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“Everything should be made as simple as possible. But no simpler”

That is one quote that has been attributed to Albert Einstein. From a mind so brilliant? So complex? So groundbreaking?

No.

In fact, Albert Einstein was not that brilliant, not that complex a character, and his groundbreaking-ness (for want of a better word) is due to his (or his PR people’s) marketing skills.

How many of us have read somewhere that he claimed to be terrible in algebra? How many of us have heard somewhere that he was one heck of a peculiar character indeed?

But my article today is not about Albert Einstein. That was just the appetizer. This essay is about simplicity. One concept which Einstein stood for, and perhaps, because of which, he became what he is today in History.

He was simple, but profound. His ideas were simple common sense, yet their implications are far-reaching.

A fine line has to be drawn between simple and simplistic. One conceals depth while the other reveals emptiness.

Being excessively complex is as a twin sister to being simplistic - the former only weaves a web of complexity and profound ostentatiousness to conceal a fundamental shallowness.

Enough with abstract concepts. The last paragraph itself has been a jumble of complex words. Let me get straight to the point - This is not just going to be about simplicity, but how you can simplify your life.

Now why would you want that?

Simply because we live in a time and place (Planet Earth) that just demands of our utmost productivity, efficiency, creativity, time and energy in order for us to survive.

This demand upon us simply cannot be ignored. Ignore it, and you’ll be left out in the race for more cheese

Hence, we have only one option - to face it. To face this demand head on, and be prepared for it. How? By simplifying our lives.

If there are 100 of you reading this, and I ask how many people have a definite plan for their lives, and live it in an organised manner, I’d say about 20 or so of you would put your hands up.

Let us use the concept of “Divide & Conquer”. No, it’s not a new Real-Time Strategy Game where you get to play a Superpower nuking countries harboring WMDs.

It is rather a very good strategy that you can apply in your life.

An average human being, in his lifetime, has 5 to 7 identities going on. Not split personalities, but identities. For example, I am a Student, a Son, a Father, a Businessman, a Teacher, an Author and a Servant.

Those are 7 of my most important roles and responsibilities I have in my life, right now, personified as these 7 identities.

Do the same for yourself. Define your 5 to 7 identities. If you find more than 7 identities, then you’d have to cut down on some of them. The ideal is 5. 7 is okay.

List your identities and prioritise them. Give the No. 1 position to the most important identity of yours, which holds the greatest significance in your life. This is somewhere near who you truly are as a person, when and if all the other identities of yours have somehow been removed from you.

Now draft out a rough timetable or schedule of activities which you occupy yourself with for 1 week. If you have some activities which you do only fortnightly, then do it for 2 weeks, or 1 month.

What do you do on Mondays, Tuesdays and all the way to Sundays? Divide each day into 24 1-hour segments. Or 48 1/2-hour segments. Fill each segment with an activity that you’d usually do.

Go back to your list of 5 to 7 identities, now prioritised from the most important to the least important. Next to each identity you’ve listed, write the percentage (estimate) of a day that you become this particular identity. If there is an overlapping of identities, then the total percentage would add up to more than 100% and that is perfectly normal.

Does your most important identity enjoy the highest percentage of time devoted to it? If not, if another identity lower on the priority list has the highest percentage, then perhaps that should be your most important one, or you should start devoting more time to your most important identity.

But sometimes, your most important identity need not have the most number of hours. Now write the ideal percentage of time in a day that you should spend as each of your unique identities, if you were to re-prioritise, re-organise and simplify your life.

Now check if the percentage of a day that you should become a certain identity correlates with the number of hours you spend on an activity or activities as this particular identity, which you’ve recorded in your timetable.

If it does correlate, good. If not, why? Write down some reasons / problems that may have caused you to not spend the correct amount of time as the respective identity which you’ve defined previously.

Then ask yourself some questions; actually write them down, concerning how you can optimise your hours per day as the appropriate identity you’ve identified.

Like:

How important is this identity of mine to me? Do I really need to spend the most amount of time as this identity (quantity) or do I just need to spend a certain allocated amount of time as him (quality)?

Which of my identities overlap? What can I do to optimise the amount of time given for each of my identities?

How can I further reduce the number of identities that I have? How can one identity of mine actually be an offshoot of another?

That’s it! Identify 5 to 7 identities you become in your life, give the appropriate amount of time to spend as each one of them (while allowing for some overlaps), and then go and spend the allocated amount of time as each identity!

Every hour or so during the day, ask yourself: what identity, what role am I playing right now? Should I be playing this role right now? Is this the right time? Am I spending the right amount of time as this identity?

This kind of awareness gives you the knowledge and control you need to organise your life by living it according to your priorities.

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It is always there, saying something, either guiding you or misguiding you, either motivating you or putting you down.

