After my How To Become Great article got a lot of interest I decided to explore the concept of success some more.  Consider the following:

• Most of us are born with similar financial resources (most of a countrie’s population falls into the poor or lower-middle class)
• Most of us are born with a similar amount of time (70 years is the average life-span the last I checked)
• Most of us have access to all the information and learning resources we’ll ever need.  This was first started by public libraries where anyone could read a book and learn basically anything.  And more recently has exploded through the internet where you can do a quick search and in seconds find the info you are looking for

So why do a few of us become great while most are just average? There are many factors which I highlight in several of my posts:

• 7 Roadblock to Success
• Hard Work or a Secret Formula

However the biggest most common roadblock to success is FEAR. Yes the big “F” word ;)  Fear is such a roadblock to success on so many levels that an article such as this one couldn’t possibly cover it all.

Our fears are often a freak show.  We hide them, we work around them and we never really wanna face them.  Yet they are often what holds us back in life.  And no I’m not talking about your fear of snakes or spiders.  Although that does remind me of a funny prank I played on a friend once with a leather snake

I’m talking about fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of social settings, fear of success, fear of fame, fear of attention, and so on.  I’m sure you can at least relate to a couple of those fears and would agree that they have sabotaged your life in many ways.

For example, fear of rejection can really sabotage your dating life, whether you are a man or a woman.  If you are a man and you are scared of rejection you will never really ask out any women you find attractive.  If you are a woman and you are scared from a man rejecting you, you will never really be able to trust men in the first place.

So how do you go from lame or average to fame or greatness, well you need to conquer your fears, and here are 5 steps that will help you tremendously:

1. Be FearlessDo it, don’t just think it. Instead of saying “I’m not scared” or “I wanna get over my fear of…” just do it.  You might need to take small steps at first but you need to do it.  One thing I always wanted to do was skydive.  When the opportunity came up I decided to just do it.  Now of course this might sound a bit extreme, however it was a blast.  In most cases though I notice I have taken gradual steps to get over my fear.A big fear for me was fear of rejection especially around strangers in social settings.  And it still is to a lesser degree.  To get over that I started by first learning everything about social skills I could find. I then went out and would make eye contact with strangers on the street.  Then I would try smiling.  Then I actually started saying “hi how are you” to strangers.  Now I’m at the point where I can comfortably walk up to any stranger and probably have a fun 10-15 minute conversation.The key is getting out of your comfort zone and taking gradual scary steps.  You have to be fearless not to try.  You have to fake it until you make it.  Start doing scary things and your body will gradually find them less scary.
2. Don’t Care Most of the things we care about or worry about are very insignificant.  Most of our worries never become reality anyways.  Think about it when was the last time you actually worried about something and had it really happen? I would guess 1 out of your last 100 worries turned into reality.Often we care too much about pleasing others.  We care too much about how we come across. We care too much about our pride and ego.  We try to follow our parents guidance and advice, and we really do care about being good sons and daughters. Well I say forget that.I’m not saying become a jerk, I’m just saying that if you are always putting others and their needs before yours you are not being authentic.  You aren’t being real.  You are trying to live a pretend life and project a pretend lifestyle.

   Start being real.  If that means that you will offend some people so be it.  If that means that some of your current friends might dump you for it, then oh well you’ll make new ones.  If that actually happens it means that they are probably losers in the first place and aren’t good success models to start with.

   When you actually start being real and more authentic something amazing happens.  You notice that your relationships with others become a lot stronger.  Even people who don’t agree with you will start trusting you more, and be open around you.  Why?  Because they know the real you, they know you got boundaries, and people actually respect that.

3. Burn the Boats It’s a known fact that many successful tribes and warriors burned their boats right after they landed on their enemies grounds.  They burned their ships and basically made it impossible to flee the war that they are about to engage in other than victoriously.  They either fought and all died, or they were victorious and took over the land and everything in it.If you are trying to become successful in any area of your life you need to burn the boats.  You need to make it so that failure isn’t an option.  I know that sounds nice and all but I bet you are asking, “how the hack do I do that?”  Here is a practical example.Changing career paths.  You decide you want to change your career path.  So how do you burn the boats or cut off any hope of staying in your current job?  You first tell all of your friends and relatives about your decision. Because now if you wont follow through they’ll probably hassle you about it.  You get some guidance on how to start in your new career of choice.  If you already have some money saved up that you can live off for a few months, you might even consider quitting your job tomorrow. Because once you quit there is no going back. You start getting a resume ready and even maybe start applying to jobs in your new career path.
4. Nothing To Lose Everything To GainRemind yourself “I got nothing to lose and everything to gain”. How come?  Think about it. You created your current lifestyle, everything you have, all your accomplishment, financial wealth, relationships, connections and so on.  If all of those were to be taken away from you, using the same logic, you can get them all back in time.  So no matter what kind of risks you take you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  You can always come back to your little comfort zone.  However by stepping up, and taking risks you really do have everything to gain.  The world is yours for the taking.
5. Shatter Glass WallThe glass wall is the sum of all of our limiting beliefs and insecurities that hold us back in life.  When I was too shy to talk to strangers I had a very thick glass wall.  I thought strangers wouldn’t be nice to me.  I though they didn’t want to talk to me.  I thought they didn’t want anything I had to offer.  I thought I would annoy them. And so on.I had to shatter that glass wall which was mostly based on my own insecurities.  To shatter it I had to start acting in spite of my insecurities.  I had to feel the fear and do it anyways.

