Just a brief note

I am aware that I have been hopelessly remiss in keeping up to date on this blog, and in fact most likely none of you are still reading it....

However, I was recently asked to guest post in a blog on the subject of happiness and life purpose...

I thought I'd let those of you that are still here know about this blog. It is by a good friend of mine, and you can find the article here...

Stuck in a rut...

Perspective is a funny thing. Or to be more precise, seeing things from a different perspective can be a funny thing. For example, I've been traveling for almost 3 years now, and one of the things that I've been able to notice from the different perspective of being further away from my friends and family is that most people are stuck in their mental world, for better or for worse...

I'll tell you what I mean. The people that were in long term relationships three years ago, they are still in long term relationships. Some with the same person, some with a different person... The people that were dating a bunch of different people three years ago, they are still dating a bunch of people... generally different people... The people that three years ago were relentlessly single without even dating... well, guess what... they are still doing that!

This runs counter to what sit-coms, movies and dramas tell us... the Hollywood myth that people go through stages in their life... They start off single, move into dating a bunch of people, and then find one person and fall into a long term relationship... then they break up and the cycle continues... This is clearly a myth!

So where does that leave us? Some people obviously do graduate from being single, to being in a relationship, sometimes dating a bunch first, and sometimes skipping the dating part completely...

What this tells me is that which of these settings we are on is entirely dependent on our behavior and thinking... Not on what we want to happen. Most relentlessly single people that I know really want to be in a relationship (there are some exceptions, often girls that have suffered a particularly bad break-up). We have all known people that are serial monogamists, as soon as they finish one relationship they immediately fall into the next one, seemingly whether they want to or not. We have also all known people that have stuck with a bad relationship... seemingly unable to cope with the idea of being without it... Many people that are "dating around", would love to find the one, but somehow the right one is never the one in front of them...

So intentions don't determine our relationships. It is mostly down to behavior and thinking... That is the good news! These things can be changed if we just gain awareness of them and have the will to change them. To help you to gain awareness of some of the things that may be holding you back I am going to list some of the common behaviors/thought that keep om holding us back...

Serial Monogamists/Unhappy Monogamists

Now most people in a monogamous relationship are happy. This is after all the ideal towards which most of us strive... However there is a sizable minority that are suffering in monogamous relationships. These are some of those peoples errors...
    They get into a relatioship without realising it. So they go from not knowing someone, to seeing them all the time, within a couple of weeks or days. Before they realise what has happened they are in another relationship!
    They think they should take whatever they should get. This applies whether it is someone that stays with the same person that clearly isn't right for them, or if it is one of those people that jumps from relationship to relationship. It is often down to low self esteem, and not realising tht they should have a choice..,
    They have a fear of being alone. At a deep level they don't feel complete without someone there to be with them.
    They fear the discomfort of being single. So they stay in their comfortable rut... no matter how unhappy it is making them feel...

Addicted to Dating

The dating addicts fall into two groups. The ones that are happy dating, and those that desperately want to be in a relationship. The happy daters are normally either men that are getting lots of sex, or women that are getting lts of free meals... The unhappy ones are normally women that are getting lots of sex*, and guys that are paying for lots of expensive meals! Here are the mistakes of the serial daters...
    They have unrealistic standards. Note I did't say they are too picky... This goes beyond that. They actually have standards that cannot be reasonably met. Ie many girls expect a guy to smoothly lead them through a seduction, while at the same time wanting a guy that hasn't been with many women,,,
    They don't take action to move the relationship further. Whether this is taking things physical, or arranging for another date. Normally this would be considered the guys fault (A Real Man always takes action!), but it is perfectly acceptable for women to help things along from time to time...
    They expect things to "just happen", without realising that if something seems to just happen, it mostly means that someone did a lot of things to make it just happen... This applies to both guys that are buying lots of meals (they need to make things happen more) and girls that are having lots of sex (they need to realise that if things are "just happening" it means that the guy has done this before... lots!).
   