It’s your inner voice.

If you’ve seen cartoons before, you’ve most probably noticed how, very often, a character is faced with a ’serious’ moral decision. Should he pull the prank - or not?

Then, out of thin air, an angel and a devil appear by his two ears. Obviously, one will tell him to go ahead and do it while the other will exhort him to refrain.

This illustration can almost be likened to the two types of inner voices that you very, very, very often get. Even as you read this article.

They either help you or they don’t. They either make you feel positive or make you feel negative. They’re either constructive or destructive. They either bring about the best results or bring out the mediocre to worst results.

The trick is to first decide whether or not to listen to it at all. Some of your inner voices are utter gibberish. Ignore them. But sometimes they can lead you to a creative breakthrough. But that’s for another time, another place, another article.

Then, if you decide to listen to it, determine if it is positive, constructive, useful, and will lead to effective results or if it is negative, destructive, useless, and will lead to ineffective or sub-effective results. How?

Here’s how.

First, realise that the thing people commonly call your inner voice, or more precisely, your inner “perceptions” (those things in your consciousness that are not from your five physical senses) can come in many forms - voices, visual images, bodily feelings, emotions, memories, etc. It’s a whole myriad of stuff.

Appropriately categorise it. Ask yourself if it is an auditory perception (that which you hear), a visual stimuli (you see) or a kinesthetic signal (that which you feel with your body). Or is it an emotion or just an intangible concept or thought?

Ask your deeper mind why it gives you this signal. What is its purpose for giving you this message? Is it trying to tell you something?

Then ask if this “voice” comes from that popular concept of your “Highest Self”, that deep, innermost idea of your best self, who is perfect, of supreme integrity, of utmost wisdom and is guided by the highest good, in accordance with the Divine plan.

Okay, so that sounded a tad New Age-y.

Anyway, just ask yourself, “Is this right? Does it feel right at all?” Listen to yourself. Do you feel comfortable with this voice?

“If I listen to this voice, and I do what it tells me to do, what will I get? What results can I expect?”

“If I don’t listen to this voice, and I don’t do what it tells me to do, what will I get? What are the implications of it?”

“Does the core message that my inner voice is giving me match the way it is delivered?”

Sometimes, an inner voice may seem or feel negative to you, but it is in fact constructive. Hey, not all good ideas are fluffy, positive, pink (or purple) and happy!

What I mean by positive and negative inner voices refer to the outcomes that will result from your listening to and implementing the inner voices that you get.

One important question to ask is, “How do I know whether this inner voice I am hearing right now is constructive, neutral or detrimental?”

Here are some more -

“What are the clues or signs or proofs that this inner voice that I am getting now is constructive?”

“How can I decrease the quantity and quality of my negative and destructive inner voices every day?”

“Why must I decrease the quantity and quality of my negative and destructive inner voices every day?”

“What if I have drastically minimised the quantity and quality of my negative and destructive inner voices already?”

The set of questions I’ve just given you in this article serve a few purposes -

1. They help you to decide whether or not to listen to an “incoming” inner voice message at all. This saves a tremendous amount of time and brain power. Unless, of course, you enjoy entertaining EVERY thought that comes into your mind.

2. They help you classify an inner voice into its appropriate categories - auditory, visual, kinesthetic, emotional or abstract idea.

3. They help you decide if it is constructive or destructive. If it is the latter, you can ignore it.

4. Importantly, they help you reduce the amount of negative and destructive inner voices that you get every day.

Consistently ask yourself these questions every day for a couple of days or weeks and you will see a marked improvement in the quality of your daily thinking and questioning.

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Just a week ago, I thought of this simply brilliant - or - simple but brilliant idea and I almost forgot to write it down somewhere. So there I was, for 7 days, trying exceedingly hard to squeeze new article ideas out of my brain. So I used some Effective Questioning techniques to help me a bit.

One thing you should learn about any mental enhancement technique is that the speed with which you obtain results from it varies from time to time and from situation to situation. However, the more you use it, the better you get at it.

Then, this noon, while I was attending a lecture on Productivity and Quality, and pretending to be taking notes, I hit upon this idea.

One of the most prevalent monsters out there in the world of self help or what-have-yous is:

Negative thinking.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been told - or rather we’ve been told that we should avoid negative thinking like the plague. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, we’d rather watch re-runs of ‘Teletubbies’ (at least those creatures seem happy) than entertain one single negative thought.

Ready for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Avoiding negative thinking is not the way! Pollyannaic positive thinking simply won’t do!

Before you throw your tomatoes at Mr Peale, stop!

What, are we to revert to our old ways now? No, and yes.

