Authentic Satisfaction and Happiness

Be All That You Can Be 

Authentic satisfaction and happiness comes partially through reaching your full potential. Some tips for achieving this:

·         Live in "prime time" rather than watching prime time TV.

·         Life is a collection of memories, not of material things. Collect what truly matters.

·         Aim not for what you are. Aim not for what you can be without effort. Aim for what you could be.

·         The most important thing about motivation is goal setting. You have to have a goal, a desired outcome, in mind.

·         The achievement of one goal is simply the starting point for another. Build upon each achievement to climb your own personal ladder of success.

·         Successful people are opportunity minded. Do not be problem minded. Problems are merely opportunities clothed to deceive. Nourish your opportunities and give sufficient attention to problems to turn them into recognizable and attainable opportunities.

·         Expect greatness of yourself. In the words of John Steinbeck, "It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him."

Every one of us has options about what we will do with our lives and what we will make of ourselves along our respective journeys. However, no matter what paths we each choose and whatever options we each select, once our individual decisions are made we all have basically two choices:

1)      to be less than what we have the capacity to become, or

2)     to be all that we can be, to strive as best we can with the skills we have and the circumstances given.

The first option leads to an empty life, even if material reward and recognition are gleaned.

The second option leads to a life fulfilled with an abundance of true self satisfaction and authentic happiness that no man or woman can ever take away. It is what we call Living A Determined Life. 

Which option will you choose? 

This article is excerpted from the top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle ($6.88) and paperback ($7.89) formats. 

Reaching Your Full Potential

Leverage Your Desire to Become More and More of What You Are 

In the Project You philosophy, success is the on-going process of becoming better, of striving to become the best that you are truly capable of being, in whatever endeavors you choose. 

Project You people are always expanding themselves ── intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, or even physically (at least health wise). Doing so rewards them with the authentic satisfaction and happiness they seek.

You will not find directional signs, helpful hint cards or a detailed map when you choose your path to success. The road to success is a progressive journey full of bumps, hurdles, helpful people, intermittent small victories, occasional spurts of unbridled happiness, unexpected setbacks, and other things both good and bad.

As you pass each milestone and marker along the way, and overcome the hurdles and obstacles placed before you, the journey becomes easier ── provided the lessons of experience are learned and followed.

In many ways, the journey to success correlates with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, which he developed as part of a paper on human motivation. People stop at the level they feel most comfortable with, which for most seems to be satisfying their need for love and belonging through friendships, family and sexual intimacy. A handful will progress to the higher level of self-esteem and having the respect of others. Only the very few proceed to the peak of his pyramid, which is known as the self-actualization level.

You will rise to the level at which you feel most comfortable, which is fine. This is not a competition and the pyramid structure does not define a finish line for everyone atop the peak. We all have different needs and thus reach our own authentic level of satisfaction based on the fulfillment of those personalized needs.

Maslow described self-actualization as "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." 

Thus, the person who wants to be an ideal parent is on par with one who wishes to be an exemplary teacher. Both will achieve self-actualization if they reach their full potential in their chosen aspirations. 

Do you have a desire to become more of what you are? Our 30-60-90 Day Personal Action plan may help:  http://www.livingadeterminedlife.com/personal-change-action-plan 

This article is excerpted from the top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Success, Satisfaction and Happiness

Expanding and Growing Yourself is a path to the authentic happiness and satisfaction you seek. 

Thanks to the self-help and personal development industries, there are probably more words written on success than any other subject.

As you might imagine, there are as many definitions of success as there are authors. Here's a substantive sampling:

Success is doing your own thing, for the benefit of others. Denis Waitley

A life isn't significant save for its impact on other lives. Jackie Robinson

Your success in life will be in direct proportion to what you do after you do what you are expected to do. Brian Tracy

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all. Anna Quindlen

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody. Herbert Bayward Swope

Be yourself, be tenacious, be kind and be thankful. This is the short recipe for success and happiness in life. Chris Widener

Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are. Jim Rohn

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves, to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today.  Stewart B. Johnson

You are successful when others benefit from your efforts. You are unsuccessful when others are diminished by what you do. Arthur Dobrin

Meaningful success needs a very personal definition. It is built from the inside out. The success of others has nothing to do with your own success. Denis Waitley

We believe one of the best definition of success comes from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

In the Project You philosophy, success is the on-going process of becoming better, of striving to become the best that you are truly capable of being, in whatever endeavors you choose. 

Project You people are always expanding themselves ── intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, or even physically (at least health wise). Doing so rewards them with the authentic satisfaction and happiness they seek. 