   You first step to shattering your glass wall is becoming more aware of it.  You have to start seeing it for what it is, a bunch of insecurities and limiting beliefs.  It’s called a glass wall because it’s often invisible.  Often we assume that we are right, things are they way we’ve always been taught and we never question our beliefs and insecurities.

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Say what? This is a great piece of advice I heard originally from Steve Pavlina the Personal Development expert. He was asked how being an authority on personal development impacts his own personal growth? If he ever feels intimidated, as if he can’t fail and always has to be successful to be a good role model.

His reply was simple: “think of authority as authenticity“. This hit deep home for me. One of the biggest challenges about writing personal development articles is feeling like a hypocrite.  How can I give weight loss advice when it’s something I myself I’m working on still?  How can I write about biphasic sleep when I couldn’t finish my own experiment with it?

What we often do is hold our deepest darkest secrets and failures inside of us.  This creates an overwhelming feeling of guilt and shame.  And it holds us back from being authentic.  Think of authenticity as a glass wall, you can see through it. An authentic person is very transperant.

Everyone can easily relate to an authentic person.  An authentic person isn’t usually the picture perfect success model.  Rather he’s the biggest failure ever.  He’s open about his short-comings, and past failures.  People as a result feel like they can relate to him, rather than putting him on a pedastal.

Failure is what breaks our egos.  Failure is what helps us get beyond our pride, our sense of superiority, our perfectionism.  Failure is what helps us learn and grow.

Immediate success usually leads to lots of trouble.  Look at the hollywood stars or pop music artists that make it, and go crazy with all the new money, power and fame.  Often they abuse drugs or alcohol.  I personqally can’t blame them, if you can buy your way out of anything, how much trouble would you get yourself into?

Does that mean that success is bad?  Certainly not.  But success has to be earned.  Otherwise it doesn’t last and more importantly can’t be fulfilling.  Hear the statistic that most lottery winners are usually in more debt a few years after winning than they were before?

Try to fail as quickly and as cheaply as possible to grow the quickest.  An easy way to fail is to get out of your comfort zone.  Outside of your comfort zone is where all the growth happens.  Just think of the last tough skill you learned.  Remember those first few days of constantly trying and failing?

Some quick ways to get out of your comfort zone:

• Try to learn a new skill or take on a new hobby, the more intimidating the better.  Try a dancing class, an improv comedy class, or skydiving.  All great activities I tried and highly recommend
• Make new friends.  Start talking to new random people on the street, at social events, in the elevator.  Meet some new neighbors.  Talk with people you usually avoid.  This will help you get a broader perspective on life.  It will also help you relate to different kinds of people with different backgrounds.
• Travel.  Travel internationally if possible.  Otherwise travel to big cities and small town in your country.  Any kind of travel is a learning experience.  Me and friend promised each other to travel once every 3 months and it’s been amazing.  We went to Las Vegas in March where he somehow made $400 playing roulette.  Then we went to Los Angeles for a seminar where I got to meet some of the biggest internet entrepreneurs I gotta admit it was a very humbling experience.

Wanna become a millionaire? All you gotta do is create value for others.  Whether you want to create the next cool electronic gadget, the next best selling book, the next medical break-through, or simply help others just for the fun of it, all you gotta do is work on creating value for others. Creating value is simply building or creating something that others find valuable.  Something that improves the quality of their life, helps them break a bad habit or simply gives them pleasure.  And here are all the tips you need to create value.