Terminally Single

I know the pitfalls of the terminally single person all too well... I was one for a long time! Luckily I modified my behaviour and thought to stop those old patterns. And trust me... If I can do it, anyone can!
    They don't do what they can to make themselves attractive. We all like to think that someone will like us just for who we are, but lets face it... We ALL judge people on appearance! If you say you don't... you are lying to yourself! You don't have to look perfect (that is boring anyway), but making an effort to groom ourselves, shower, shave (girls and boys...), and smell nice go a long way!
    They thing that the world will provide a partner for them on a plate. This belief comes from watching too many rubbish hollywood movies. The guy and the girl get together and fall in love just through chance. Believe me, the chances of the world throwing you someone with supermodel looks is MUCH less likely then it appears to be in the movies.
    They judge situations before they even start. Or they judge other people. Either way, they stall themselves in the blocks. How can anything happen that way?
    They don't take action! This is the points above from a different viewpoint. You have to take action or nothing will ever happen!
    They don't follow their passions. Whatever your passions are, if you follow them you will meet similar people with the same passions, so do it! One thing is certain... You aren't going to meet the partner of your dreams sitting on the couch watching Jerry Springer...

I hope these lists have been useful. I hope to see some change among my friends before I get back... If you have any additional thoughts or behaviours to add to my lists then please let me know by comment...

* Not that girls don't like to have lots of sex (they absolutely do), but they tend to be unsatisfied if that is all that they are getting.

A Terrible Confession...

I have a confession to make... I can't hold it in any longer.... I feel like I have been deceiving you all and I just can't do it any more...

You see... the truth of the matter is that I just wasn't scared when I jumped off the bridge... It was nowhere near the scariest thing I have ever done in my life...

Phew! I feel much better getting that off my chest...

Don't get me wrong. Normally I have a healthy respect for heights, and the thought of throwing myself from a small platform in a suicide-like manner isn't a nice one for me...

There were two aspects to not being scared. The first was mental preparation... For a couple of nights before the bungee jump I rehearsed it mentally. I saw myself going through the whole process. Standing on the ledge, looking out into space, and then flinging myself forwards in a good looking swan dive... This helped a lot! The one thing I forgot to prepare was for the bit immediately before the dive, when I was having my legs strapped to the elastic... You may notice my body language is a bit tense there... a bit of my nervous tension showing through...

The second aspect of fear reduction was a little mental trick I read somewhere... I( can't remember what it was called i the book, but I'm just going to call it re-labelling... The trick is to take the sensation that is happening in your body and to just reframe it as something else. So, instead of fear I called it excitement, and magically it changed it from something debilitating, to something enlightening! I wasn't frightened... I was excited!

Like I said... That wasn't the scariest thing I have ever done.... I'd have to say that the scariest thing that I have ever done was to walk up to a woman in a bar and to try to talk to her...


I still remember the first time that I tried to do this... It was not that long ago! And it was terrifying...

I guess the reason that I find women more scary then jumping from bridges, or roller coasters, is that I know exactly what is going to happen in the latter instances. I have faith in elastic, and metal and wood. I know what it will do... I also think that women have no idea how scary they can be...

Women on the other hand are erratic, unpredictable, irrational, and generally terrifying. Plus rejection really hurts! I have some particular memories from my youth, which arise whenever I think about even trying it! It is something that I think I will have to overcome, perhaps making meeting women exciting instead of terrifying will work (though not too exciting maybe...)

Certainly this is something to work on for the future...

A new project...

Goals in life are important. They give you direction and purpose. Be they big or small, having something to aim towards makes existence worthwhile...

For me personally my goal for the last few years has been simple. See the world, have a good time, enjoy myself...

This time is, however, coming to an end... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now or, perhaps more accurately, I can see the train approaching on the line!

I have always known that the day would come when I would have to hang up my back-pack and "get on with life". This means that I need new goals...

I was going to travel to South America after my time in Australia and travel around there for a while. However, a series of unexpected expenses, combined with some of the worst weather in Australia for a decade ruining the crops and farm work, have led to an inescapable conclusion. This being that I won't have the funds to fly to South America, travel around for a few months, and then fly back to the UK. My backup plan is to fly to South East Asia, spend a month or so enjoying myself there, and then flying back to the UK.

