I used to believe that being successful meant having a lot of money in the bank and being in a better financial position than most of the world. Growing up has changed my view on that a little bit…

Success doesn’t necessarily mean to have money, or fast cars, or expensive houses. Success doesn’t have to mean having fame, or being part of the top 1% of the world.

Success simply means achieving your dreams and living a fulfilled life, whatever those dreams of yours may be.

Your dream may be to travel the world and set foot in every country in the world. Maybe you want to build up a fortune 500 company. Maybe you want to write books that will positively impact the lives of tens of thousands of people. Maybe you do want to be filthy rich and have a different color Ferrari for every day of the week.

It doesn’t matter what your definition of success is as long as that definition is something that you know you want from deep in your heart and not because it’s deemed the norm by society. If you’re going to spend your years chasing a form of success defined by others (like millions of dollars) then you may find yourself feeling rather empty and disappointed when you achieve your success because it doesn’t give you the joy that you thought it would. When you choose to spend your years pursuing success that you know in your heart is right (click here to learn how to follow your heart), then not only will you really enjoy the process of becoming successful, you’ll also really enjoy the success once you achieve it.

The video below from Alan Watts describes perfectly what I wrote in the above paragraph:

(click here if you can’t see the video in your email inbox)

Let’s move on from the philosophical side to a more practical side and let’s learn how to be successful with whatever you set out to do.

How To Be Successful

If you want to learn how to be successful with whatever you do in life, read the following section very carefully. Being successful is made up of various aspects and you need to master all those aspects should you wish to achieve your success.

How To Be Successful Aspect #1 – Attitude

“You don’t try to build a wall. You don’t set out and say ‘I’m gonna build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that has ever been built’. You say ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid’. You do this every single day, and soon you have a wall.” – Will Smith

“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I’m not afraid to DIE on a treadmill. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, but if we get on a treadmill together, there are two things:
1- You’re getting off first
OR
2- I’m gonna DIE
It’s really that simple” – Will Smith

Your attitude plays a big role in being successful.

Firstly, you need to have a positive attitude. You need to believe in yourself, you need to believe in the possibility that your success is achievable and you need to be able to see as many opportunities as possible. This is only possible when you have a positive attitude.

Secondly, you need to realize that success does not happen overnight. You need to have the attitude that you’re going to work as hard as you have to for as long as it takes until you are successful. Don’t worry about the date of your success, just take things day by day. Give your full 100% towards achieving your success every single day and then it’s only a matter of time before you eventually achieve your success.

Be open-minded. Listen to others and don’t be too quick to dismiss something as a bad idea. This attitude will help you greatly while you’re on your journey to success.

How To Be Successful Aspect #2 – Vizualization

“Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.” – Cherie Carter-Scott

If you ask almost any successful person about their journey to success they will tell you that they had a vision of what they wanted to achieve and where they wanted to end up. Successful people often had tangible things to remind them of where they wanted to be and what they wanted to achieve, whether it be a picture, a souvenir or some sort of role model.

While you may not know exactly which turns, ups and downs lie in the path to success ahead of you, you don’t need to know the specifics in order to be successful. All you need to know is where you want to end up and you’ll be able to manoeuvre your way around the obstacles and get to where you want to be.

Create some sort of vision board or spend 10 minutes a day visualizing your success. Not only will this program your subconscious mind and tell it what you want to obtain in life, it’ll help to keep you focused on working towards your success. It’s way too easy to get distracted from your main goals by life and other petty little things. The daily habit of visualizing your goals and success will make it easier to avoid distractions and temptations.

How To Be Successful Aspect #3 – Strategy

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail” – Proverb

You can be as ambitious, positive and energetic as possible but if you’re not working according to a plan or strategy then you may just end up running circles so to speak.

We all know that life is unpredictable and that things rarely go exactly as you plan them too. However, if you have no plan at all then you’re wasting your energy and resources. It’s essential to always have a plan or strategy that you’re going to follow in order to achieve your success. That plan might change at any moment, and just because you have a plan does not mean you need to stick to it if circumstances change or if better opportunities present themselves.

I’m a big fan of following a strategy or plan that has already been proven to be successful by other people in your field or industry. Why try to re-invent the wheel if you can just copy the blueprint?

Always try to find examples of people or people’s strategies that have been proven successful and that you could possibly apply to your own journey towards the success you want to achieve. This could end up saving you a lot of time, energy and resources and result in you achieving your success much faster than you would if you were to try and figure it out on your own.