You see, I’ve learnt something these past few days. The more we try to ignore negative thinking, the more negative thoughts will come to our mind. This is especially true if we’ve been incessant, notorious negative thinkers all our lives.

Old habits die hard. Old habits that are intangible, that are deeply rooted in the mind, die even harder.

The only way I know of to fight die-harder-than-usual old habits is to employ the Zen-like tactic of avoiding fighting. I read of this somewhere in some book. I think it was from a Chin-Ning Chu.

Avoid fighting? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s some variation of reverse psychology at work.

But I’ve added more elements to it, to make it even better. My cure isn’t really a cure, it’s more like a prescription. It’s a set of things you have to do to NOT stop your negative thinking, but rather, turn your negative thinking into more constructive thinking.

First, embrace your negative thoughts as a natural part of your being.

Let’s face it. All your unique, beautiful, varied emotions, feelings and experiences are there for a purpose. To live. Some people advocate doing away with anger. I say they’re stupid. Anger is useful when appropriately needed. It’s there, it’s got to have a purpose for existing. Some people advocate doing away with your material cravings. I say they’re crazy.

The key is to embrace it, to accept it, to acknowledge it, then, stop. Don’t give any more power to it by surrendering your concentration on it unnecessarily.

Second, ask yourself some constructive, effective questions to help you find something - anything - to do. Something practical to deal with the situation.

Here’s where effective questions come into play. Something along the lines of -

“What can I do about this thing? How can I remedy the situation?”

“What options do I have? What is the best option I have?”

“What is the best way to use what available resources of time, energy, thoughts and materials that I have to construct an ideal or at least more tolerable circumstance?”

Third, think one good thought for another person, not for you, let it go, then, believe that your good thought will be rewarded, and returned to you tenfold.

Perhaps you have a problem with positive thinking because you simply can’t do away with the belief that you don’t deserve the best in life. You are in the so-called state of self-punishment.

So what can you do? Direct your positive thoughts towards someone else, other than you.

You can do this to someone close, a loved one, but it’s even better, and it will be more effective if you direct your positive thought to complete strangers, or people who do not have that much stake upon your emotional/social life.

Or try on someone you really dislike (not to the point of hate).

You shall be surprised.

For instance, I pass by an elderly stranger while walking to school. I simply will in my mind that she will have a fruitful day today, a satisfying day, a happy day, when her friends and family (if she has any) will treat her well, and everything will be fine.

Then I let it go and expect that good thought to be reciprocated to me tenfold.

I always believe that we shall be rewarded for our good even if it is worth the weight of an atom. And usually the reward is multiples greater than the worth of our good. Even if it is but a thought and not something tangible.

You can also try on someone who doesn’t seem to like you no matter how you treat him or her. Someone who treats you in a cold manner, or rudely.

Forgive that person (if it is appropriate), wish him / her good thoughts, and let go.

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One of the most useful skills or abilities you can and should learn to develop is to install any belief - any belief - of your own choosing deep in your subconscious mind.

Beliefs, as you should know by now, are the most potent things humans have. I’m not talking about religious beliefs, which are an entirely different matter. I am talking about the beliefs one has about oneself.

You may be practising the most powerful goal setting, positive thinking, affirmation or creative visualization technique ever, but without faith in the method and faith in the truth that you really can change your life, it is all useless.

What do you believe about yourself? What are some of the beliefs that you hold, whether consciously or not, concerning or against yourself?

I’m sure there are some good ones and some undesirable ones. Any belief you have can either push you towards - or obstruct you from - your goals.

What do you want to believe about yourself? What are some of the beliefs that you want to have concerning yourself?

Write these beliefs down in the form of statements resembling traditional affirmations, such as, “I am consistently taking appropriate actions that are aimed at improving myself daily”.

We’re going to work on each of these beliefs that you want to install one by one. Choose one from your list, the belief which you feel is one that you most need right now.

Make sure you choose something which is relatively believable now, than something which is far out too inconceivable (like “I believe I can fly by flapping my arms”).

Next, check that you really, truly, deeply want to install this belief into your subconscious mind. Employ the relentless effective questioning technique. Use every imaginable question to sort of “interrogate” yourself why, why, why you wish to install this belief.

Ask yourself these questions:

Why do I want to believe in this belief? How can I believe in this belief? What if I am already believing in this belief?

Do I really want to believe in this belief? If “Yes”, continue. If “No”, go back and refine this belief you want to install. Or choose another from that list.

Next, check that this belief you choose can integrate with your current value system, without contradicting any beliefs you may currently hold.

You may not need to make your belief conform 100% to your system, as some beliefs are true some of the time, and not true the rest of the time. That’s normal.

The effective questions to ask yourself are:

Does this belief contradict any other beliefs I currently hold? Can this belief provide for me the kind of emotion I need?

