and driving around in the coolest car ever, I actually feel like doing the hard graft as well.

Honestly, when I watch that film, I feel willing to work hard and suffer in order to do something good. I just feel incredibly motivated.

So what do I do with that motivation?

I let it burn up inside me while I sit on my comfy sofa and enjoy the rest of the film. Luckily the motivation is still there when the film ends… but then what am I going to do with it at at 9 or 10pm. When the film ends, I’m usually pumped enough to have trouble getting to sleep and that’s about it. By time morning comes that motivation has sizzled away.

If only I could bottle it…

I considered for a while watching motivating films in the morning to get my day off to a good start (ala yesterdays post), but it’s a bit time consuming to do that, and I’d probably end up watching movies all day while I tried to find something really inspiring. I’m willing to use that strategy in emergency situations, but really I want to be able to motivate myself. No outside cues should be needed. I should be able to tell myself to be motivated and I would be.

And actually I’m getting pretty good at doing just that.

Earlier today I was proof-reading some work, and I was getting a bit fed up. I was considering taking a break, not because I needed one, but because I wanted one. I’d been working really hard all day, so this wouldn’t really have been a problem. But I wanted to see if I could push myself.

One trick I use is to tell myself to work for 5 more minutes, or get to the end of a section, but it always feels like I’m forcing myself to do something when I do that. When I force myself, I generally don’t stay disciplined for long.

So instead I imagined I was Batman!

I’m good enough at acting to at least fool myself into believing I am a character, and so I just pretended I was Batman as I continued my work. This really doesn’t take much in the way of acting skills, but it may take a bit of practice if you really want to suspend your disbelief.

As Batman I easily had enough discipline to continue my work until completion. After all, proof reading some of my writing was a holiday compared to cleaning up the crime of Gotham City.

Only a short while ago I trained myself to get up at 6:30am every day (yes even Sundays). While doing so, I didn’t want to give myself any reason to not get up when I asked myself to, so I made sure I started the day doing something I really enjoyed. In my case this was checking my RSS feeds for fascinating new posts and articles.

While there is a lot of good reading in those RSS feeds, I tend to read more than necessary if I start at the beginning of the day. They’re a tad addictive

Now that I’ve got the habit of getting up early down, I’ve now forming the habit of starting the day in a more productive manner. So within ten minutes of my alarm going off, I’m now revising.

The absolutely wonderful benefit of this is that once I’m in work mode I tend to stay there. Sure, it’s pretty easy to slack off, but not as hard as starting something in the first place. So just making a small improvement in the morning has actually improved my entire day. It used to be that I repeatedly slacked off from my work in order to surf the net. I’m not doing that anymore; or at least not nearly as much. Consequently I’m finishing work early and having completly free evenings. (I used to work until bedtime.)

Try it for yourself. Form the habit of starting the day perfectly by making a plan and starting every day in the same way for 30 days in a row.

Start the day as you mean to go on.

I thought it makes sense to announce new articles on the main site here.

I’ve just posted an article on…

The 6 Key Step to Achieving Mastery in Anything

Enjoy

Without doubt, self discipline is still the biggest thing holding me back. I’m constantly making improvements and I’m a lot better than I was, but there are still major weaknesses present.

Previously I’ve made solid improvements by taking something such as email or television and restricting my use of it for a period of time such as a week or a month. This has worked very well.

That method has some weaknesses, however, which is that I tend to replace that activity with something else. I may not be watching television anymore, but I’m aimlessly surfing the web instead. I’m displacing my lack of discipline; rather than solving it. It’s an improvement, but it’s still far from perfect.

So I’m now trying a different strategy. I’m focusing on improving my day hour by hour. It’s too much to just tell myself I’m going to be more disciplined throughout the day. That would make a dramatic shift in my life, and I wouldn’t deal with the change efficiently. But if I just focus on part of my day, and make it a priority to improve, I know I can happily go back to my old habits for the rest of the day.

This seems to be working well. So far I’ve managed to reguarly wake up at 6:30am every morning, get breakfast and then revise. The revision bit is what I’m really focusing on at the moment. I’ve been doing it without fail for about a week now, and the rewards are so amazing that I would hardly want to break the habit.

It won’t be a true habit for a couple more weeks yet, so I need to make sure I stay focused on that. However, I’m going to add a couple more things on top of that to speed up the process.

So…

1. After revision I immediately begin my work (this will be some time between 7am and 8am).
2. I eat breakfast while I’m working, and I want to be finished eating by 10:00am.
3. At 10:30am I’m going to hop in the shower.
4. When I’m showered I’m going to go outside and do some work in the garden
5. At 12pm I’m coming back inside and making lunch

I’ll leave it there for now. I don’t think this is perfect; but I want to get things going. I can always improve it later.

Apparently it’s turn off your TV week. I shall not be partaking as I already have TV watching under control. I used to be an addict like the majority of the populous. I used to watch several hours every single day. Not any more. I have a simple strategy that took a surprisingly long period of time to learn.

Step 1. Check the TV guide at the beginning of the day and decide in advance if there is anything worth watching.

Step 2. If there is something watching, watch it. If there’s not anything worth watching (here’s the secret), don’t watch! That’s where most people go wrong.

Step 3. At the end of any worthwhile programmes, turn off the TV.

Of course the difficulty is not in the strategy, but in breaking an addiction. And that’s why ‘turn off your TV week’ is such a good idea. I spent a week without television many years ago, and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was also one of the most beneficial.

I’ve had times since, when I’ve spent long periods of time glued to the box, but they were usually when I was either with friends that couldn’t stop watching or when I was feeling lonely because my friends weren’t around! But most of the time I just have no desire to turn on the TV. I only watch it when there is something worth watching.

At the moment I spend about 1.5 hours watching television a week. I watch Derren Brown and Grand Designs. That’s it.

Compared to my previous tele-addicted period of life, I probably now have an extra day every week to do productive things. That’s 52 wasted days per year. Or for every 7 years I live, I wasted one year watching television. To reach the same figures all you need to do is average just under 2.5 hours of TV per day. Do the maths and see how much time you are losing.

Not that all television is bad or a waste of your time. I just think it is important to make educated, intelligent choices. This is why I’m particularly fond of the idea of Killing the Television but keeping the shows.