1. Don’t eat. Eating makes you sleepy. No if’s or but’s.

2. Drink fresh fruit juice and shakes. They keep the hunger pangs off and they have enough natural taste to perk you up a little.

3. Take 3 to 5 minute exercise breaks. Do bodyweight exercises to really get the blood flowing in short bursts of time. 100 straight Hindu squats are my freaking favorite. I will also do push-ups, Hindu pushups, crunches, situps, and wall crawls. Works like fuck!

4. Take caffeine. It’s a really a good jolt, no matter what anybody says. I take either super strong coffee that I will cook myself or Extra Joss powdered energy drink.

5. Jack off. I seriously do this when I work weird hours at home. I open my favorite porn, stashed in my super secret directories, and whack it. You know how after you’re done, you start hating the porn and the nasty thoughts you just had? Guilt wakes you up dude! Hehe.

6. Splash water on your face or if a shower’s available, turn up the cold water and soak it up!

7. Brush your teeth. Minty toothpaste wakes me up.

8. Don’t take a powernap. That’s actually my experience. Powernaps make me want to sleep more. So take it as one guy’s experience. Most people seem to work well with it.

9. Multi-task with something that requires working with your hands. I like to multi-task by picking apart appliances or cleaning my bathroom when I work at home. In the office, I used to pick apart simple toys or do stupid origami I see on the internet. For some reason, tactile work keeps me from tuning out.

10. Quit working because working is for chumps.:D Seriously, nothing is so important that it’s allowed to kill you. Get some perspective. Do it tomorrow if you really have to.

Technorati Tags: sleep, stop being, how to

In personal development, one of the key things almost every book, seminar and teacher puts forward is to bring your focus on the things you want to manifest.

If you want wealth, focus on being wealthy, creating wealth, and being around wealthy people. You are taught to avoid dwelling on poverty, scarcity or any idea that will cause conflict with your intended outcome.

Taking that cue, any area you wish to develop will benefit greatly from a consistent focus and a mindful resolve to pay attention to the things that bring you closer to your goal. In an inversely proportional manner, focusing on the things that bring you away from it will cause your work to suffer.

Take quitting cigarettes for example. Most people trying to quit focus on the negative things cigarettes are supposed to cause - diseases, bad teeth, addiction. Every time they light up, they feel a pang of guilt, “Shit, I’m smoking another one. I’m killing myself.” Every time they buy a pack, they feel pain but are unable not to. They notice all the negative things associated with the goal and it ends up taking their focus. The attention is on how they are failing and the bad things that will happen if they continue to fail.

My suggestion is to start solving the problem by suspending judgment and accepting those activities as part of the process. Even if you notice them, stop labeling them, giving them meaning or using them to define how your path is progressing. Take it as it is, an activity leading towards quitting. It seems the more hate you express towards something, the more it finds its way into your consciousness.

After they settle doing that, follow-up by noticing the opposite - the little successes, the times they don’t crave for a cigarette, and the good things they gain from that.

This way, the focus shifts towards those things productive to the end result.

As a general formula, you can use the process employed in the smoking example:
(1) Set a goal
(2) Observe your beliefs. What things do you do that help this goal? What things do you do that don’t?
(3) Regardless of what you come up with, consciously resolve that you will not judge any of those activities as positive or negative every time you notice any of them. Learn to suspend judgment.
(4) Consciously affirm how all of those things that you notice all necessarily lead towards your goal
(5) When things occur that trigger a knee-jerk negative reaction, calm yourself, suspend judgment, and affirm how they all lead towards the same goal

When you allow your attention to be consumed by dwelling on the negatives - failures, bad ideas, wrong choices - you do two things that bring you further back than any setback you can notice:
(a) You eventually feel miserable about your goal
(b) You remove the opportunity to dwell on things that work, things that can work, and ways you can correct any mistake

So bring your focus into what’s good. If you’re gonna think too much, think positively too much. It’s worth the extra effort.

Before stopping, maybe consider that it is not such a bad thing.

Thinking too much has earned a bad name largely because the activity potentially leads to inaction and indecision.

You hear the advice all the time - “Just do it.” The implication is, if you just go ahead and do it instead of mulling it over, it benefits you more.

I also believe this to a certain extent. If analysis leads you into the realm of doubt and negativity, then skipping that which causes those unwanted emotions will definitely work.

On the other hand, there are those who use analysis as a tool for even better execution and are able to think things through and be even more passionate for what they’re trying to accomplish.

How can thinking a lot work on one case and fail miserably on another? Is it dumb luck?

My problem with the whole idea of “not thinking too much” is that it ignores the actual problem which is not the thinking.  The problem is the quality of the thoughts.

The answer lies in what kind of thoughts you allow when considering your options. Most people are simply negatively-oriented and when they sit down to think things through, they dive into negative thought after negative thought that piles up. This eventually leads to fear and doubt, causing the often observed results of indecision and inaction.

What if you think the same amount but think of positive results?  What if you spend the time thinking of what’s good about the endeavor, what benefits it will give you and how it can help those around you?  Is it still thinking too much?  Or is it just thinking?  Or even “thinking done right”?
That’s the area we’re working on this week. So make sure to read the blog the next seven days as we explore thoughts, ideas and how to use them to live more effectively.

Technorati Tags: Thinking, Thoughts