How does this belief help me to move forward, even accelerate, in the attainment of my worthy goals? What must I risk, let go or sacrifice if I choose to believe in this belief right now?

Is this belief appropriate in the context it is applied to? What are the implications, whether positive or negative, of me installing this belief in my system?

If you find that after asking yourself these questions you are still comfortable with this belief, move on to the successive step of installing it!

To install this belief, you need a 2-phase process of clearing and filling, very much like emptying a tank of old water, and then filling the tank with fresh, clean water.

The clearing phase of the belief installation technique consists of the following questions to ask yourself:

Are there any objections, conscious or not, to this belief at all?

What are the objections, counter-arguments, contradictory statements or conflicting beliefs that may prevent me from attaining the effectiveness I need when installing the desired belief into my system?

What are the blocks that I hold in my mind that may undermine this belief’s effectiveness? What are the editor’s objections to this belief I am introducing?

Can I find any specific events that counter-prove the conflicting belief (not the belief that you want to install)?

When have I found that this blocking belief (not the belief that you want to install) does not prove true in my life? How many times has this happened (referring to the above question)?

Why is this objecting statement not true at all? How is this objecting statement not true? Is it even true 100% of the time? If it is true only for less than 50% of the time, can I consider it a valid statement of truth that I should believe in?

What are the chances of this conflicting belief proving true in real life? If it only proved true for less than 50% of the time, or not at all (0%), will I then still consider it valid? Or would I deem it null and void?

How can I reduce the chances of or even prevent from this conflicting belief to present its ugly head in real life?

If something that counters the belief that I want to install does happen, what will I do to remedy the situation? How can I evade it in the first place?

After the clearing phase, comes the filling phase. Think through each of the above questions deeply, taking a considerable amount of time if possible.

Add more questions of your own more or less resembling those I wrote above. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually asking yourself the same questions over and over again.

Ask these “filling” questions:

What will I gain if I believe in this belief? What will I lose if I do not believe in this belief? How will I feel when I am believing in this belief?

What will I be like when I am believing in this belief? What will my world be like when I am believing in this belief?

What will I be saying to myself when I am believing in this belief? How soon am I able to fully believe in this belief?

How do I know I am truly and deeply believing in this belief? How is this belief true?

What are the evidences, proofs and testimonies that prove this belief true? What are the logical reasons for this belief to be true?

What are the emotional reasons for this belief to be true? Does this belief “just feel right” for me?

Do I now realise that just believing in this belief gives me a certain kind of excitement or emotional upliftment?

What events have happened in my past that may prove that the belief is true?

How can I recreate the conditions that have caused that event (mentioned above) to occur so that I can effect another similar, more powerful result that will in turn strengthen my belief in this belief?

Again, in addition to the questions I crafted above, write down your own, even if it’s more or less similar to mine.

The above processes of asking questions, thinking about them, and answering them, can all be done on pen and paper, or simply in your mind, while in a quiet, focused and relaxed state of mind.

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Keeping negative emotions inside of you are one of the most important causes of failure. This is, of course, not to say that you should be pollyannaic (one who is always positive and happy, even if the sky falls on his family).

Yes, some negative emotions are important, if not necessary, for you to feel, like grief when a loved one passes away, or a little guilt when you do something wrong to someone and you want to apologise. A moderate dosage of these kinds of “necessary” negative emotions is healthy.

However, the trap comes when you wallow in these emotions for extended periods of time. You just can’t get yourself to “move on” when you “really, really, really” want to.

No matter how much pollyannaic positive thinking you apply, no matter how many times you repeat your affirmations, no matter how much you try to just ignore your emotions, they just keep coming back to haunt you.

Let’s now see how we can handle this:

First, we must examine the root cause of negative emotions. We must find the base upon which these negative emotions stand and uproot it from the terrain of your mind.

For most of us, the trigger that sparks off most negative emotions is usually an event - an external event that happened to us, which is usually beyond our control.

If it is an event that is beyond our control, why bother? It’s not your fault. Instead, it is more healthy to focus on the things which exist within your sphere of influence, those factors which you are in control of.

By doing this, by only focusing on optimising your power over the things which you have control over, you are, in fact, contributing to the expansion of your sphere of influence, and therefore, you’ll have more things that you have control over, thus, maximising your effectiveness.

The more you focus on what you do control,
The more things you can control.

The more things you can control,
The more effective you become.

A negative emotion could also be an event that is within our control. And this is all the better to handle. The trick now is to identify what had caused you to not attain what you wanted that then triggered your negative emotion.

Here’s where you can use Effective Questions to ask yourself what had really caused you to (to put it bluntly) fail.

Ask the most important question - Why?