How To Be Successful Aspect #4 – Sacrifice

“Sweat plus sacrifice equals success” – Charles O. Gikely

As I mentioned before, success doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. Usually you have to work really hard for a really long time before you achieve the success you want to have.

This means that 50% input is likely not going to make you successful. If you think you can put in a little bit of work and effort every day while still keeping your social schedule, partying, entertaining your friends, playing video games etc. and achieve the success you want, then you’re mistaken.

If you really want to learn how to be successful you’re going to need to make sacrifices. You’re going to have to say no to certain things that you enjoy doing in order to work harder on achieving the success you want. You may have to stop partying, have less time for friends, forget about buying luxury items for a while etc.

There’s an amazingly inspiring video about how to be successful that I watch from time to time. I’ve included it below:

(click here if you can’t see the video in your email inbox)

How To Be Successful Aspect #5 – Persistence

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Even if you master the other 4 aspects of how to be successful that I listed above, without persistence you’re likely not going to be successful. The truth is that in order to be successful you’re going to fail many times. You’re going to experience obstacles and setbacks, possibly for weeks or months or years on end.

If you want to be successful you have to see failure as a learning opportunity. You cannot give up when things are difficult or when you fail. You have to pick yourself up when you fall, dust yourself off and carry on going with unlimited energy.

If you want to be successful you have to try, over and over and over again, until you finally succeed. Take a look at the quote above by Michael Jordan. He’s arguably the best basketball player in the world, but do you think he just became that successful overnight?

Never give up on your dreams and never stop trying, that’s the secret of how to be successful!

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P.s. you may enjoy these 22 quotes on success by well-known celebrities.

FILED UNDER: HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL

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You've Been Lied To About The Law of Attraction!

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The 2 core principles of life are survival and reproduction. Everything else is a by-product of those two principles and of our modern world.

We tend to complain about how difficult it is to make money, to make new friends, to find a partner for a relationship or marriage and all sorts of other ‘problems’. We so often complain about how difficult life is that we lose sight of what matters most.

Note: Sentences in Italics are quoted directly from Lori’s book

You forget to have fun, you forget to enjoy breathing and feeling the sun’s rays on your skin. You forget to follow your heart and instead spend your days worrying about the future.

“No matter what religion we follow, what politics we support, what family we are born into, or where we’ve placed our roots, we all deal with universal problems. We want to be happy, we want to be free and we want to live a meaningful life. But how do we do this”?

“The reality is that there are very few concrete, one-size-fits-all answers to the big questions. And accepting that very fact is the foundation to true wisdom. There’s so much we can’t know, understand or predict in life. Yet if we learn to listen to ourselves and then stop to listen long enough to simply be in the world, open and available, the answer can seem so clear”.

Why Is There Suffering In The World?

No matter who you are, it’s certain that at some point in your life you felt emotional hurt. Maybe you’re living a life where you experience more hurt than joy and you may be asking yourself why life has to be this way.

While it’s not possible to avoid emotional hurt, it is possible to avoid suffering by moving through it as quickly as possible. You have the choice to allow your pain to hurt and pass through you instead of keeping it bottled up. You have the choice to accept what you cannot change, and to move on with life as best you can.

Suffering exists because people allow it to exist. Every single person has to deal with problems, obstacles and tragedies. That’s part of life. However, if you choose to let something hurt you for months, years or for the rest of your life, that is not life’s fault. Allow the pain to teach you about life and what you want from it. Don’t block out the pain, don’t deny it. Instead, let it hurt as much as it can and then let it pass through you. It will be intense for a short period of time, but it will pass and it will eventually fade away.

If you want to read more about overcoming suffering, I wrote a detailed article how to deal with hurt, heart-ache and loss.

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

“It’s perhaps the oldest and most frequently asked question in the world: why are we all here”?

I’ve asked myself this question hundreds of times. I try to ‘zoom out’ of life at times, to realize that we are 7 billion tiny ants on a small planet in a gigantic universe. We’re all trying to be successful, to make money, to create things. We fight wars, we destroy our planet, we kill each other. And what for? Just to keep us busy? Or are we some sort of experiment of an alien race?

Who knows? And does it really matter?

What we know is that we’re alive right now. We have a good few decades on this earth if we’re lucky and we have the opportunity to make the most of what we’ve got.

I personally think that the meaning of life is to make the most of the life we have. To enjoy every moment of every day. To help others and make a difference. To experience the countless beauty and adventures that life has to offer and to eventually leave this world in a better way than we found it.

