Sarah's Action Plan

Sarah, who has the rare distinction of being the oldest friend I've never met face to face, has filled in the Action Plan!

Head over to her website to read it. Sarah's a ridiculously hard working doctor with an enormous heart, so one of the things she says she'd like to improve about herself is just taking a few moments to look after her own needs, instead of always being swamped by other people's.

Plus some very well deserved pampering after all those hours in the A&E! She says: 'Step one has been to book monthly massages!'

Sarah's one of the kindest and biggest-hearted people I've ever known, so she absolutely deserves a bit of stress relief.

More Action Plan Excitement!

Kitty, over at her Bloggy Bits, has also completed the Action Plan - and revealed that one of the things she'd like to improve about herself is her back garden! Although she does admit: "Does this count as 'myself'? ... Tenuous, I know, but never mind!" Head on over to read more.

Loe and behold, the lovely Kirsty over at Words, Wine and Whatnot has also completed the Action Plan! She says her first step is to get a more positive attitude: "I’ve found myself expecting something bad around the corner. It’s horrible!"

Action Plan

The Action Plan

1: Name three things about yourself you would like to improve:

1: I would like to get a bit thinner, fitter and into better shape. I know getting chubbier is a natural part of growing older (and being married to an outstanding pasta cook) but I look back wistfully at pictures taken five or six years ago and think: 'wouldn't it be nice to look more like that again?'

2: I'd like to improve my confidence. Although I'm an outwardly charming and charismatic person, that all seems a bit of a 'front' compared to how I feel inside. I'm very self concious and self-aware. It would be nice to adopt a more American attitude of self-confidence and being laid back.

3: I'd also like to improve my focus and ambition - to get my head down and finish what I start, so I can achieve things that I'm really proud of. I think the difference between successful people and aspirational people is simply application. Successful people have the motivation to get up off their arse and 'do' things. In America, I've noticed, 'doing' things gets your places. Sitting around and dreaming doesn't.

2: Name something you would like to achieve:

a) Within 1 year:

I'd like to actually properly get into writing. Writing articles, reviews - things that get published and read. In order to achieve this I need to break into several tight little circles, like the local Home News Tribune paper or something like that. So a realistic ambition that might be achieved by some self promotion!

b) Within 5 years:

I would like to finish, edit and send off a novel or book to a publisher and get the thumbs up. Although the publishing industry is more cutthroat than ever, I still believe deep down that I've got what it takes to write a book and get it published.

c) Within 10 years:

I'd like to start my own business - doing something creative, so I can work my own hours (albiet lots of them) be creative and, most importantly, be in charge of my own destiny. I'm not even sure what this business would be - I've got some interesting 'crafty' ideas. But nobody ever got rich 'working for the man' and the opportunities in America are more promising than anywhere else in the world.

3: Name something you would like to help achieve for somebody else:

I think the answer to this question means achieving things for my wife, Tina. Even though I'd had two long term girlfriends, I'd never really had a proper 'relationship' until Tina and I moved in together - nearly a year after actually getting wed. Going out with somebody is very different to actually living with somebody day in and day out! I've certainly grown up and evolved being married to Tina. I've matured emotionally and changed in a lot of positive ways - although I'm sure I still have a way to go!

In many ways, I think we have a great marriage - much better than many other married people our age. We both have the advantage of genuinely liking and caring for each other and being best friends, not 'just' husband and wife. But what I want to achieve 'for her' is to give her all the things she needs out of our partnership, like stability and security.

4: Name one place you haven’t been, but you’d like to go:

Las Vegas! Former playground of Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, mobsters, stars and more. I'd love to see the place for real.

Or else, just the West Coast - California and it's beaches and roads, the 'cowboy country' in Arizona. I'd love to see the mountains and forests of Colorado - it looks beautiful.

5: Name one person you haven’t met, but would like to:

This is easy! My friend Sarah. Back when I was at university, I got chatting to her randomly in an Internet chatroom. Now, almost twelve years later, we still email each other every single week. Thanks to blogs and things, we now both know what each other look like - but we've still never actually met face to face!