Ask “why?” relentlessly, till you get to the core of the matter. Use “why?” as your shovel to dig down deeper and deeper and deeper - do not stop - until you reach the base, the root, the real cause of the problem.

But what about those negative emotions that just “come out of the blue”, without needing it to be triggered by an external event at all? If you can use the Relentless Why technique above with this, you’ll find that somewhere from your past, there is an event that caused this negative emotion to occur.

And also, sometimes, quick fixes to external events that trigger our negative emotions simply cannot heal us of the wounds these emotions cause to us.

This is where more effective questions come in. Not affirmations, not positive thinking, not thinking blissful happy thoughts. You need some really deep, really penetrating effective questions.

Step One - The Clearing Process.

Ask yourself these:

How do I feel?
How do I really, really feel?
Am I sure I am really feeling this? Or is it something else? Another emotion that is disguised as this present emotion?
Do I want to feel this?
Whether you answered Yes or No to the above question, ask -
Why do I want / do I not want to feel this?
What would be the negative consequences of me feeling these emotions for extended periods of time?
Do I want these negative consequences?
How painful can these negative consequences be?
What would be the positive consequences of me getting rid of these emotions?
Do I want these positive consequences?
How pleasurable & delightful can these positive consequences be?
What would I gain from freeing myself of these negative emotions?
Would it be possible that these negative emotions are the very cause for my present state of failure?
Would it be possible that if I rid myself of these negative emotions, I would finally attain the success I desire?

Step Two - The Motivating Process.

Next, ask yourself these questions:

What do I want to feel?
What do I really want to feel?
Why must I want to feel these more resourceful, positive emotions?
How can I feel these more resourceful, positive emotions?
What if I can feel these more resourceful, positive emotions right now?
How would it feel like to feel these positive emotions right now?
Can I feel these positive emotions right now?
What do I have in my life right now that can help me to feel more positive about myself right now?
Who do I love, and who loves me, who can help me to feel more positive about myself right now?
What can I be happy about in my life right now?
Why must I maintain this positive emotion?
How can I maintain this positive emotion?
What if I am already able to maintain this positive emotion right now?

Only 2 phases - clearing the glass of the old water, and filling in the glass with new, cleaner, healthier water.

Do this, and you should have gained yourself a position of power and control over your emotional states. A power, if compared to other forms of power, that is incontestible.

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Focus. That is the single most important ability determinant of your success. The lack of it is also the single most common problem faced by a major portion of the general populace.

The average person cannot focus his or her mind on any one thought, task or thing for extended periods of time if he or she wants to.

Just try this - picture a circle of any colour you choose for at least 68 seconds. That’s only 8 seconds over a minute. Do this without letting any other stray thoughts, images or inner voices intrude in your mind. Not even one speckle of a thought should creep in your mind, other than that circle of your favourite colour centered in your imagination.

Try it now!

Ouch! Treacherously difficult, isn’t it?

I notice a few things after several unyielding trials at meditation and concentration exercises.

If I am focusing on an image or visual object in my mind, that visual object or image tends to “morph” into something else, shifting shapes, changing colours and moving about with a life of its own.

I think that this stems from our mind being bored by our forcing it to concentrate on only one perception at a time, after having been exposed to a life-time of perceptual cognitive bombardment.

It just fights to let other thoughts and perceptions come in to kill its boredom, like a baby that is quickly bored by one toy and wants to play with the next.

If I am trying to focus on a word, a principle, a concept or idea, the intangibility of that thought and vagueness thereof simply demands other related (and un-related) ideas and concepts to flood into my mind, thus killing my concentration exercise.

Either way, I’m trapped.

The supreme kind of focus that is achieved by meditators and the highly successful (meditators are not necessarily highly successful, and vice-versa) only comes about through disciplined training and diligent daily practice.

But I’m not going to tell you to go through that kind of rigorous training to sharpen your focus until it becomes as a laser beam.

Most people do not have the time nor the stamina to take the torturous path braved by those few. Maybe you’re one of them, like me, maybe you’re not.

Don’t worry if you’re from the previous group. It’s not now, but not never either, just, perhaps another time for you.

But do we really need that kind of perfect and supreme concentration ability? To be able to only think one thought and let no other, not one inkling, come in? To focus so deeply and intently on one idea and be immune to distractions both inner and outer?

The answer is no. We don’t have to shave our heads bald and don robes to sharpen our mind. There is a way for you to help yourself focus your mind and all your resources on achieving a certain objective when you really, really need to.

It is through questions.

That’s it. Just ask yourself questions about, relevant and pertaining to the thought, idea or thing you want to focus on. Only questions relevant to the object of your focus. Nothing that strays too far away from the theme or subject matter.

Questions are naturally thought focusers. That means, by their very nature, questions are designed to make your thoughts focus on what is being asked about.

