Tools, tips and education to help you live the life you choose

It was a lovely day and I was hanging out the washing when Son appeared in the doorway.

“Oops, I made a mistake”, he announced.
“Oh”, I answer in an offhand way, trying not to sound too worried.
“It was the light”, he adds.
“Ohhh!”, I say a little less offhand as I eye the golf club he is idly swinging around.
“I didn’t mean to, it was just an accident”
“Mmmm” I murmur and make a mental note that maybe we should get him some kids plastic golf clubs instead of full size metal adult ones to play with.
“Can you come and have a look?” he asks.
“Sure”, I say as I finish hanging the washing.  In my mind I go through all the lights around and have visions of smashed globes, cut feet and other carnage.  (more…)

Explaining the intricacies of death to children can be interesting.  This week saw the first death in Son and Daughter’s ‘family’.  That is apart from the odd insect they decided to ‘play’ with or imprison, and not counting the dead lizard the other day.

Toby died in his sleep, a peaceful death.  I saw him on the morning of death and he was lying there just as though he was still asleep.  He was eleven years old and had a good life, well loved and cared for.

Before anyone gets too upset, Toby was my aunt’s beloved Corgi.  She is a single lady who shared her life with Toby and he will be sorely missed by us all.  Son and Daughter have known him all their lives.  He was one of those dogs who would put up with all their ‘attention’ however it was showered on him, unlike Dog, our dog.  Daughter was very sweet making my aunt a card with a flower and a unicorn on it and then picking flowers for her so she wouldn’t be so sad.

Thinking of death reminded me of a talk I heard a couple of months ago.  Some of you may have read Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, well he has a sister who is a Budhist nun, Venerable Tenzin Kacho.  She does some work with the dying at a hospice and talked about the common things people regret when faced with death. (more…)

This is the first in a series of posts where I will cover some of the things out there in the Internet world that may seem basic to many but to many others they are things they do not fully understand or have not tried yet.

Commenting on blogs is something that is simple to do – once you know how.  It is an essential part of the blogging world, part of what it is all about, creating an interactive environment, a conversation with your readers.  If you haven’t already ventured to add comments to blog posts you have read then I will run through some of the basics here.

First step is to read the blog post and then, if you decide you wish to add a comment look for some sort of link which says comments.  This is in different formats on all the blogs.  On mine there is a banner at the bottom of the post saying ‘Leave Your Comment’.  Click on this link.

You will then generally find a few boxes to fill in.  As a minimum there will be a space for your name, email and your comment.  This is fairly self expanatory, enter your name as you want it to appear.  Your email will not appear on the blog so no one will see it.  Then it is a simple matter of entering your comment and clicking on the Submit (or something similar) button.  Congratulations you have submitted a comment to a blog – it is that simple.

Sometimes there will be additional fields that can be entered or ticked.   Website is a common one and allows you to enter your website if you have one.  On my blog you can also tick a box and you will automatically be emailed if additional comments are added – make sure you add your correct email address.

Ok, so the  mechanics of adding a comment are fairly simple, what are some tips for commenting.  I have taken these out of the newsletter this week.

• You enter your name and possibly website in separate boxes and these will automatically appear at the bottom of our comment so you don’t need to put your name again at the bottom of your comment.
• Try to put in more than just one word like ‘Great’ or ‘Thanks’.  These sort of comments can be picked up in the automatic spam filters and never get published.
• That brings us to spam.  Please don’t spam, for instance adding unrelated content just to advertise your product or website.

The best comments are those that offer an opinion, add to the conversation or explain how the post has helped them.  For example, having read this you could add a comment explaining how this has started you commenting on blogs and how you are enjoying it or provide some more tips you have for making comments.

Thats about it for commenting.  As you can see it is pretty simple so get out there and start commenting – especially on this blog!

Well I apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes or fuzziness in this post.  I wanted to talk about focus, inspired by my dog, however at this very moment it is not exactly how I feel, foggy is more accurate.  The cause – sleep deprivation – caused by sick kids.  Why is it that kids always seem to become worse in the middle of the night, maybe it is just that you seem to remember those times more. 