You can create meaning in your life through joy. If you love doing whatever you do, then you feel like you have a purpose. You feel like you’re a part of this world.

But then comes another question: how do you find your purpose? Maybe it’s time to forget about chasing money, fame or status. Maybe it’s time to follow your heart and pursue a path that feels like the right path (even though it may not be financially rewarding initially).

Can People Change, And How?

It seems that some people never change, especially once they’ve disappointed you once and they do it again.

Personally I believe that a person doesn’t change throughout their life. A person is either inherently good or inherently bad.

What does change however, is a person’s beliefs, values and morals. This is a natural part of growth as the person learns more about themselves, about others and about the world around them.

Change starts in the mind. Whatever you choose to believe tends to materialize itself as reality.

Our experiences and social conditioning form bad habits and limiting beliefs over time. This can cause an inherently good person to behave like a bad person while they are actually a good person.

What you need to learn to determine is whether a person is inherently good or inherently bad. If they are inherently good then it’s possible for them to change their bad habits. If a person is inherently bad then there is little hope they will ever change.

Does Everything Happen For A Reason?

Sometimes things happen in life that make you angry, upset or hurt. It’s not always possible to understand why certain things happen, and in these cases you’re prone to asking yourself whether everything happens for a reason.

Do both good and bad things happen to you so that it will lead to some final outcome? Fate, if you will?

Whether there is some sort of universal plan or not, placing faith in the fact that things happen for a reason can help you lighten the load of frustration, worry and regret. You may suffer a loss of someone you care about, experience a broken heart, live with an illness or something less serious. You may feel frustrated because you don’t feel you deserved to have something so bad happen to you. If you allow that frustration to build into anger and hate, it will cause you a lot of suffering. If however you believe that everything happens for a reason, then there is more of life to come your way and it’s easier to let go of what happened to you.

But believing in fate doesn’t mean that you can just kick back on your couch with a cold beer and expect life to happen to you. You need to take action, you need to make choices and you need to make mistakes in order to learn from them and progress through life.

Simple Wisdom For Life’s Hard Questions

This post and the questions herein come from an amazing little book called Simple Wisdom For Life’s Hard Questions (Buy On Amazon for $11.99).

The book is written by Lori Deschene, author and founder of Tiny Buddha, a site dedicated to finding happiness, balance and success in life.

Simple Wisdom For Life’s Hard Questions contains much more detailed answers to the questions I’ve addressed in this post, including questions such as:

• What does is take to be happy?
• Why are relationships hard?
• Do you need money to be happy?
• How can you make each day count?

If you’re interested in learning the simple answers to life’s hard questions, get yourself a copy of Lori’s book right now:

P.S. Lori is willing to give away FREE copies of her book to the best 2 comments left on this post. So if you want to win, leave a meaningful comment!

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You've Been Lied To About The Law of Attraction!

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On this spiritual level, life is all about energy. You and everything around you consists of energy, but there is positive energy and there is negative energy. Negative energy weakens you and drains your spirit while positive energy strengthens and recharges your spirit.

You communicate with life and the world around you through energy. Before you start to think I’ve lost my mind, let’s look at a few examples of what I’m talking about:

Follow Your Heart

Have you ever had something happen to you that’s just too much of a coincidence? And not just once, but multiple times?

For example, it regularly happens to me that when I think about someone I haven’t heard from in a while, that that same day or the next day they call me or get in touch with me. I’m talking about people who I haven’t seen for months or years, who are thousands of miles away from me in another continent. And when I really think about wanting to see them or speak to them, my phone rings or I have a message on Facebook. I’ve had this happen dozens of times, there’s no way it can be a coincidence.

And have you ever been in such a good place in your life that you constantly send out positive energy? You’re friendly with everyone and go out of your way to help others, and then you start to notice that you start getting things into your life that you’ve been wanting for a long time?

Some people call this the Law of Attraction. Some call it by other names. For me, I just like to refer to it as energy. As I mentioned in the beginning, to really allow your energy to flourish and to live up to your full potential, you have to listen to your heart and you have to follow your heart.

With your energy you communicate with others, you communicate with the world and everything around you. You can send your intentions and your requests without even having to open your mouth, and you can materialize your dreams through your energy.

Why Should You Follow Your Heart?