Just think of riddles or puzzles. I just got one in my email concerning the 3rd word in the English language that ends in “gry”.

Here it goes:

“There are 3 words in the English language that end in ‘gry’. One is angry and the other is hungry. Everyone knows what the 3rd word is, and everyone uses it every day. If you listened carefully, I’ve already told you what it is. What is the 3rd word?”

The question “What is the 3rd word?” got my mind thinking so hard, and all my thoughts, for that moment, so focused and intent on finding the elusive answer to that puzzle that it distracted me from the actual answer itself that is already presented to my face (for the answer, go do a search on Google).

Or think back to a time when you were doing an English comprehension paper. I can recall myself doing my ‘O’ Level English Comprehension Examination paper. The article has got something to do with early child development and the human brain.

When you were trying to answer the questions, what do you do? You were searching for the answer in the comprehension article, right?

Or if it was a thinking-type question, you were also searching for the answer in your mind, in your memory, trying to find related ideas and concepts that could somehow match what the comprehension question demands.

If you were observant, I’ve already told you the purpose of focusing.

Okay, I won’t play riddles with you. The chief purpose of concentration or focus is to search for something. You want to search for something, you focus on it.

Scholars, monks, philosophers, thinkers and writers who are in search of what they hold to be the Ultimate Truth, focus on it in order to find it. Some fail, some succeed; and the difference between the two is how much they know about what they are actually focusing on (or searching for) and why.

So here’s one tip to help you focus better:

KNOW what it is you want to achieve with your focusing. What are you searching for? Where are you heading for?

How does one KNOW? How does one attain knowledge of something? One asks. Therefore, questions help one focus.

For example, you want to focus on a book that you’re reading. You can’t seem to understand what it is about, either because the author sucks or you are not focusing well enough on the contents and ideas presented.

Let’s assume it’s the latter case.

First, ask yourself some questions about WHAT information or knowledge that you want to extract from reading this book.

Second, think about HOW you’re going to go about and retrieve that information or knowledge that you’re seeking in the book.

Third, just for added motivation, ask WHY you want to or need to have that knowledge or information you’re searching for in the book.

Fourth, formulate a few What, Why, How, Who, Where, When questions (whatever applies) to get you into “Search mode”; pretty much like a search engine, in order to get you to FOCUS on only those parts of the book that can provide you with the answers to your questions.

While you notice the CAPS that I wrote in the previous few paragraphs, do you see the connection now between focusing, searching for answers and asking questions?

Or let’s say you’re doing one of those concentrating-on-an-object exercises. You know, like candles, fruits, pictures and stuff. I don’t know what the purpose for these kinds of exercises is, other than that they help you train your mind to focus, somehow, albeit on seemingly unconstructive things.

First, ask yourself WHAT that thing actually is (I realise how silly this sounds, but I have a gut inner feeling that I’m on the right track, and I trust my intuition very, very much, and I don’t want to betray it). Okay, so, it’s an apple. Ask yourself what it is that makes an apple, an apple. What are the elements constituting an apple that determines it to be an apple.

Second, ask yourself HOW an apple becomes the way it is. Think about how it was originally planted in the Earth as a seed. Think about how it grows, with the proper nourishment of sunlight, water, minerals, nutrients and other things you learn in high school science.

Third, think about WHY an apple exists. (Laughing out Loud) This is where you can get existential-philosophical. What purpose does it serve in our reality? In this world? In the universe? Ask why is it red? Or green? Why is it juicy and scrunchy? Why is it sweet? What makes it so?

Fourth, generate more questions surrounding that apple. The more you ask, the more you’ll find that you’re thinking deeper and deeper about that apple, and while you’re thinking deeply about it, you’re actually focusing on it, and you’ve exercised your focusing abilities, and hence have enhanced it, by an incremental percentage; and I think if you’re focusing on it hard enough, you might just feel compelled to grab it and take a MUNCH!

Fascinating, isn’t it?

I’ll end this article with a few Meta-Questions:

Why must I focus on the most constructive thought at any given moment?

How can I focus on the most constructive thought at any given moment?

What if I am already focusing on the most constructive thought at any given moment?

How do I know I am focusing on the most constructive thought at any one time?

How soon can I be able to easily focus on the most constructive thought at any given time?

What is my purpose for focusing my mind on this thought I am thinking now?

How can I know that my purpose for focusing my mind on this thought I am thinking now is positive, constructive, optimal and serves to better my condition in the best possible way?

What am I really searching or seeking for while I am focusing on this thought?

What am I focusing on right now? (Ask this question from time to time, to keep track of your thoughts. Most people spend 99% of their time letting thoughts pass in their mind unchecked)

Why am I focusing on this thought right now?