Napolean Hill is a guy who wrote Law of Success.  It is a classic book written many years ago but still relevant today.  One of the sixteen laws is Concentration.  We have talked a fair bit about changing your life and goals over the last few weeks.  Once you start on your journey it is important to stay focussed and concentrate on it in order to achieve success.

Napolean Hill defines it as follows: “Concentration is the act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realisation have been worked out and successfully put into operation”.

I was reminded of this the other day while watching Dog.  Dog is a Border Collie cross Kelpie and about nine years old.  When she chooses to focus on something then her focus is something to behold. 

In this case she was focussing on Him while He was finishing dinner.  She sits there with eyes boring into him and his hands as they move the knife and fork around the plate.  She can tell if He cuts anything and pushes it to one side of the plate, immediately there is heightened tension.  Any little movement made by Him that might indicate some food is going to be thrown her way is met by a spring into action to anticipate the movement.  The eyes always remain focussed on the target as her body moves.   Her ability to catch any morsel sent in her direction is phenomenal.

During this period of concentration it is very difficult to distract Dog for more than a few seconds, a pat is generally shaken off and the suggestion of ball throwing (her favourite game) ignored.

Now to her credit she does not do this every meal.  Dog knows that it only works when He is eating certain food and in certain moods – plus I wouldn’t put up with it at every meal (she also knows that the same methods do not work so well with me).

Do you apply the same amount of concentrated effort to achieving your goals.  What happens when someone tries to distract you with your favourite food or activity?

As Napolean Hill says concentration is control of attention, a skill that is necessary to master if you wish to reach your goals.  As we have discussed previously unless your goals or the changes you are making in your life mean something to you then you will find this difficult.

So, like Dog, find goals that mean something to you and focus on them.

Recently I had to duck down to Adelaide to sort out a couple of projects.  This involves a couple of hours flying.  Sitting on the plane I thought back to the quote about being the pilot or passenger in your life and how the journey reflected that.

It is interesting how many people are more concerned about the dangers of flying than driving the car to the airport.  Statistically it is driving that is more dangerous than flying.  So why do we worry less about the driving?  Well one of the reasons is that we are in control when driving whereas when flying (unless you are the pilot) it is all up to someone else.  You arrive at the airport, hop on an aeroplane and hope that the people in the cockpit have the right qualifications and know what they are doing.  It is this lack of control on our part that leads to the different perception of the risks involved.  Interestingly though, many of us don’t see any problems with being a passenger in our own lives.

So what were the analogies I saw in my trip.

The pilot knows where he/she is going, they have a definite destination they are heading for.  This is like having clearly defined goals in your life.  For the pilot he is going to Adelaide airport, not just Adelaide.  Similarly if you have goals like being rich, they are not well defined, you won’t know exactly when you get there.

The pilot has a map and plots out his route to his destination (apologies to female pilots, please take ‘his’ or ‘he’ to mean either male or female).  In life, once you have your goals defined you need to have your ‘map’ or plan of how you might achieve them.

As you take off and head off to your destination you experience differing conditions, in my case cloud and some turbulence.  And so it is in life, you can get your goals and work out your map but it doesn’t mean it will all be plain sailing.  You will suffer setbacks, times when you can lose momentum or seem to lose sight of your goal.  Like the pilot, it is up to you to ensure that you don’t lose sight on the end goal.

As we approach Adelaide, some of the cloud clears and we are afforded glimpses of our final destination.  Wind buffets the aircraft moving it sideways as the pilot tries to line it up with the runway.  In a fine display of skill and the result of many hours training he lands the plane safely and we have reached our destination.  You can experience similar distractions as you approach your goals.  Ensuring you have undertaken any training or acquired and additional skills you require is a sure fire way of assisting yourself to achieve those goals more rapidly.

So you can see chosing to be the pilot in your life will allow you to turn your dreams into reality but it may not all be plain sailing.  Check out the quote below from Tom Robbins.  If you want some guidance on how to change your life, get it on a track to where you want to go then check out our self improvement books.

“If you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you will find yourself docked” – Tom Robbins.