The mind and the heart are two different things. Your mind is heavily influenced and conditioned by the people who raised you and by everyone else you come in contact with. Your mind is the sum of your experiences and what you’ve been exposed to. In other words, it’s like a computer that has been trained to behave in the way it’s been ‘programmed’ by society.

Your heart doesn’t listen to logic or to reason. It doesn’t listen to other people and it doesn’t care about what other people think. Your heart always tells the truth.

By listening to it and allowing your heart to guide your decisions, you’ll be able to live life to the fullest with little to no regrets.

When you make a decision based on what your heart tells you to do, then no matter what the outcome, you’ll likely be thankful that you did it. If you however make a logical decision that your heart doesn’t agree with (whether it’s based on fear or greed or anger), there’s a good chance you’ll end up unhappy and full of regret.

There’s a book called The Alchemist by Paulho Coelho and it’s probably the best book I’ve read in my life. The Alchemist is a story that shows how you can get everything you’ve ever dreamed of in life if you choose to listen to your heart and follow your heart.

It’s about a boy named Santiago. Santiago is a young boy working as a shepherd somewhere near the north of Africa. As part of his life as a shepherd, one day he journeyed to a village to sell some wool from his sheep.

In this village he knew of a gypsy woman who could interpret dreams so he went to see her because he had experienced a very strange dream that he wanted to know the meaning of. After doing her thing, the gypsy woman told him to go to the Pyramids of Egypt so that he will find a great treasure that is destined for him.The boy was very skeptical and unbelieving. In fact, he walked out thinking that the gypsy’s words were utter nonsense.

However, back in the village, he meets an old man who was actually a great king in disguise. This king gives the boy the inspiration and the belief in the gypsy’s spoken words and the boy proceeds to sell his sheep and travel across the water to reach Egypt in search of his treasure.

From that moment on, Santiago embarks on a journey across the dessert. On his journey he learns much about himself and the world. He overcomes incredible challenges and he meets and parts with an Englishman, the woman of his dreams, angry tribe leaders and finally the alchemist. (An alchemist is someone said to be able to transform lead into gold).

As Santiago learns more about himself and the Soul of the World, he comes closer and closer to realizing his destiny and how to get there and eventually he does, while it was right in front of him all the time, he needed to go through the entire journey of crossing the dessert and overcoming incredible difficulties to be able to see and find his treasure.

When Santiago started on his journey, he allowed greed for the treasure and fear of the unknown to influence his decisions. Later he learned the power and importance of listening to his heart and when he finally learned how to follow his heart, he found the treasure that he’d been chasing for so long.

How To Follow Your Heart

If you want to know how to follow your heart, it’s rather simple.

Whenever you’re faced with a decision you’ll have the option of analyzing it logically in your head. You’ll be able to come up with various possibilities, weighing the pros against the cons of whatever you’re about to do. However, there’s only ONE decision that will feel right to you, even if it logically doesn’t make sense. That decision is the one that feels right in your heart.

It’s possible that through years of social conditioning, you’ve trained yourself to not listen to your heart. You’ve become numb and immune to the suggestions that your heart gives you, and you no longer feel with your heart.

Fortunately this is something that you can overcome and reverse with time. You need to start allowing your heart to influence your decisions. You do this by temporarily forgetting about everything around you and going within yourself. Try to silence all thoughts and voices, and just listen to what your heart tells you that you should do.

Whether it be with love, friendship, business or anything else you want in life, it’s always the best choice to listen to your heart and follow your heart.

Don’t choose a job you don’t want just because it pays good money. Don’t choose to be with someone you don’t really love just because they’re wealthy or physically attractive. Don’t have friends who you don’t really care about just because you can benefit from their friendship.

It’s not always the easiest or most logical choice when you choose to follow you heart, but it’s the most fulfilling choice. It’s the choice that will let you sleep at night, the choice that allows you to look back on your life with no regrets and it’s the choice that will bring you the most happiness.

Follow your heart and allow it to lead you to your greatest dreams, desires and fantasies.

FILED UNDER: FOLLOW YOUR HEART

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My goal was to build an online income of $5000 per month over a period of 13 months and I think it’s only fair to all of you that I reveal how my year has gone, what I’ve achieved and how close I’ve come to the goals I set for myself.

Business Achievements of 2011

In hindsight, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing with my online business 13 months ago. I had no real plan or strategy to follow and I pretty much wasted the first 8 of those 13 months on totally pointless activities.