How are you expanding yourself today? If you're feeling a bit off-track, read about our Mid-Year Resolutions initiative and have a look at our 4-step process for re-igniting your dreams and personal development goals. 

This article is partially excerpted from the Amazon top-ranked motivational ebook Project You: Words of Wisdom, available in Kindle ($3.88) and paperback ($6.45) formats.  

Passion Leads to Authentic Happiness and Greater Self Satisfaction

Keep Rekindling Your Passion

There will be times when your inner fire goes out. 

At such times you will need to reflect and resolve whether it is the passion for a particular project, event, person, or thing that has gone out, or if it is something on a larger scale. It may, in fact, be an overall cloud impacting numerous aspects of your life. This happens.

Whatever the cause, reflection, reading inspirational and thought-provoking authors, and increasing your health and fitness will combine to supply you with the spiritual, emotional and physical energy needed to help you through such periods of waning passion. The most important thing is for you to know how to rekindle your flames of passion, as the method for each of us differs.

Passion will help you through good times and bad. When there is no passion the deep-down desire to do a thing is lacking. When there is passion, the desire to do something often becomes the power to do it.

As Anthony Robbins says, "There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it's the aspiration of an athlete or artist, a scientist, a parent or a business person."

Here is one of the beauties of life. Greatness does not require performing on a world stage, or even a national one. Greatness is equal whether found in a superior athlete like Michael Jordan, in a scientist like Albert Einstein, in a chef in a local restaurant, or in a school teacher who unearths or triggers the imagination and creativity of her students.

The key to all such greatness is the passion found in the inner core of these people. Their greatness results from their passions. 

As the great 19th century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm." 

What are you passionate about? Which of your passions needs rekindling at this moment? 

Today is a great time to stop and reflect on your passions, and how to spend more time on the things for which you are most passionate. 

Doing so will help keep you on the path of Living A Determined Life. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.90) and Kindle ($6.88) formats.  

Be Passionate. Be Enthusiastic. About Your Life.

Ask Yourself What Makes You Come Alive 

Nido Qubein, a noted motivational speaker, often tells his audiences, "Enthusiastic people experience life from the inside out." 

When you bring your passion to life you impact your own world, rather than letting outside influences impact you.

Almost all of us have greater passion as children, or young adults, than during our later years. Fortunately it is not difficult to rekindle that youthful passion. It simply takes knowing what burns inside you and concentrating on methods for bringing your passion to the surface and into the world. 

One key to success comes from the writer John Eldredge: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who come alive."

Your passions are your inner truths. Understand this and rely on this knowledge. 

Also, as Benjamin Disraeli wrote, "Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."

Passion is at the opposite extreme of indifference. Here is a great anonymous quote on indifference that may help you cast off the shackles of lethargy and use your inner passion to help you strive for authentic satisfaction and happiness:

Indifference never wrote great works, nor thought out striking inventions, nor reared the solemn architecture that awes the soul, nor breathed sublime music, nor painted glorious pictures, nor undertook heroic philanthropies. All these grandeurs are born of enthusiasm, and are done heartily.

Life is not a spectator sport, but a participatory one. This is what Living A Determined Life is all about. 

It matters not if you are involved in something big or small, globally grandiose or locally rooted. As long as you have a passion for it, and this passion drives you to be fully engaged and involved, you will be closer to achieving authentic satisfaction and happiness.

As Denis Waitley wrote, "Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire ─ you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away." He also wrote, "Chase your passion, not your pension." 

That is very good advice indeed.

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.89) and Kindle ($6.88) formats. 

Striving For Authentic Happiness and Personal Satisfaction

Passion Will Help You Through the Good Times and Bad

A Project You Life is a self-driven journey for the creation of Living A Determined Life.

One of the vital ingredients of Living A Determined Life is satisfaction determined by the self, with authentic personal satisfaction resulting from living up to your personal values and being involved with something bigger and larger than yourself.

The Project You Life Journey focuses on developing a deep-seated comprehension of your principles, passions and life's purpose. Those who fully understand and acknowledge their principles and passions are more likely to determine their life's purpose. When your principles and life's purpose are aligned, passion becomes the multiplier effect that increases the probability of desired outcomes and leads to the living of Living A Determined Life.

Passion

I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I don't do things half-heartedly because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results.

Michael Jordan

This is what passion is all about ── putting your heart and soul into something.

With passion you will get as much pleasure ─ sometimes more ─ from doing something as you will get in achieving it. For example, a passionate artist can get as much pleasure while painting as he does from seeing his completed work.

When you put passion into your efforts to strive forward, in anything you do, you have a much greater chance of attaining authentic satisfaction and happiness, both from your actual endeavors and from whatever results occur.

