Here’s a few strategies for preventing this from happening.

1) Wake up earlier than you need to

If you travel any distance to work, it’s important to wake up earlier than you need to. A stressful drive to the office, or missing your bus by a few seconds can really ruin your day. Leave plenty of time for getting ready and eating. As a rule of thumb, if you don’t have time to eat a proper breakfast before working, you’re not leaving enough time.

2) Review your goals and task lists

The more in control of your life you feel, the happier you are. Keeping a close eye on your goals and tasks keeps everything fresh in your mind, and you’re much less likely to forget about them. Not only that, but it allows you to review things and to quickly spot troubles. And it puts you in a positive frame of mind.

3) Read your affirmations

Before I tried using affirmations, I thought they were a waste of time. However, having experimented with them I’ve found them to be an invaluable tool for improving my mood. Stick to two or three simple ones, such as “I have abundant energy” or “I make effective use of my time”.

Think of affirmations as a kind of mental scaffolding. They’re useful for keeping you internally positive and uplifted until you can change your external situation.

4) Read something uplifting

Rent autobiographies of people you admire from the library. When you come across a good article on the Internet, print it off and read it later. Not only will this help reduce the amount of time surfing the net, but it creates your own personal library that you can refer to time and again.

Keep a highlighter handy when you’re reading them, so you can mark any important points. Review these later and make your own set notes.

5) Listen to something uplifting

If reading isn’t your thing, rent some audiobooks or listen to podcasts. There’s a wealth of personal development podcasts out there, and the advantage is that you can do something else whilst listening to them. Such as exercise…

6) Do some exercise

Twenty to thirty minutes of simple exercises in the morning gets your blood flowing and improves your mood. It doesn’t have to be too strenuous, and some light skipping or a gently jog around your area is just as effective.

Remember what you’ve achieved

So you’ve been up for just over and hour, and you’ve already managed to review your goals, read your affirmations and done some exercise. Sounds much better than stuffing down a slice of toast and running for the train…

I find this quote from Jim Rohn to be particularly inspiring in this situation.

The Challenge

Let others live small lives,
but not you.

Let others argue about small things,
but not you.

Let others cry over small hurts,
but not you.

Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands,
but not you.

Jim Rohn

With this increase in interest, now is a good time to take a second look at The Secret. What is it all about, why has it become so popular and how can it be applied to your life?

What is “The Secret”?

The Secret is the idea that “thoughts become things”. It might seem like common knowledge that we must think about things before we create them, but The Secret takes that one step further. One of the key ideas in the film is the “Law of Attraction”, which states that like attracts like. For example, thinking about positive things will attract positive events into your live. 

The “Law of Attraction” itself has been around for much longer than the current hype of “cosmic ordering”. The film mentions it has been used by many famous thinkers high achievers, and that it has also appeared in biblical stories.

The law of attraction is also known as the “intention manifestation” model. This model of thinking states that thinking about something (putting out an intention) will cause what you’re thinking about to manifest in your life.

Even if all of this sounds a little far fetched, I still recommend checking out the film because it contains some great tips on setting and achieving goals. It also has an extremely positive attitude, and you can’t help but become more enthusiastic about your goals after watching it.

Why has it become so popular?

There’s been a huge online buzz behind the film, and word of mouth has really helped to spread the message. Several high-profile personal development bloggers have also spoken about the film, particularly Steve Pavlina and his wife Erin. Along with the online buzz, several of the film’s main contributors have also appeared on some high-profile TV shows.

Marketing aside, what is it about the film that has made it resonate so strongly with its audience?

The film itself is well presented but has a very “genuine” feel to it. It contains a good dose of humour, and all of the speakers seem very warm and natural. There’s no blatant self-promotion that can sometimes creep into personal development material.

Of course, the main feature of the film is that it makes some very large promises.

Promising that applying a single principle can make anything certainly gives the film something to live up to. Possibly the only message more popular than “get rich quick” is “get everything you want easily”.

Despite the fact that the intention/manifestation model sounds like an easy way of getting anything you want, putting it into practice can be difficult at first.

At the simplest level it’s just a case of thinking about what you want. However, there are a few subtle additions that are quite important. It requires a constant effort and a sense of clarity in order to be successful. Despite the film framing these practices as a “secret”, they’re fundamental to any form of achievement, regardless of the beliefs behind it.   

Applying The Secret

How do you apply the Law of Attraction to your everyday life?

Create your picture of clarity — Before you can start, you need to have a clear vision of where you want to be. Like any goal, you must be specific and write it down!

Visualise your success — Visualise your goal as already achieved. Spend some time to make the visualisation powerful, and visit the scene every day. It’s even better if you can combine the vision with emotions from a previous victory. Strong, positive emotions make a visualisation much more powerful.

Constantly review your “intentions” – This is one of the most important parts of goal achievement – you must constantly review your goals if you are to achieve them. You should aim to read through your goals at least once a day. The more often you check your goals, the more deeply rooted into your routine they become.

Does any of this work?