While I worked hard, put in many hours and was constantly putting myself out there, I was going about it the wrong way. I wasn’t working on anything that could bring in the kind of money that I wanted to make.

I created and launched 3 of my own products: How to blog HQ, CLoudblogginghq (with my buddy Glen) and the Confidence Black book.

Each of those products took me 2 months to create, and only Cloudblogginghq was a real success, mostly because of Glen’s blog audience. The other two products I created barely covered the cost of making them, not even counting the time I put in.

But these are the things I did wrong, and although I could have done much more with the time I had if I knew what I know now, I had to go through the process of making these mistakes to be able to know what I know now.

So what have I achieved in 2011?

In terms of income, I’ve averaged around $1500 per month for the year. Not quite enough for me to live off and far from my $5000 per month goal, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I built and sold various niche sites throughout the year which earned me a couple of thousand dollars, but more importantly, it taught me a lot about building niche sites. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out a profitable method for building niche sites without having to work on them myself (outsourcing a lot of the work) and I’m currently building some new niche sites based on this method. I’ll be able to tell within the next 4 months if it indeed works out as well as I expect it to, and then each site should bring in at least a few hundred dollars per month on total autopilot.

As for this blog, UpgradeReality, I’ve written a few dozen quality articles throughout the year. Upgrade Reality has gained close to 5000 new subscribed readers. The amount of people visiting UpgradeReality on a daily basis has risen to about 3000 hits per day (triple what it was in the beginning of the year) and Upgradereality.com has received over 500,000 views in the last 12 months.

There’s more…

In the background I’ve also been trading the forex markets and building up my trading account. Forex trading is a big passion of mine (you may have noticed the occasional posts about online forex trading) and I’ve recently decided to overhaul my old forex blog so that I can seriously start building it up in 2012.

Goals for 2012

Currently my personal life and freedom is not quite as I’d like to have it due to my lack of significant income.

Since I’m talking on a personal level here, I might as well be open about my thoughts and feelings. I’ve recently turned 25 years old and in many ways I no longer feel like a boy but a man. The time when a boy becomes a man cannot be determined by a mere number in age. Some boys become men at a very young age and some boys just never seem to become men, even when they’re in their thirties or forties.

A real man is many things. He needs to totally believe in himself, have his own boundaries and his own goals. A real man is kind and compassionate but hard, stern and aggressive when he needs to be. He does not blame others for what goes wrong in his own life and he takes responsibility for himself and the ones he cares about. A real man provides, protects and gives but is also not afraid to ask for help when he needs it.

All these qualities of a real man I’ve listed above (and the many more I haven’t listed) take time and experience to obtain. I feel that I’m well on my way but I still have much to learn. I also feel that in order for me to really become a man, I need to achieve my goals of financial freedom, build up my own business and conquer any and all obstacles in my way.

As a result, my sole focus and only goal for 2012 is to create enough of an income so I can have the freedom to live how I want, where I want, with the girl that I love.

So… I need a plan because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

My plan for 2012 to take my financial freedom is the following:

1- Upgradereality

I’ve spent the last 2,5 years building UpgradeReality up to the personal development resource it is today. It is bringing in some money every month but not as much as I think it could and this is likely due to me not offering enough quality solutions for the readers’ problems that they’re willing to pay for.

I’m planning to write many more articles to increase both the daily traffic and subscribed readers.

I’m also collaborating with 3 incredibly talented people on a personal development guide that will surpass all personal development guides and I plan to offer this guide to the readers and visitors of UpgradeReality, planning to turn it into the main source of income for this blog.

The reason why I love working on UpgradeReality so much is not so much for the money but for the satisfaction of making a difference to the lives of others. I get dozens of emails from readers thanking me for my articles and motivation and although I may not be getting a huge amount of money for the time I put in, life’s not all about making money for personal gains. I believe in karma, and the more you give, the more you get back.

2- Forexhabits & Trading

Other than the topic of personal development, a big passion of mine is online forex trading (as you may have read when I published my 3-part tutorial about it).

I am currently trading for myself part time with a small ($1000) account and I hope to build that up to an account size of a few thousand dollars in 2012.

Due to the fact that forex trading is such a passion of mine, I am not only interested in trading for myself. I want to share my knowledge and experience of forex trading with as many other people as possible and help them become more profitable traders. Thus, I’m going to build my blog ForexHabits into a complete online forex trading resource in the same way that I’ve built UpgradeReality as a personal development resource.