Richard J. Leider, a Life Coach tells his clients, "Our world is incomplete until each one of us discovers what moves us ── our passions. No other person can hear our calling. We must listen and act on it for ourselves."

Passion and enthusiasm are nearly interchangeable words. Nearly, but not completely. Inherent within passion, though not within enthusiasm, is a deeply burning fire inside a person that provides greater self motivation and commitment. One will not easily give up that for which he or she has a passion.

When you can bring passion into a symbiotic relationship with your desires, you are well on your way to achieving your desires and dreams (assuming you put in the hard work, remain committed and do not allow setbacks to deter you).

Here's what two of the early founders of the self-development industry had to say about passion and enthusiasm:

The starting point for all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. Napoleon Hill

The key that unlocks energy is desire. It's also the key to a long and interesting life. If we expect to create any drive, any real force within ourselves, we have to get excited.  Earl Nightingale

Passion will help you through good times and bad. When there is no passion the deep-down desire to do a thing is lacking. When there is passion, the desire to do something often becomes the power to do it.

We'll have more thoughts on passion in the next Project You Life Blog post. 

In the meantime, take 15 minutes with pen and paper and start a list of the things you are passionate about. Then, later today, spend another 30 minutes adding to this list and thinking of ways you can spend more time on these things.

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.89) and Kindle ($6.88) formats. 

Personal Values Drive Decisions and Actions

Understanding Others Is Enhanced By Understanding Their Values 

Scientists believe there is a gap, or space, between stimulus and response. What occurs in this space affects your personal development and, eventually, your happiness. 

If what happens in this gap is molded, shaped and guided by your values, the resultant outcomes will be more in agreement and harmonious with your true self. Naturally, this will lead to greater self satisfaction and authentic happiness.

However, if you permit factors other than your own values to influence your decisions and actions, then the results are less likely to be congruent with who you really are, leading to disappointment, self doubt and dissatisfaction with yourself.

Be forewarned, however, that sometimes your values may lock you into a course of action that is detrimental to you, particularly over the short haul. When this happens, how it impacts you over the longer term will be determined by what you learn from the experience and how you evaluate the final outcome.

Also, sometimes you can experience a problem caused by conflicting values. When this occurs it is useful to have a ranked hierarchy of your values, so that you can utilize the most important one or give greater weight to the most cherished one when deciding what to do. 

Not all personal values are equal, and only you can decide which ones are the most important in your life. As famed science fiction write Isaac Asimov has advised, "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right."

One key to understanding other people is to realize that their values drive their decisions and actions. You do not necessarily have to agree with their values, or with their actions and decisions. But simply knowing and understanding their personal values will make it easier for you to comprehend and figure out the basis for their actions and decisions.

This does not mean, however, that you have to share or even accept another person's values, only that understanding these will enable you to better understand their actions and decisions. 

As the Native American Indian proverb goes, "Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling personal development Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

The Purpose of Life is to Find Your Gift

Live the Length and Width of Your Life. 

Plato said over 2300 years ago, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

The Project You Life Journey is not just an opportunity to examine your life at a particular point in time, but rather an on-going observation and examination that helps you build and journey on a path that aligns with your life's true purpose.

There are no set elements, rules, protocols or rituals involved. Rather, it is a holistic approach to understanding how your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual attributes work and function across the various components of your human experience (personal life, professional life, family life, etc.).

As you embark upon your own Project You Life Journey, here is a wonderful, motivating thought to keep in mind: some of the best days of your life have not yet happened. Now, isn't this a great reason to get your Project You Life Journey underway right away? 

From a universal sense, the purpose of life is to find your gift. Life has a rich meaning when you are able to find your gift and put it to use for a purpose bigger than yourself. The Project You Life Journey will help you accomplish both.

As Henry James wrote, "It is time to start living the life you've imagined." 

This is true for each and every one of us.

After all, wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to claim American author Diane Ackerman's words for ourselves: "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well." 

A good question to ask yourself this weekend: what will be the length and width of your journey from now until the end of your life? 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Knowing Yourself / Defining Yourself

Life is about creating yourself

As you continue on your life's journey it is critical, as American actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein wrote, to "accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself."  

The journey of self awareness and self understanding is a difficult and long one. As we quoted Miguel de Cervantes in the previous post Know Thyself, "Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world." 

Difficult, yes. Impossible? Definitely not. 

The foundation of your own self definition will be expressed in your own self image. What you project to the world, and to yourself, reflects how well you understand yourself. The better this understanding, the greater will be the satisfactions you feel and experience.