Can you think of more questions already?

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To add to or even replace your daily habit of repeating affirmations or reading motivational quotes, you can also help yourself to a good, healthy dose of Meta-Questions.What are meta-questions?

Meta-questions are simply honest and focused questions that are designed to manoeuvre your thinking process into a more constructive, optimal (not necessarily optimistic) and pragmatic mental frame.

This especially helps when you are in the habit of waking up to generally very negative and pessimistic thought patterns in the morning. I know, because I am one of these people.

However, I’ve learnt to get around this problem by formulating my own set of effective questions to help me re-focus every morning on the big picture, my - corny as it may sound - “mission in life”, and get me back on track.

Meta-questions are one step above “normal” effective questions in that they not only aid in shifting your focus onto a more constructive plane of thinking, but they also add on to your efficiency and proficiency with the technique.

That means, the more you use meta-questions, the better you get at it. It’s an exponential growth!

To start with, you can ask, “How can I formulate better questions every day?”

Then ask, “Why must I constantly think up better questions every day?”

And, “What will it be and feel like if the quality of questions that I keep asking every day improves?”

My favourite variation of this set of questions will be like this -

“How can I ask myself better questions today than yesterday? How can I ask myself even better questions tomorrow than today?”

“Why must I ask myself better questions today than yesterday? Why must I ask myself even better questions tomorrow than today?”

“What if I am asking myself better questions today than yesterday? What would it feel like if I am asking myself even better questions tomorrow than today?”

To make things even better, add these questions -

“How can I use these even better questions to improve every facet of my life every day?”

“Why must I use these even better questions to improve every facet of my life every day?”

“What would it be and feel like once I use these even better questions to improve every facet of my life every day?”

“How can I act upon the answers, ideas and insights I get from asking myself better & better questions every day?”

“Why must I act upon the answers, ideas and insights I get from asking myself better & better questions every day?”

“What would it be and feel like if I act upon the answers, ideas and insights I get from asking myself better & better questions every day?”

“How do I know if an idea which I think of will be the best and most optimal possible solution to put into action in the current situation?”

And the list goes on. I hope you know now how the pattern goes. You should be able to create your own set of meta-questions by now, from the extensive list of examples I provide above.

These questions work like compound interest. Only that you don’t have to invest any money up front, and the returns are more rewarding - far, far more rewarding - than what dollars and cents can give you.

A good idea would be to print out your set of meta-questions as beautifully as possible, using your favourite publishing or image editing software, and put them up somewhere you can see them every day.

10 to 20 minutes of calm and concentrated contemplation upon these questions would suffice in expanding your personal power and effectiveness in your daily life.

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Take these statements into consideration and see how many you have used recently.

I have tried that before and it did not work so there is no point in trying again.
I have got a great idea but I have not got the time to do anything about it today.
There is something in my past that stops me from being who I want to be.
The times not right, I will wait until the market is ready for my new product, or idea.
I had a great idea but someone else is now doing it and making a good life from it.
Tomorrow is another day, the start of a new beginning for me.
They were the good old days, I wish they would come back again.

Well, how did you do? The point of this article is to get you to think about the passions in your life and doing something about them. In other words become a success now. If you can come to terms with the fact that there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, its always the present moment.

So the only time that you can take any kind of action to become a success is at that moment in time. Successful people are the ones that take action, get things started there and then, in the moment when their passion is at its peak. By doing so they keep their success momentum going. By continually taking action they stay in the flow.

If you did not have a watch or a diary or a calendar you would not know when yesterday was or when tomorrow would arrive, because they only exist in our minds. We have all been programmed with times and dates which give us a false sense of time. The short time it has taken you to read this far into this article has gone, but it has not become yesterday, it has simply passed you by, it has gone forever. The next second that ticks by does not become tomorrow it is the now, and then it is gone.

If you can learn that simple principle and take all of your actions immediately, success will follow. This does not mean you have to carry your new great idea out to the full in that one moment of time, but do something to get it moving. Make a phone call, tell a friend, do some research, write it down, just do one thing and keep the momentum going.

Your success is in the future but the actions you need to take to reach your success are in the present, keep taking action and eventually the future will arrive and you will have arrived at where you wanted to be.

So make a conscious decision to take some kind of action everyday and time itself will get you there, but make sure you do it now!

Steve Tallamy uses his web site to help people from all walks of life through his own life experiences to demonstrate that success via self development and hypnosis in particular is possible for everyone to achieve. You can find out more about Steve and his experiences at http://www.self-developer.com

Take a good look at yourself right now. Gaze into the mirror of your self. I don’t mean you to take it literally and get a glass mirror to look at your face.

Just take mental note of what you are, who you are, where you are right now, what you have done, and what you have, in all aspects of your life.