Since the online forex trading niche is one where participants are much more likely to spend money on information (due to the nature of the niche, i.e. working with money), owning a popular resource in this niche can be rather profitable.

If you’re interested in learning more about forex trading and becoming a profitable forex trader, check out my blog ForexHabits and subscribe to the email updates (it’s 100% free).

Niche Sites

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve set up a good dozen niche sites throughout the year that made money through promoting affiliate products. I also sold all of these sites and the reason for that is because the sites took way too much of my time.

Building a niche site and writing dozens of articles about a topic that you’re not passionate about is rather time-consuming, although it can be done in a few days of hardcore work. However, driving traffic to the site once it’s finished or building enough backlinks to the site to get a top ranking in Google is almost impossible if not a stupid allocation of time and energy.

All the time I put into building these sites and learning about SEO was not a complete waste of time. In fact, I’ve learned a huge amount from it and I think that I’ve figured out a really energy-efficient way to create profitable niche sites by outsourcing most of the work (including article writing and SEO).

I’m in the process of creating 5 new niche sites through this new strategy I’ve planned out and I’ll be able to tell within the next 4 months if this goes according to plan. It will however require that I invest about $2000 upfront so there is a bit of a risk involved for me.

If it turns out that my strategy works, then it’s only a matter of spending enough money to build dozens of niche sites and I’ll likely go out and get a loan to do this. If the strategy fails and it’s not as profitable as I expect it to be, at worst I’ll lose a couple of hundred dollars because I can always sell those niche sites for close to cost price.

What Are Your Goals For 2012?

I’ve told you about my achievements for 2011 and my goals for 2012. You’ll have noticed how my goals are all about gaining financial freedom and that is because the only obstacle in my personal life is the lack of enough money to do what I want.

But what about you? I want to hear from you…!

Please tell me how your 2011 went and if you made progress towards your goals.
Please tell me what your goals are for 2012 and how you plan to make them materialize?

Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012 in advance!
Your friend and mentor,
Diggy

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Whether you are younger or older than 25, if you’re not doing the things on this list it’s never too late to start. The things you do today will make a difference to your tomorrow.

Oh and if you enjoy this list, please hit the Facebook and Twitter share buttons below the article. Thanks!

1) Read, Read and Read Some More

One of the biggest contributions to my personal growth has come from the books I’ve read in the last few years. Your parents, teachers and friends can only teach you so much when you’re growing up. Through books you’re able to expand your horizons, increase your opportunities and accelerate your growth.

The kind of books I recommend reading are books related to personal development, psychology, success studies, biographies of successful people and spiritual kind of books.

Here’s a list with some of my favorite books to read.

2) It’s Not Important What People Think Of You

I used to care very much what others would think of me and as a result I held back on many things I should have done like take part in events where I would have to get up on stage or go to parties where I hardly knew anyone.

It really does not matter what other people think of you. Everyone will have an opinion about you, but this opinion is hardly ever based on who you really are because most people will never spend enough time with you to get to know you. Your goal shouldn’t be to get people to like you. Whether someone thinks that you’re an idiot or whether they think that you’re awesome, that’s their business, not yours.

Spend your life being the best person that you can be, follow your heart and do the things that make you happy. Don’t hold back because you’re afraid of what others may think of you.

3) Enjoy Every Moment of Now

There is a very cliche but very true quote:

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.”

Time is the most precious and the most uncertain resource that we have in our lives. In my relatively short time on this earth I’ve seen and heard of many people pass away at very young ages. You never know how long you’ve got left to live and that is why you have to make the most of every moment that you’re alive.

When I was younger I spend a lot of time wishing days away so that it could be weekend, or that I could be old enough to drive or party.

Don’t wish your life away, don’t wish that you were older. Enjoy the process of growth and enjoy the phase of your life that you are in right now.

4) Whether You Think You Can or Cannot, You Are Right

This is the old wisdom from Henry Ford but it’s oh so true. Don’t limit yourself into thinking that you can’t do something because what you believe to be true mostly tends to become true.

I see so many people who say they can’t do something before they’ve even tried to do it. I’ve been guilty of this myself. There have been many occasions where someone’s invited me to try something I’ve never done before and I just declined because it seemed way too difficult for me and I believed that there was no chance I could do it.

Before you decide that you cannot do something, try to do it first. Even then, don’t believe that you cannot do something just because you failed at it in the first few attempts.

5) Start Your Own Business

Doing something with your own initiative and turning nothing into something profitable is one of the best ways to grow and discover yourself. It doesn’t matter what it is that you do, as long as you attempt to do something that will earn you money.