Does setting clear goals and constantly visualising the results help you to achieve what you want? Absolutely! Is it because your thoughts vibrate with the universe and it delivers what you desire? That’s up to you to decide.

Whether you think it’s an amazing secret or a load of mumbo-jumbo, I recommend taking a 30 day trial of the techniques to see if it works for you. Approach it with it with an open mind, more importantly don’t let it put you off using visualisation in your goal setting. 

First Impressions

The first thing I noticed about the film is how well produced it is. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it’s polished nicely and visually interesting. The other thing that stands out is the passion of the speakers. It’s clear that they care a lot about the subject, and that it’s clearly benefited them over the years. Most importantly they all have a sense of humility and gratitude which can be quite humbling at times considering how successful they’ve been. The film is also quite humourous in places, and it’s clear that it’s meant to be uplifting and fun to watch.

A Brief Overview

The film itself covers a lot of ground, but is broken into chapters which makes it easier to keep up with things. The first part of the film is spent explaining what “the secret” is and how it can be applied, and the other chapters deal with ways of using it in specific areas of your life such as health, wealth and relationships.

The film details several exercises for applying “the secret”, and they’re all thoroughly explained and demonstrated through various real-life examples. One particular example that stands out is John Assaraf’s “vision board”, which is a powerful reminder as to how well out subconscious responds to mental imagery.

“The Secret” is taught from an “intention/manifestation” (also known as “law of attraction” or “cosmic ordering”) point of view. I’d been reading about this paradigm on several websites, and even though it seemed very “new agey”, I decided to approach the film with an open mind. In it’s simplest form, the intention manifestation model states that “thoughts become things”, and that by acknowledging this you can learn to use it for positive change.

An example given in the film is debt. If a person thinks about debt, even if they think how much they hate it, they will attract more debt into their lives. By utilising the law of attraction, they think about getting cheques in the mail instead of bills, and so they attract cheques instead of bills.

So What IS The Secret?

Deciding exactly what “the secret” is perhaps the most thought provoking thing about the film. It may be easy to brush off the theories as “hokey”, but if you look a little deeper you’ll find there are lessons to be learnt no matter what your point of view is.

Even though the film is based on the “law of attraction”, the exercises can be used by anyone. A good example of this is the creation of your goals. Defining what you want, visualising the result as already achieved, reinforcing it with positive emotions, and then continually revisiting the visualisation is the kind of activity that will bring results regardless of your particular belief system.

Final Thoughts

If you’re interested in personal development, it’s well worth a watch. It’s informative, yet also funny and genuinely touching in places. Regardless of your views on the “law of attraction” model, there is plenty of learn from the film.

You can watch the film for $4.95 at thesecret.tv, or order the DVD for $24.95.

I still wanted to write about games and software, but productivity and videogames are two very different audiences, so it was a good idea to split the blog into two. Originally I was going to pick some generic name for this blog, but I decided to use my own name which was very out of character. It seemed like it would be a good growth experience.

So Why Did The Writing Dry Up?

I didn’t follow a schedule

I’ve tried blogging with and without schedules, and I’ve found that using a schedule improves the quality and frequency of my work. Being able to see what articles will be published in the next few weeks allows me to prepare and research, and I find myself sometimes drafting posts weeks before they’re scheduled to be posted. It’s a nice feeling to know that you’ve taken care of a week’s worth of work.

“Not an expert” syndrome

I often feel that I can’t write about something unless I’m an expert on it, and I don’t really consider myself an expert at anything. Clearly, that has an effect on how much I write.

A Cold Writing Style

I didn’t really let my personality show through in any of my earlier work, and it made writing something of a chore. There can sometimes be a feeling that you should distance your personality from your blog, which probably comes from a need to protect the ego. People will criticise your blog no matter how good it is, so it’s only natural to try and separate it from yourself as much as possible.

Perfectionism

Another point that’s related to not being an expert. I’d often write lengthy articles, and then bin them because they were full of perceived imperfections. Perfectionism is a huge barrier to personal productivity, and it’s even more problematic because it can be justified as “trying to maintain a level of quality”.

How I’m Solving These Problems

Making a schedule

Looking ahead, I can see how my blogs are going to shape up over the next few weeks. This is a big help for scheduling work, and means I know a big article won’t sneak up on me. It could be argued that keeping a schedule removes some of the spontaneity and passion from a blog, but it suits my working style so I’m inclined to disagree.

Sharing my Experiences

Instead of trying to write from an expert’s point of view, I should write from my own point of view and discuss my experiences, the problems I’ve encountered and anything else that might help other people. If I’m struggling with something, the chances are that other people are struggling too.

Letting Go Of Fear

Being criticised is part of life, and is definitely part of the internet. Letting my personality show is an important part of making the blog readable, and more importantly they make it more interesting to write for.

The Tough One

Dropping the perfectionist part of my personality is going to be difficult. I think this is something that will have to solved by experiencing life from a non-perfectionist point of view. For example, trying to live as a non-perfectionist for 30 days, and then seeing what happens.

Now It’s Your Turn

So how did you find your blogging feet? What’s bugging you and what do you think is holding you back?