So... My new goals... I still really want to visit South America. Preferably fairly soon, so I need the means to do that. To this end I read a book recently called "The 4 hour Work Week". It is a guide to how to streamline your life and business, and make both location independent. In simple terms this means that you can live your life with minimum interference from work, and the little work that you do have to do can be done from anywhere in the world... (If you want more information on this book, which I strongly recommend reading, visit www.fourhourworkweek.com).

So my goal for the next year is to automate my life.  I want to have an income of around £2000 a month (or £500 a week), that is essentially self sustaining. The real goal at the end of this is to visit South America next year, and to not have to stop my income stream to do so. I have a few ideas for projects in the pipeline, which I'm not going to discuss on a public forum such as this, but if you want to discuss ideas with me then feel free to get in touch on facebook...


It is good to have plans... It is even better to have big plans!

Stickwithitability... Motivation and perseverence...

My regular readers (all 2 of you ;) may have noticed that I haven't posted anything to this blog for some time. There is a reason for this...

It isn't because of some kind of family emergency that took up all of my emotional reserves, leaving me with nothing in the tank to write a blog with...

It also isn't because I have been working 12 hour days at work, leaving me physically drained, and just allowing me enough energy to prepare myself basic meals and sleep between shifts...

The reason is more fundamental then that...


The reason that I haven't posted in a while is that part of my personality is that I find it difficult to stick with projects to their completion. Now... don't get me wrong. If I have a project at work, or while studying, I had no problem sticking with it and doing a superb job.

The problem comes when I want to do something for myself, and have to motivate myself to do it, this is when I tend to slip... I suspect I'm not alone in this...

The number of diets failing after the first month, the number of gym memberships with no gym attendance, and the number of new years resolutions that end up failing by the end of the year speak for themselves...

Just because other people have a similar failing is no excuse for not trying to make the change for myself however. As an aspiring "Real Man" I think that I should have the ability to stick with personal projects (particularly the project to become a "Real Man").

For me the problem normally comes when something in my life changes.

A good example of this is gym attendance. When I could get my life into something of a routine I could regularly attend a gym and make significant progress towards improving my overall health, and outward appearance. However if I had some kind of minor illness, enough to make me unable to attend the gym for a week, I almost always just failed to return to the gym after the illness had passed. This would lead to a few months of absence, before re-making the decision to return to the gym and starting my fitness training all over again...

The blogging issue was similar. I was settled into a fairly predictable existence of working on a farm during the week, and having weekends off. This is the time that I used to write my blogs. When I left the little farming community, and set off into the wider world, I had more leisure time. Technically this should have meant that I would have more time for writing. But without the work to contrast it against I never found the time to sit down and write. It was also easy to just say "I'll just do it tomorrow"...

I don't think it is any coincidence that this post comes after I have started working again...

So... what is the answer to this problem? Part of the solution has to be in self motivation. I have read some books recently that deal with this issue, and the main difference between most people and those that do exceptionally well in life is the motivation of the individuals concerned.

Here are a few tips on motivating yourself. The first thing to know about motivation is that there are 2 main types of motivation. These types are attractive motivation, and repulsive motivation. Attractive motivation is a motivation towards something, it could be money, status, beauty or anything else that could be desirable. Repulsive motivation is motivation away from things. People can be motivated away from being poor, being weak, being surrounded by ugly things, or anything else that could be undesirable.

Most people primarily use one or the other type of motivation, and either type can lead to success. A lot of people see attractive motivation as being superior. However many of the richest and most successful people in the world come from poor backgrounds, and their motivation is repulsive, ie, they want to get away from their poor backgrounds. The main problem with repulsive motivation is that it only takes you away from things, so you could still end up somewhere that you don't want to be, whereas attractive motivation takes you to the place that you want to be.

The most powerful way to use motivation is to use both types in conjunction with each other. And the best way to do that is to use visualisations. The first thing to do is to figure out exactly what it is that you want, and what you want to move away from.