You could shine shoes, sell lemonade on a hot day, start a blog, sell things on eBay or whatever you’re interested in. I never did this as a kid and I think this would have made a huge difference to being able to achieve financial success at an early age.

6) Don’t Judge People By Their Appearance

One thing I’ve learned is that looks can be very deceiving. I’ve met incredible people who would be deemed trashy or outcasts by society based on their appearance and I’ve met people who you would think are high-value people but who turn out to be spineless and value-taking.

You cannot judge the character of a person based on their appearance alone. Some people don’t care about impressing others with fashionable appearances and some people try too hard to impress people with their clothes and style.

Give yourself time to get to know someone before you judge them.

7) Talk To As Many New People As Possible

You can learn something from everyone, no matter how old they are or where they’re from. I used to be very fearful of talking to strangers or people I hardly knew because I had little confidence and was scared of rejection.

Over the last years I’ve really come to love talking to as many new people as possible. It doesn’t matter who they are or where they’re from, just grab every opportunity to talk to someone you don’t know. You don’t need to gain anything from the interaction, all you need to do is say hi and start a conversation. Most of the time the conversation will flow, sometimes it will be fantastic and sometimes it won’t work at all.

I’ve met some of the most interesting people of my life in the most random places like on plane, in the subway, on the street or simply at a club.

8 ) Don’t Worry About Girls And Dating

I was always shy when I was younger and I had no idea how to talk to girls but I always wanted to have a girlfriend or at least go on dates with beautiful girls. Due to my lack of success in this area I couldn’t wait to grow up so things would get better.

In hindsight I’d tell myself to just enjoy being young and not to worry about girls and dating. There’s plenty of time for that in your twenties.

9) Eat Healthy

When I was younger I loved junk food and sweet stuff. I did eat healthy meals 2-3 times per day, but inbetween those meals I would always stuff myself with junk food.

Only recently have I switched to eating healthy meals 3 times a day and snacking on healthy food inbetween. I’ve lost most of my cravings for junk food and overall I feel much more energetic and much healthier.

Eat healthy and it’ll benefit you for many years to come.

10)Success Doesn’t Come Easy

It takes many months and years of consistent hard work to become successful with anything. There is no instant gratification and it’s not possible to spend a few weeks learning something and then expect to master it completely.

In my younger years I sincerely believed that I would have success at anything I did within a very short period of time and when I failed I was very disappointed with myself.

If you want to achieve success with anything you do, it’s a long-term game. Be persistent, take action towards your goal every day and don’t give up when you experience obstacles or setbacks.

11) Focus On The Positive

There are always two sides to everything and the side you choose to focus on will make the difference between happiness and sadness. Choose to focus your energy and attention on the positive side of everything, even when it may seem impossible to do so at times.

If you focus on the negative side of things, not only will you deprive yourself of the joy and happiness you could have but you will also take away joy and happiness from those around you. Focus on the positive side of things and you will find happiness and inspire happiness in those around you.

12) Learn To Let Go

Hardly anything in life goes exactly as planned. Sometimes you have pleasant surprises but other times you can be faced with unwelcome turn of events. If you are too attached to a specific outcome then things can have a crippling effect on you when they don’t turn out as you want them too.

Learning to let go is a very important skill to master. When good things in your life come to an end and it’s not possible to change that, then the ability to let go will allow you to get back on your feet and find happiness or success again.

13) Stop Worrying About The Future So Much

It’s literally impossible to predict the future, so why do we spend so much time trying to predict it? I used to spends hours worrying about all sorts of dangers and uncertainties while I should have just enjoyed the present moment.

It’s good to plan for the future and work towards your goals but it’s for your own good that you don’t worry too much about the future. Have you plan, stick to it for as long as you can and if you need to adapt, adapt.

14) Money Is Important But It Is Not The End Goal

Money is an essential ingredient to freedom. Enough money allows you to live how you want to live and it allows you to spend your time doing what you love but money cannot buy you happiness.

You shouldn’t set your main goal in life as acquiring a bit sum of money. Money should just be the means to allow you to do what you really want to do in life. When I was younger I just wanted to have millions of dollars in the bank, no matter what the cost.

Define the goals that you want to achieve in your life, determine how much money you would need to have for that and then take action based on that plan.

15) Stand Up For What You Believe In

There will always be negative people who tear down your hopes and dreams. There are always people who tell you how to live your live and people who tell you what you cannot do.