6: Name three material things you would like:

a)... A 'Tiffany.' As in, a great big ridiculous sports car suitable for Adventure Eddy. Although I have my heart set on something specific - a 'Knight Rider' style Pontiac Firebird with a 5.0 V8 and a manual gearbox - I'd settle for anything sporty that I can jump in and out of and slide over the bonnet. Basically, a car that could realistically drive from Paris to Nice in six and a half hours. Sure, I'll never, ever need to do that (although Adventure Eddy did) but it's nice to know you could if you wanted to!

b)... An American house - something specific, though. I'd like a traditional American wooden house (what do they call them? Colonial?) in a North Eastern state not too far from New York city. I'm thinking a yard, a shed, some trees (beautiful golden leaves in autumn and lovely white blossom in spring) and enough space to have a couple of animals - maybe even a horse. Not an impossible dream by any means (especially not in nearby Pennsylvania) but currently an ambitious one.

c)... Some animals. Ever since Ava got run over, I've noticed a definite lack of furry companionship in our lives. I'd love to have another Bengal cat - they're so beautiful and smart. I'd also love to have a silver dapple dachshund - a miniature about the same size (and brain power) as Piglet.

Well, that's what I've put down as my list of ambitions. Watch this space to see how I do with them! It's quite a funny feeling to see my thoughts put down on paper. Will I keep coming back to this post and fiddling with it as I think further about what I want to achieve?

I've sent this 'Action Plan' out to some of my blogging chums. If you're interested in the ambitions of other people, follow these links to see their own answers:

The awesome Shannon has filled in the Action Plan! Go and read her answers at her awesome blog, over here: Shannon's Official Home.

The hilarious Andrew Long has filled in his action plan too! Go and check out his responses at shutyoursprechhole.com

Finding Focus Part Deux

A short while ago, I wrote about a general malaise I was feeling - which I identified as a lack of purpose.

For years, I'd concentrated all my efforts on writing and moving to New York and now I've achieved those ambitions, it was time to turn the page and work out what I want to do next.

I think a lot of people feeling 'depressed' are actually just in limbo, wanting some strange, unidentifiable 'more' in their life without quite realizing what that 'more' is (and if you don't know what you want, how can you go about getting it?)

I intended to write down some definite, realistic goals and ambitions and hope that identifying them will help me achieve them.

It's all based on a principle outlined in Rhonda Byrne's book The Secret.

That book was crammed with all sorts of rubbish about the universe magically granting people their heart's desire - but strip away the magic and you're left with a very sensible and practical guide to getting what you want.

There are three simple steps to 'getting what you want.

Identify - Actually think about what it is you want that would make your life happier or more complete. This has to be something tangible - there's no point saying 'I want to be happier.' You have to work out the specifics of what you want: 'I want to be thinner," or "I want a new car," or something along those lines.

Visualizing what you want is something The Secret stresses. Like, if you want your agent to give you a call about that job you interviewed for, the book says you should close your eyes and actually imagine the whole process. Where you’ll be sitting. The sound of your phone ringing. The physical sensation of the cold plastic against your cheek. Your agent’s voice in your ear as he tells you the good news.

Sounds like a load of rubbish – but actually this is what I did desperately the day before I got the final call welcoming me onboard with the company I now work for.

Visualizing your ambitions is an important step in making them tangible.

Actualize - This just means identifying what it is you have to do to achieve your stated goal.

That's why your goal has to be tangible. It doesn't need to be realistic - you can wish for something 'impossible' like a million dollars and then, the next day, suddenly have a great business idea that delivers you your fortune (after five years hard work.) But the second step in achieving your 'wish' is to actually trace a line (however convoluted) between what you want and how you could get it.

The important thing is that this line flows from you - you can't rely on other people acting a certain way (they never do) or something random happening (like winning the lottery.) Your route to your ambition must stem from within yourself.

Accept - This is the most important step - actually accepting what you want when it finally comes around.

It might sound easy - if somebody offered you a suitcase stuffed with twenty dollar bills, it would seem difficult to say no! But often, the things you want don't arrive in quite the way you envisioned them.

Like if you were dreaming of a new, better paid job, you might suddenly be offered one in Arizona. The price of realizing your dream is to move away from everything that’s familiar at home.