Here are some quotations from our book Project You: Words of Wisdom to help you along this journey of self understanding and knowing one's self:

He who knows others is learned; He who knows himself is wise. Lao-Tzu 

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Marcus Aurelius 

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Max Ehrman 

I am learning to be patient and compassionate with myself as I gain the courage to be true to myself. Shakti Gawain 

As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you the first time around. Oprah Winfrey 

Again, the better your understanding of yourself the greater will be the satisfactions you feel and experience.

After all, as George Bernard Shaw said, "Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

That's a philosophy at the heart of Living A Determined Life. 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Words of Wisdom, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

What is a Project You Life?

Realizing More of Our Individual Potential

A core component of a Project You Life is being involved in something bigger than yourself. This permeates and passes through all of the seven life elements. 

The reason this is a core component is that our best hopes for a better world, and a richer human experience for more people, lies in the personal development and growth of each of us.

It has been postulated that our reason for being is to give meaning to life. 

In a Project You Life sense, that meaning is to actualize more of our individual potential, then combine such higher realities into a collaborative force for humanity and the human experience, spiritual understanding and the collective spirit of the universe.

The great tragedy of the human experience is not that there are evil people in the world doing terrible and selfish things. 

Rather, the biggest tragedy is that most people live an existence that is far removed from their greatest possible intensity and passionate levels. Their lives are lived mostly to satisfy the plans and desires of others, and they commonly feel that they have insufficient control over their respective life journeys. 

The opposite of this is the leading and living of A Determined Life. 

A purposeful, self determined, meaningful life can be lived. 

It takes continuous self examination, introspection, a chosen path, determination, self motivation, and a willingness to accept responsibility for the outcomes resulting from your actions, thoughts and emotions. But it can be done.

And should you decide to embark upon the Project You Life Journey, rest assured that you will soon have answers to the two most intriguing questions anyone can ask you:

Are you truly alive?

What are you doing with your life? 

This article is partially excerpted from Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

The Importance of Self Respect

Time to Garden Out the Weeds in Your Self Respect Thoughts

One important aspect of respect is self respect.

Like many attributes in life, respect for yourself is something you must have before you can give it to others. It is almost impossible to respect and love others if you do not respect and love yourself.

For, as Zig Ziglar has pointed out, "The most influential person who will talk to you all day is you, so you should be very careful about what you say to you!" 

Your heightened self awareness and self understanding, is very critical.

If you are not careful, your constant chatter with yourself will pull you down through negative thoughts that create a poor attitude, an unattractive demeanor and reduced self esteem.

That is why it is important to understand and be aware of what motivates you and what drives your own self respect to lower levels. After all, having low self esteem is like driving through life with your personal hand brake on. 

"To think bad thoughts," notes James Clavell, "is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline -- training -- is about."

How do you eliminate, or at least control, the bad thoughts buzzing throughout your mind? 

Jim Rohn answers this question with a gardening metaphor: "You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate." 

Perhaps it's time to do a little self respect gardening work this weekend?

This article is partially excerpted from Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon.

Ensure Your Personal Values Drive Your Decisions

Decisions Based on Personal Values Result in Greater Self Satisfaction and Happiness 

Scientists believe there is a gap, or space, between stimulus and response. What occurs in this space affects your personal development and, eventually, your happiness. If what happens in this gap is molded, shaped and guided by your values, the resultant outcomes will be more in agreement and harmonious with your true self. Naturally, this will lead to greater self satisfaction and happiness.

However, if you permit factors other than your own values to influence your decisions and actions, then the results are less likely to be congruent with who you really are, leading to disappointment, self doubt and dissatisfaction with yourself.

Be forewarned, however, that sometimes your values may lock you into a course of action that is detrimental to you, particularly over the short haul. When this happens, how it impacts you over the longer term will be determined by what you learn from the experience and how you evaluate the final outcome.

Also, sometimes you can experience a problem caused by conflicting values. When this occurs it is useful to have a ranked hierarchy of your values, so that you can utilize the most important one or give greater weight to the most cherished one when deciding what to do. 

Not all personal values are equal, but only you can decide which ones are the most important in your life. As famed science fiction write Isaac Asimov has advised, "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right."

One key to understanding other people is to realize that their values also drive their decisions and actions. You do not necessarily have to agree with their values, or with their actions and decisions. But simply knowing and understanding their values will make it easier for you to comprehend and figure out the basis for their actions and decisions.

This does not mean, however, that you have to share or even accept another person's values, only that understanding these will enable you to better understand their actions and decisions. As the Native American Indian proverb goes, "Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in eBook and printed formats at Amazon.