So... lets take a common example. The gym... You would take a piece of paper and write down what you are hoping to achieve by going to the gym. This would be things like being more healthy, getting in shape or possibly running a marathon. Be as specific as possible when writing this. ie. I want to weigh 80kg and be able to bench press 100kg. After this you would write down all of the things that you could be motivated away from. This would be being overweight (or underweight), being unhealthy or being weak.

Once you have these lists worked out you can create mental images of what they represent. You could even have real pictures of these things. The away from motivation could be a picture of you at your unhealthiest, and the towards motivation would be a picture of someone with the body shape that you desire. It is important that you pick a picture of someone with a similar bone structure to you, otherwise you could be stuck forever trying to achieve an impossible figure.

Once you have these images then just take some time to commit them both to memory. When you are doing this you have to make sure the mind knows what it is working towards and away from. So just keep the powerful thought in your mind "I am moving towards this" while thinking of the attractive image, and "I am moving away from this" while thinking of the negative image. Just spend a few minutes a day for a few days doing this and you will find that the images will come to mind by themselves after a while. The meditation that I taught you in this post will help you to concentrate on the images single mindedly for long enough to be effective. The more you do these exercises the more powerful the motivation created.

Once you have done this you can keep your towards and away from lists, and display them somewhere prominent, where you will see them every day, and every time you see them it will nudge your brain to remember the motivation.

I have given the example here of going to the gym, but the same technique will work for anything that you can need motivation to do. Giving up smoking, setting up a business, getting a new job, achieving a lifestyle... anything!

So that is motivation dealt with. But what should you do if something trips you up, breaks your routine of achievement and stops you in your tracks? For example if you break your leg it might make it difficult to go to the gym no matter how motivated you are.

The important thing in this case is to not give up. It is easy when a routine is broken to slide back to how you used to be. The important thing is to get back on track as soon as you can. For example the most common reason that people start smoking again is because they just have one cigarette, socially, or in a time of particularly high stress, and then they forget that they quit and just slide back into the habit of smoking again.

If you remember what you were striving towards (the motivation exercise above should help with this) then as soon as the disruption is gone it should be possible to get back into the routine of doing whatever it is you need to do.

So... here I am... Taking my own advice. Just getting back into the posting habit. I'm going to motivate myself more, and pick up where I left off... And also, another important part of motivation is peer pressure. It can be used for good! Make sure your friends know what you want to do, and when they tell you that you aren't doing it try to listen to them!

So all you out there (those 2 of you ;). If I slip again make sure and tell me!

Thanks in advance...

Jumping off a Bridge

Does a real man have to jump off a bridge? I'd say not... However I would recommend it...

I'm not sure if I mentioned (that is a lie), but I have changed a lot in the past few years... Once upon a time, if I found something scary, or just didn't want to face up to it, I would avoid doing it. It wouldn't matter what anyone said, or who tried to persuade me, I would just flat refuse to do it... I've always been pretty much immune to peer pressure in this regard.

I think part of the reason was a particularly traumatic experience in my childhood (I may tell you more about it in a future post...), which I learned to cope with by withdrawing from the threat and hiding. This became something of a pattern through my teenage years. If I was scared or challenged by something my default reaction was to shrink from the challenge and pretend I didn't want to do it in the first place...

A couple of examples spring to mind. Both of which happened at school... One of these was on an annual sponsorship day... The school would organise these to raise money for various charities. All of the pupils would take place in various events and get sponsored by everyone that they could drag money out of. In this particular year I decided that I would abseil off the school building (along with a bunch of other people)... and I bottled out... I just got to the top of the roof, and watched the girl in front of me go down. She fell on her ass half way down, and I think this affected me more then it did her. When it came to be my turn I got into the harness, connected up all of the ropes, got to the edge of the building and looked over the edge... I think my foot slipped at this point and I made a sudden, and irreversable decision that there wasn't a chance that I was going off the edge of the school... I let my fear win...