Alternatively, some people are just naturally self-sacrificing (read: masochistic.) They might get offered what they really want - but turn it down because achieving their ambitions is actually quite a daunting prospect.

The third and most important step in achieving what you want is actually being brave enough to accept it when it comes around.

Now I’m not saying this stuff works – but it’s surprising how rewarding and successful the simple three step process can be. The most obvious advantage is actually focusing your own mind on what you want. It’s amazing how easy it is to drift through life knowing you want something, but not being entirely sure what it is.

To that end, I’ve devised a nine question ‘Action Plan’ to identify the things I want out of life. It’ll be interesting to see whether this helps me achieve them or not.

So here is my Action Plan. I’ll be filling it in and posting it later:

The Action Plan

1: Name three things about yourself you would like to improve:

2: Name something you would like to achieve:

a) Within 1 year:

b) Within 5 years:

c) Within 10 years:

3: Name something you would like to help achieve for somebody else:

4: Name one place you haven’t been, but you’d like to go:

5: Name one person you haven’t met, but would like to:

6: Name three material things you would like:

a)...

b)...

c)...

You've been tagged!!

If you'll look on the right hand side of my blog, you'll see a long list of other bloggers I have links to. They all have great (if infrequently updated - you know who you are!) blogs which are worth a visit.

In order to reach out to my brilliant fellow bloggers, I've decided to try an experiment - something more seasoned bloggers call 'tagging.'

I've asked some select bloggers from my list to participate by filling in my 'Action Plan' for themselves - and post it on their blog. In return, I'll post a link in my 'Action Plan' post directly to their blog, including a little bit about what they do there.

In an ideal world, this would mean my completed 'Action Plan' would be followed by ten or so links to other bloggers who've given serious thought to what it is they want out of life. You'll be able to visit their post on the subject with a simple click.

If I've neglected to send you an invite, but you'd like to participate anyway, it's easy to do so! Just copy-and-paste my Action Plan, fill in the questions and post it to your blog. Send me an email (rolandhulme[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk) or leave a comment and I'll add your blog to my 'tagged' post.

Does that all sound like it makes sense?

Happy blogging!

The Action Plan

1: Name three things about yourself you would like to improve:

2: Name something you would like to achieve:

a) Within 1 year:

b) Within 5 years:

c) Within 10 years:

3: Name something you would like to help achieve for somebody else:

4: Name one place you haven’t been, but you’d like to go:

5: Name one person you haven’t met, but would like to:

6: Name three material things you would like:

a)...

b)...

c)...

Finding Focus

Depression is a big talking point in America. All sorts of people are depressed. Some not necessarily because they have any reason to be.

While many people suffer from very real clinical depression, I think others might suffer from a more general malaise - one that exhibits itself when you're reasonably comfortable and content, but feel there's something more you want from life.

It's that elusive missing 'thing' that makes some people very unhappy - and I think it's a problem that's worse in a place like America, where it's cheaper and easier to meet your day-to-day needs (food, shelter, cable television) than in other countries.

To a certain extent, I've noticed it in myself. When I first arrived in New York, there were immediate needs that needed to be addressed - like getting a job, finding a place to live and securing an astonishingly impractical car to serve as the 'Ginger Mobile.'

Once those goals were accomplished, the momentum slowed a little - and recently I've found myself a little confused about 'what happens next.'

Treading water is a situation that doesn't lend itself to achievement. I've noticed my spare time - weekends and evenings - being eaten up by a variety of activities that don't seem to actually accomplish anything in the end. I've gone from having a million and one irons in the fire to actually finding myself wondering what to do when I get home.

I realise I'm missing a sense of purpose - and that 'missing element' is something that could be very easily misdiagnosed as depression. It's certainly depressing enough.

But I've managed to achieve so much in the last year, I'm determined not to lose momentum now. In many ways, I wasted the four years I spent in England because I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my American life to begin. Now I'm here, I should be determined not to waste a single moment. I should get out there and achieve my ambitions!

Cue the sound of screeching tyres.

What exactly ARE my ambitions?

I mean, they used to be about moving to America. Now I'm here, one of the reasons I've found it so difficult to get my head down and 'keep on trucking' is because I'm not exactly sure where that truck's meant to be heading.