1. Understand Value.  Value is in the eye of the beholder. What you think is valuable is great, however others might not necessarily care for it So how do you create value?
2. Target a Group.  Since value differs from one person to the next you need to focus.  Focus your efforts on a group that has a certain need.  Maybe they want to lose weight, learn Irish-dancing, get a date, travel the world, or stop smoking.  Whatever need that group has, focus on that need, and create value with that group in mind. What would they find valuable?
3. Put Others Needs First.  Once you’ve focused on a group, you need to put the group’s needs first before your own.  Let’s say you decided to help lame guys - myself included - get a date. While it would be pretty funny to take them out and tell them to approach women with some obscene comments, and see the women’s reactions, guess what? That will probably traumatize the guys.  Instead you need to try seeing things through their eyes, see what they need and offer it.
4. Master the Skills.  In order to help that guy get a date, you have to be able to get one first, I know it stinks but talk is cheap You have to lead by example. However you don’t need to master a skill before you can start.  If you can get more dates than the average guy, then you can start helping average dudes.
5. Don’t Judge.  In creating value you have to be very open minded.  If you have a lot of judgments, no one will listen to you, or want your help.  If you look down on those you’re trying to help, this will become obvious sooner or later.  So how do you become more open-minded?
6. Walk in Their Shoes. Whatever group you are trying to help, you must really know and understand very well before you can create anything of value for them.  An easy way to do that is to frequently speak with members of the group, hang out with them, or even spend a whole day with one them.
7. Become Creative.  Maybe you want to help others lose weight yet you realize that there are already tons of books, diets and programs out there.  How could you create value in such a crowded market? While there are many solutions, guess what? Most people are still overweight, so obviously most of the solutions out there aren’t working.  So what’s missing? That’s what you need to figure out.
8. Laser Focus. Maybe trying to help others lose weight sounds like a huge project. This is why you need to focus your efforts. Maybe you should help new mothers drop the weight they gained during pregnancy.  Now that’s a much easier project for you to focus on and learn about.
9. Start Reading. Once you picked a group of interest, and narrowed your focus down, you need to start reading about that group.  Find out what solutions are out there for their need, and find out if those solutions are working.  Often times you will find that there are many solutions, yet none of them is very effective.  This is when you know you found an opportunity
10. Offer Free Help.  Since you are no expert, no one will probably be willing to pay you for help. Lucky for you, people never turn down FREE help.  So you have to pick your first victim I mean client and offer them some help. Maybe you remember that your cousin’s wife just had a baby and is now trying to drop off those last few pounds. So next time you talk to her, you let her know that you would like a walking partner, and go for walks with her. During the walks you can get to find out about her experience dropping off those pregnancy pounds, and even give her some tips from some of the books you read.
11. Start a Support Group.  Once you have had some success helping someone, then start helping others, eventually create some kind of a support group. This could be an online forum, a group that meets over dinner at a restaurant, or even a group that has a teleconference.
12. Take Notes. Take notes on what you learn about your support group members.  Their needs, techniques that helped them succeed, their frustrations etc. This will help you create a valuable product for them in the future.
13. Start Creating Your Product. Based on what you learn start creating a product that would help the group you chose to focus on.
14. Use Your Skills.  Creating a product might sound like a big deal yet it’s a lot easier than most people think.  You can simply write an ebook or create a video.  Going back to helping new mothers drop off pregnancy pounds, all you need to do is get a personal trainer from your local gym to come up with a custom workout based on your findings/research etc.  You can even videotape the personal trainer performing it, and that could be your product.  You can outsource the video manufacturing and copying, just do a quick google search and you’ll find many duplication services.
15. Test Your Product. Before selling your product, or investing a lot of money in creating a 100 units of it, test it within the support group you created.
16. Listen to The Feedback.  Listen to the feedback you get during your product testing and adjust your product accordingly.
17. Finalize Product. Once you have created a more ideal product that members of the support group enjoy, it’s time to go live.
18. Do Not Become a Perfectionist.  You should not be aiming for creating the perfect product, rather one that’s good enough.  You can always improve it later.
19. Get Some Free Testimonials.  Have some members of your support group try out your product, and get some testimonials from them.  This will help you in making your sales pitch.
20. Start Selling Your Product.  Make a sales pitch, present the product to investors, or even sell it directly to potential customers.

I realize that this is rather a quick outline of how value is created.  However if you are interested in learning more about this topic, provide me with your first name and email, and I will explore it much deeper.