Without letting yourself be fooled by its apparent simplicity, ask yourself these questions, in terms of these 6 dimensions (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, financial, social) :

What am I?
Who am I?
Where am I?
What have I done?
What have I achieved?
What do I have?

Why don’t you do yourself a favour - grab a piece of paper and a pencil, write those questions down and begin thinking about the answers. Or you can just fire up notePad or a word processing program of your choice and type these questions out.

Relax. Don’t take this as some tedious “homework” or exercise. See it as a fun exploration in getting to know the most complex, fascinating and mysterious creature you’ve ever known.

You.

Written those questions down already? Answered them already? It helps if you write your answers down as well.

Don’t worry about writing grammatically perfect English (or whatever is your language of choice) sentences. But do try to be as specific as possible.

If the answer to your question of “What have I achieved?” is “Nothing”, think about why you just said that.

What do you exactly mean by nothing? Do you mean you’ve achieved nothing which you think is worth mentioning? Or are you just being excessively modest?

Be specific. Think of some very concrete, tangible answers to those questions, focused around the 6 dimensions I mentioned above.

Next, as you take a look at the piece of paper or the notePad window (or whatever), think about how you’ve arrived at the situation you are in, right now.

Think about the specific decisions, actions, choices you made and the events that lead you to who and what you are right now. Surely the things that you have, do or be right now is a product of a set of important decisions you have made in life.

Even if it’s a coincidence, an act of God, a stroke of luck or a serendipity, you do involve some decision-making into it (like whether or not to follow on it when the opportunity presents itself).

Be very honest with yourself. Write down your findings for this as well.

Done that? Now pick just one of those crucial ‘decision moments’ you’ve written down. Pick the one which you think is the most significant in your life.

Now take a fresh sheet of paper, or open up a new notePad window, and write down a headline for that crucial decision moment you’ve just picked. Below this headline, write a brief description of what happened when you made that decision.

Close your eyes for a while and recall that moment of decision-making. Relive it in as much detail as possible in your mind.

Now ask yourself what is going on in your mind as you make your decision. Just an instant, a split second, before you come to your conclusion, what is it that happens in your mind that lead you to your decision?

Do you find that, if you could really go back into it, you are asking yourself questions, consciously or not, about the effects of each option you have, about what action to take, etc?

Every time you think, every time you analyse, every time you want to make a decision, you ask yourself some questions.

Questions are the key to the door that will lead you to your answers - whether they’re right or not. Now do you see the power questions can hold over the shaping of our lives?

If the present condition of your life right now is determined by the decisions (and follow-up actions) you made in the past, and the decisions you made were determined by the quality of your thinking before making each decision, then the quality of your thinking is determined by the quality of the questions you asked yourself.

To live an effective life, you need effective decisions.
To make each effective decision, you need effective thinking.
To do some effective thinking, you need effective questions.

Now do you see the power of questions in shaping your life?

Think about it for today.

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Self-esteem is at the core of everyones success story and it is a very powerful emotion to have, yet so many people seem to be afraid to develop their own self-esteem, and then they stand back and blame everyone else for their failures.

So that it is not surprising that they fail, let us look at some of the reasons as to why I think they are not a success in the self-esteem stakes.

I think you know the type of person I am going to be referring to here, in fact I know that you do, we all know at least one person like this. They like to show off and be the center of everyones attention. They are always finishing off your sentences for you. They never stop telling you about themselves and how good they are at everything that they do. They are always fishing for compliments. They are forever criticizing people behind their backs but never to their faces.

I could go on but I think that you will have a picture of someone that you know in your mind by now. The thing that makes me laugh about these characters is that they think of themselves as having a very high level of high self-esteem, as being successful and loved by everyone around them. But we know differently because we can see through the veneer that they have to wear to cover over their cracks.

The successful person with self-esteem acts in a totally different manner. Almost unnoticed it seems, but powerfully appealing at the same time, a lot more like this. They appear to be more interested in others than in themselves. They can and will attract your attention almost without you being aware of it. They do not seek out praise or compliments but know how to appreciate them when given.

Again there are so many more examples I could give, but you get my point, they are poles apart in their behavior. I know which one of them I would rather have a meal with,I bet you do as well. Self-esteem is a measure of the value or worth that we have for ourselves, so the more self-esteem the more worth and the more worth or value the higher our success.

Hypnosis helped me regain my own self-esteem not so very long ago, so you see there are ways that you can give your chances of success a great boost by working on your own self-esteem.

Steve Tallamy uses his web site to help people from all walks of life through his own life experiences to demonstrate that success via self development and hypnosis in particular is possible for everyone to achieve. You can find out more about Steve and his experiences at http://www.self-developer.com