The second event of this type was similar in many ways. But I didn't even let myself get to the edge. It was on the PGL adventure holiday with school in the south of France. There were maybe 40 of us canoing down the Ardeche (this could be spelled wrong) River, and we came to a place where there was a high rock that could be jumped off, into the river, with no real risk of injury. The rock was only about 10 meters high, so people started jumping off it. First of all the "hard" kids... then the ones with something to prove, then the girls, and some of the teachers... In the end EVERYONE except for me jumped off this rock... I made a decision as soon as I saw it that I wasn't going to jump off it... and I stuck with that decision... You may say it takes some moral character to stck to a decision like that in the face of everyone else telling me that I should do it... whatever you say, I didn't do the jump, and so mssed out on an unrepeatable experience...

As you can imagine... my inability to face my fears made approaching women impossible, and at least partly contributed to my having zero girlfriends for the first quarter century of my life...

Fast forwards to today... I made a decision in the past few years that I would say "YES" to the universe... That means accepting... even embracing... new experiences that come my way... And one of these experiences was bungee jumping! It is pretty much the ultimate experience in terms of facing up to any fear of heights, and the fact that you have to make the jump yourself made it the perfect test of my ability to say "YES"!

Luckily I passed with flying colours! The jump was 47m high, over a beautiful blue river. I didn't hesitate, just waited for the fella that tied my legs to the piece of elastic to say "1, 2, 3, GO!" and then launched myself into empty space... The feeling was exhilerating... A similar feeling that you get in your stomach when the roller coaster just start its plummet, but with nothing restricting you... You aren't even aware of the rope round your legs when you first jump, because it is all falling at the same speed as you!




I know you all want to see it... so here is the video...





Would I do it again? Definately! But hopefully someone else will pay next time! I think the next thing that I want to do to challenge myself is jumping out of a plane... In the meantime though... I'll just have to see what pops up...

The courtship dance...

A wise man once said "There are two things you need to know in life, where you're going, and who you're going with."

I'll leave the first part of that for another time, and just concentrate on the second part now. I think it is a very important part of any mans life to find someone to share it with. It is said that behind every great man there is a great woman... and real men are no exception to this.

So, how to find this great woman?

The answer is courtship! There are many pre-requisites to a successful courtship of course. These include sorting out your image (hair, clothes, shoes, nails, etc.), having a life that allows you to meet lots of women, and knowing what kind of woman that you want... For now though I'm going to assume you've got all of this sorted, but you're still not quite sure how the courtship game works...

I think many women have no idea that many guys don't know instinctively how to progress smoothly from meeting, to building attraction, to becoming physical through to founding a relationship. Women after all are the pursued most of the time. And there are always plenty of guys that did figure this out to distract the women from the guys that didn't.

In case you're wondering, I was one of the guys that didn't get it for at least the first twenty five years of my life!

Enough about me! On to how to meet women!

First of all, do I need to say it? You need to be in places where you can meet the opposite sex! This means not sat inside your house playing playstation and watching tv all day! Almost anywhere else offers opportunities for meeting the opposite sex.

An interesting fellow called Dr Timothy Perper got his Phd by spending hours and hours in singles bars and observing how the successful couples met, tough job huh? He found that when both partners stuck to a precise sequence of moves, the couple wound up leaving together or making a date. However, if either partner broke the sequence... even accidentally... the couple drifted apart. Powerful stuff!

The steps to the dance of intimacy are as follows

Step One: Non-verbal Signal.
Step Two: Talk.
Step Three: Turning.
Step Four: Touching.
Step Five: Synchronisation.

First of all the non-verbal signal. It is very scary to approach a woman for the first time (something else many women have difficulty believing). However there are some things you can do to make it easier. First of all, you should learn to recognise non-verbal solicitation signals. This is a fancy way of saying invitations to approach.