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You know you need to finish some errands yet you don’t feel like it, so you decide you’ll just do them tomorrow. You know you should go to the gym in order to stay in line with your fitness goals, yet you don’t feel like it, so you decide to skip your workout and watch TV instead. You have some free time and you know you should work on that new business idea you had the other day, yet you are tired and don’t feel like it, so you go to bed early instead. You are out at a social event and you see a very attractive member of the opposite sex that you wish to meet, yet you feel scared to walk over and say hi, so you just talk yourself out of doing it by assuming it would be awkward and socially unacceptable. You are at a fast food restaurant and you know you should order a healthy salad, yet you are sick of eating healthy food, so you rationalize that you deserve a cheat meal and order a cheeseburger instead. You are sick of your current job and know you should start applying elsewhere, yet you don’t feel like going through the interviewing process, it will be too much work, so you decide to put it off until next month and you rationalize that would be better timing anyways.

I don’t feel like it. It’s scary, I don’t want to do it. I’m too tired, I’ll just do it tomorrow. I deserve a break, I’ve been working too hard, besides I can always take care of this later. We all experience the “I don’t feel like it” syndrome for one reason or the other. Sometimes the reason is very legitimate, you could of had a long day, a few hours of sleep the night before, and are really exhausted and therefore feel like relaxing or going to bed early instead of taking care of those errands you had on your to-do list. Other times you simply are in a lazy state of mind, and don’t feel like doing anything, and therefore decide you deserve a break and you watch tv or uselessly surf the web for an hour or two.

I don’t feel like it. I have a confession to make, I don’t really feel like writing this post. It’s the weekend, I’ve had a pretty hectic/busy week, and I would rather just relax today. I need to clarify, I really like blogging and writing, and whenever I start writing I enter into a flow zone where I get absorbed into it, and the words just flow out, it’s a great feeling However there are times where I simply feel lazy, tired or too out of it to start writing. During such times I can usually come up with great reasons/rationalizations for why I shouldn’t write. Here is one, “writing is my hobby, it should not feel like a job, I should just put it off until I really feel like it”. There is some truth to this reasoning, so lets say I putt off writing, and don’t feel like it the next day, and the day after that etc. Would I just shut down this blog, and move on to the next thing?

I think you are getting my point here, on certain occasions if we are over-worked, exhausted, doing way too much etc. we legitimately need to take a break, however more often than not we get lazy and just don’t feel like doing whatever it is we know we have to do. We make commitments to take on this or that new habit, and we know the work involved, yet when it’s time to do it we simply don’t feel like it.

So what’s the solution. Naturally one would ask well how can I get myself to feel like exercising, writing, or doing my errands. There are several answers, one can look for motivational sources, readings etc. One can get a workout buddy, an accountability buddy etc. One can make a public commitment, for example I can commit to writing a new post everyday on this blog for the next 30 days. However none of these solutions are complete. While they are all great ideas, and would make you feel more pressure to get things done, there is still something missing. Lets say you do get a workout buddy, you might feel motivated to work out with your buddy for the first 2 weeks. However on the 3rd week your buddy is out of town on a business trip. Additionally you get a mild cold, and while physically you can do a light workout, you don’t feel like it, besides being sick is a legitimate reason to skip working out and your buddy would understand when he gets back. So you skip working out for the next couple of days. On the 3rd day you feel fine, however you don’t feel like working out and you rationalize I should rest one more day just to make sure the cold is fully gone and out of my body. You use this same reasoning to skip working out for the rest of the week. All of a sudden you realize you just skipped a whole week without going to the gym.

Of course one can get multiple workout partners to avoid this situation, however life will always throw circumstances at you, and there will be times where you just feel lazy and will come up with great reasons to relax and put off tasks. So what’s the solution, if you can’t really get red of “I don’t feel like it” syndrome, how can you live with it, how can you manage it? What about very successful entrepreneurs that work 10-14 hour days for months or even years to get a business of the ground? How do they do it? What about Olympic athletes that train for several hours a day for months to get in top shape, how do they do it?

Very successful people, who live amazing lives, and leave a legacy tend to usually do the right thing whether or not they feel like it. This in a way is like a muscle that they grow and strengthen. You can start developing this great habit today by following these steps:

1. When you know you should do something and don’t feel like it, accept this and realize that everyone goes through it. Don’t be hard on yourself.
2. From today decide that you will just do the right thing, and do whatever it is you have to do whether or not you fee like it.
3. Realize that there will still be times where you will get lazy, or not do the right thing. That’s okay, you are building a new habit, this is expected. Don’t be a perfectionist, you simply can’t always do the right thing 100% of the time. Accept this. Your goal should be to do right more often as time goes on. Think of this as a muscle you are developing in the gym. If you currently do the right actions 5% of the time, and can increase that to 10% in the next year, then you would double your results, progress, and success.
4. When you have a long tedious task in front of you, don’t stress about it. Just start doing it and stay in the present moment. Don’t think about the 2, 3 or 4 more hours you have to keep doing this for, instead think about what you are doing at this moment. Say you have to wash 50 dishes, when you grab that first dish, just focus on your hand, the circular motions it’s taking to wash that dish, the feeling of the water and the smell of the soap. Don’t think about the other 49 dishes, stay in the moment instead of worrying about the future. This is a great method I learned from Alan Watts. Another way to slow down and enjoy the moment is by monitoring your breathing.
5. Make whatever you are doing fun. This is another method that I learned from Alan Watts. Try singing, or humming as you are washing the dishes. Make up a new rhyme about the soapy dopey dishes
6. Realize that doing the right thing no matter how you feel becomes easier the more you do it. Lets say you don’t feel like going to the gym and you do it anyway. The next day you don’t feel like it, it will be easier for you to ignore the emotion and go.