If you believe in something, don’t let others talk you out of it. Avoid negative people and nay-sayers but if you have to, stand up for what you believe in. Be prepared to fight for it.

16) All You Need In Life Is A Few Good Friends

When I was younger I thought that I needed to have dozens of friends in my life because it would ensure fun, good times and status. I’ve come to realize that you only need a few really good friends in your life and that will give you all the fun you need. If you have a relationship and a job then there simply isn’t enough time to spend with more than just a few close friends anyways.

Choose quality over quantity when it comes to your friends. 3 Close friends who would do anything for you are better than 30 fair-weather friends.

17) The People Make The Place

I always used to have great trouble deciding where I would want to live when I was older. I’ve come to realize that it’s not so much the place that matters, it’s the people you know in that place. Whether you want to live in South Africa, Asia, Australia or Europe, they can all be fantastic places if you have good friends or someone you truly care about there with you.

18) When Things Are Difficult See It As A Test

Life isn’t all roses and sunshine, sometimes there’s a couple of storms that come your way too. There are times when you’ll be faced with setbacks, obstacles and failure.

When things get difficult I like to see them as a test of some sort. It may be a test of patience, a test of belief or faith or a test of determination. This allows you to rationalize the difficulties you’re facing so that you can stop worry and focus all your energy on getting through the test as best you can.

19) Don’t Carry Hate Or Anger With You

One of the biggest negative influences on your happiness and enjoyment of life is if your heart is filled with hatred and anger. I used to be very quick to be angry at someone or to hate them if they did something bad to me. Sometimes I was just jealous of someone who was always better than me and I would carry that hatred with me every day and it really poisoned my happiness.

There is nothing wrong with getting angry, there’s only something wrong with staying angry and allowing that anger to turn into hate. When you hate someone, the person it affects the most is you. Learn to resolve your anger and hatred so that you don’t carry it with you. Keep your heart stainless.

20) You Don’t Always Need To Prove Yourself

People around you will always challenge you to prove yourself. This may be because they are insecure, jealous or simply because they want to see you make a fool out of yourself.

One thing I’ve learned is that it’s good to not always react to these challenges because it doesn’t matter what people think. If you feel that you’re not going to gain anything from proving yourself to someone other than validation, then why do it? Let the haters hate and just do your thing.

21) Respect Is Everything

I’d say that respect is the single most important guideline for life and without it you’ll very likely end up in big trouble. Respect is not just something that you have for an older person, respect is almost like a religion. You need to have respect for everything and anything in life: people, feelings, nature, animals, machinery and anything else you come into contact with.

Show respect and there’s a good chance that all ares of life will respect you back.

22) Don’t Take Anything For Granted

Life is a gift. It’s very easy to become so complacent with what you have that it’s easy to forget how lucky you are to have it.

Simple things like having a roof over your head, the freedom to travel or walk around your city without being shot or arrested, food on the table, loving friends and family etc. are what you should be grateful for every day.

23) Create A Vision Board And Imagine Your Dreams Every Day

Knowing what you want to achieve and getting your subconscious to focus on your goals play a big role in the success you achieve. I highly recommend that you create your own kind of vision board with pictures of your goals. Put this vision board in a place where you’ll see it every night before you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up.

Not only does this program your subconscious mind with the goals that you want to achieve but it also reminds you on a daily basis of what it is that you really want from life.

24) Don’t Believe Anyone Unless You Verify It First

There are way too many people in this world who want to take advantage of you or use you for their own gains. People will lie to you, trick you and abuse your honesty if you let them.

It’s of course crazy to be paranoid that everyone is out to get you but it’s always good to be cautious of the intentions of others. When it comes to the important things and a lot is at stake, always do your own research to verify that what someone is telling you is indeed the truth.

25) Never Forget Who You Are

As life goes on you are subjected to many different influences. Sometimes you take a wrong turn or end up on the wrong path which causes you to lose track of who you are.

Always remember who you are and where you came from. If your current life path is putting you in situations that you’re not happy with, make drastic changes and get back to the person who you are.

These are 25 things that I would love to tell my younger self but since that’s impossible, I’ve told you instead. I hope you can use some of these points to improve your life, starting today.

P.S. If you’d like to buy me a birthday present and help yourself at the same time, please consider the Upgrade Reality eBook or the Confidence Black Book. I’d be very, very grateful!

P.P.S. You’re Awesome!

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