A researcher called Monica Moore set up a study where she observed more then 200 women at a party and found that two thirds of successful approaches were preceded by the following signals of interest by the women

Smile at him broadly                                                    511
Throw him a short, darting glance                              253
Dance alone to the music                                             253
Look straight at him and flip your hair                       139
Keep a fixed gaze on him                                             117
Look at him, toss your head, then look back              102
"Accidentally" brush up against him                             96
Nod your head at him                                                    66
Point to a chair and invite him to sit                             62
Tilt your head and touch your exposed neck                58
Lick your lips during eye contact                                  48
Primp while keeping eye contact with him                    46
Parade close to him with exaggerated hip movement   41
Parade close to him with exaggerated hip movement   41
Ask for his help with something                                     34
Tap something to get his attention                                   8
Pat his buttocks                                                                8

So make sure to look out for these signs and if you receive one to go and talk to the woman (if she pats your buttocks and you DON'T talk to her then there may be no help for you!)! If you don't this can be perceived as a rejection by the girl... and you wouldn't want to make a girl feel bad now would you? ;)

On to step two: Talk! Once you are in a conversation there are a couple of things to remember. The first is in terms of the things you say. I'm going to give you the same piece of advice that people get all the time, but maybe I can explain it a bit better... Just be yourself! Be the self that you are around your friends. Be relaxed, be playful, be fun. Remember, there is nothing at stake here. You can't lose anything. You're just out to have a good time and enjoy yourself. The enemy of attraction is approval seeking. This is very subtle but here is a way to spot it. If you make a joke, DON'T look at her to see how she reacts. In fact if you do anything don't look at her to see how she reacts... You should just be doing your thing, for yourself.
The second thing to remember is in terms of communication. You may say "But wasn't the first thing about communication?". It was... but only a small part of it. Only 7% of the information you pass on is communicated through the words! the remaining 93% is communicated through body language and voice tone. I touched on it above in the bit about attention seeking. It isn't what you're saying, it is what you are doing! So remember, upright posture, relaxed, playful...

Step three is the one that needs the most explaining I think. It happens unconsciously for many people I think, but for those it doesn't happen automatically with it is very difficult to get without someone telling you! When you first join this girl you are doing it as a stranger, so you don't want to face her too directly or get all up in her personal space. When you approach and start a conversation you shouldn't do it facing a girl directly. It feels too intrusive this way. The best way to do it is side on, and just turn your head towards them. Imagine yourself at a bar, with just your head turned towards them. Now when you speak she should turn her head to face you as well. If she doesn't it doesn't necessarily mean that you should give up (she may be nervous for example), but if she doesn't her head to face you after a few bits of conversation then you should probably just move on to the next one.  If she does turn toward you, then you should fall into conversation. During the conversation a crucial pivoting takes place. You should gradually switch from just your heads turned toward each other to your shoulders. If you like each other, your torsos will turn, followed by your knees. Finally, in successful meetings, your whole body should wind up facing each other. This head-to-head, belly-to-belly, knees-to-knees gradual sequence can take from minutes to hours. With each increasing turn, intimacy increases. With each turn away, intimacy decreases.

Step Four is touching. You should be comfortable with general touch. It is a normal and healthy part of interacting with people. I have talked to girls that a guy talking to them for 2 hours at a bar, and she never realised he was interested in her just because he never touched her! I'm not talking about grabbing her all over. Touches should be very subtle. Starting with a brief tap on the arm or maybe the leg if you are sat next to each other. If you are unsure how to touch her then try following her lead. If she likes you she will touch you naturally... Whenever she does this just wait a couple of minutes and then touch her back, in the same way that she touched you. This then forms a dialogue of touch, another level of conversation that communicates much more then words could... If you want more information on this I suggest you do a search for the Vin DiCarlo escalation ladder. This will give you a good idea of a progression of touch from innocent to intimate...

The final stage is synchronisation. If you get here then you're on the home straight. This is where you begin to move in synchronicity with each other. For example, you may reach for their drinks at the same time and put your glasses back on the table together. Then you could progress to subconsciously shifting weight together, swaying to the music together, turning your heads to some outside interruption together, and then simultaneously looking back at each other. Obviously you can start this process earlier on and start building the bond of being synchronous, but make sure you aren't too obvious... This could come off a bit odd if done incorrectly...

That's all I'm going to share for now. If you can get this far then you're doing pretty good. You just have to get contact info and make sure you see each other again... Enjoy...