image credit:cathyse97

Instant gratification, we all fall for it it’s when:

• we eat that greasy fatty junk food, that tastes oh so good in our mouth yet is bad for our health, energy levels, productivity, and our weight loss plan
• we skip doing a chore like going to the gym, buying groceries, cleaning the house and instead watch useless mind numbing tv
• we get red of our hobbies, and forget about our dreams just because they require too much work, time and effort
• we overspend, buy stuff we don’t need, and maybe even get in debt instead of investing and saving our money
• we are always looking for the magic pill, whether it’s to lose 30 pounds in 30 days without getting off the couch or becoming the next millionaire by following the newest get rich quick scheme

We all know instant gratification doesn’t work, it’s a rip off.  We eat the junk food, and while it tastes amazing, afterwards we feel too full, dehydrated, sleepy, lazy, and want to take a nap.  We skip our chores, watch some tv, and afterwards realize that we just wasted our a block of really valuable time.  We give up on our dreams, and discard our hobbies and live like zombies doing the least we have to do to get by.  We go on shopping sprees, buy things we don’t need and know we can’t afford and eventually encounter financial problems and might even get in debt.  We want to lose weight without putting in the effort so we order that magic diet pill and are disappointed when it doesn’t work.  We want to become millionaires without putting in the hard work and the long hours so we order that new get rich quick program yet are disappointed later when we find out it’s either a rip off or is a lot tougher and requires more effort than we initially thought.

Instant gratification is a paradox.  It’s a lie, however it’s one that we keep buying into.  Marketers know this, that’s why advertising works.  Does that mean advertising is evil? No, it’s what you make of it.  If it wasn’t for advertising and marketing you might have never found out about the last great book you read, movie you watched, or product you bought.  A great example of this is the 4 hour work week.  It’s a great book, yet it takes a lot of work to setup a business that only requires 4 hours of your time to manage per week.  It took the author himself over a year just to get his business to make him good profits, and another year to automate it.  It’s also important to point out that this wasn’t his first business idea, he’s certainly tried and failed plenty of times in the past.  While the 4 hour work week is a great book, and is becoming more and more popular, how many people do you think will end up creating their own 4 hour work week?  how many people are willing to put in 2 years or more of hard work into setting such a business up?  how many people are willing to try and fail with different business ideas until they find the right one?  I’d like to be optimistic and say many, yet in reality it’s very few.

Can you wake up one day and just eliminate all of the temptation of indulging in instant gratification? No.  Besides you wouldn’t want to go to the other extreme of always thinking long term.  While thinking long term is a healthy habit, it can certainly distract you from enjoying the moment and making the best of your current life situation.  Besides many people get too hung up on long term thinking that they live their whole lives to create a better future, yet that future never comes, how could it when they are always busy creating it and can never stop to enjoy their present?

How to deal with instant gratification?

Step 1: Start looking at your choices and actions and see if they are motivated by instant gratifcation.  Take some time right now and write down at least 3 choices/actions in your day to day life that are an attempt to indulge in instant gratification.  Don’t judge those choices, and don’t be hard on yourself.

Step 2: In the next 7 days become conscious of when you make those choices and take those actions and how you feel afterwards.   Start becoming more conscious of how instant gratification is a paradox, it doesn’t really exist. 

Step 3: After a week of conciousness, start taking small steps to decrease the frequecy of those 3 choices/actions or even to eliminate them if possible.  For example if you chose to watch tv regularly, try to watch less tv, eliminate one of the shows you watch etc.  If your eating a lot of junk food try to incorporate one healthy meal into your diet each day.  If you are living from paycheck to paycheck try to go shopping less often and mostly buy necessaties instead of luxuries.  There isn’t an easy way to do this, it’s just a matter of knowing that you need to do the right thing and doing it anyway whether or not you feel like it.  Of course after making the right choices for a while, they become habits that are easier to maintain.