Maybe this is why so many people find it difficult to locate that 'thing' that's missing from their life. They haven't given any thought to what it is they actually want!

A while ago, I posted about a book I've mentioned before (which came recommended by no less than gorgeous Rock FM presenter Claire Anderson.) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is a pseudo-scientific self-help guide that has a deceptively simple and effective message. It's a method to bringing your dreams just that much closer to reality - as simply as visualising what they are and how you might go ahead making them come true.

While I don't believe the universe magically grants wishes, like The Secret seems to suggest, I do put a lot of weight behind the theory of visualising your goals. Setting targets is the first goal towards achieving them.

Therefore, I'm going to spend the next couple of days thinking seriously about what it is I want out of life - and how best I'm going to get it.

If you're unhappy, unsatisfied or just feeling 'bleaugh,' I suggest you do exactly the same thing. Think about your life now and think about the very real, very tangible things that would make it better - the things that would make it what you want it to be.

My martial arts instructor says: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." I think it starts even earlier than that. A journey begins when you open a map and decide exactly where it is you're going.

The Power of Positive Thinking

"Your focus determines your reality." Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Important life lessons, like loyalty, bravery and how to defeat a Rancor monster, can be learnt from watching George Lucas' Star Wars films. But can the teachings of fictional Jedi Master Qui-Gon (played by Liam Neeson) be put to practical use in the real world?

Currently, the opinion is 'yes.'

Because Qui-Gon's throwaway comment to young Anakin Skywalker actually stems from a real philosophical concept. The Power of Positive Thinking.

It was Buddha who originally said: "What you have become is the result of what you have thought." That's the philosophy behind the Jedi 'faith.' Ironic, really, since the Electoral Roll recently revealed that Britain now has more registered 'Jedis' than Buddhists.

Buddha's words were meant to teach us that our life and our destiny can be determined by only one person. Ourselves.

Whether you consider yourself 'born lucky,' or your path is constantly cris-crossed by black cats, the 'positive thinking' message suggests that we all subconsciously draw negative or positive energy to ourselves. The universe secretly grants us what we desire most - and if you're a gloomy person, those desires manifest themselves as the 'bad luck' you've already expected to befall you.

It's a philosophy called 'The Law of Attraction,' which has been a popular New Age fad since William Walker Atkinson first wrote about it in his 1906 book "Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World."

Recently, in a piece of marketing genius, the idea has been packaged up as "The Secret," a pseudo-scientific book and DVD claiming that this 'positive thinking' message was coveted and buried by the Catholic Church and was the power behind great minds like Galileo, Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci. It's a shameless rip-off of the Da Vinci Code - right down to the cover, which is very similar to editions of Dan Brown's book published after the 2006 movie came out.

Cynicism aside, I have grown quite fond of 'The Secret' since I heard about it. Whether you believe your thoughts can influence the universe or not, a bit of positive thinking can do us all good. And the crazy thing? I think it might just actually work. But not for the reasons The Secret claims.

The philosophy behind The Secret is simple. There are three steps. Knowing What You Want, focusing on Getting What You Want and Accepting What You Want.

Whatever you believe, undertaking these three steps generally leads you in the direction of your goals. Just like Qui-Gon Jinn told Anakin - your focus determines your reality - if you take a moment to focus on what you actually want (instead of flailing about in general dissatisfaction, like most of us do) you actually star the journey towards achieving it.

Do you want money? Fame? Power? Love? By focusing on what you feel is lacking from your life, you develop something to strive for. And one major source of dissatisfaction in people's lives is a lack of purpose.

So just by focusing on what they really want, people discover that their lives improve. Results, without having to bother with any of the metaphysical and philosophical ramifications behind The Secret's New Age philosophy.

The second stage, focusing on Getting What You Want, is another deeply practical suggestion wrapped up in The Secret's pseudo-science. Once you've determined what you want, taking positive steps to getting it makes your chances of achieving your goals that much better. If you want money, think about getting a better job. If you want love, think about meeting new people. If you want to win the lottery - go out and buy a bloody ticket!

And the final step? Accepting What You Want? Well that again falls into the area of psychology rather than philosophy. Some people are just plain scared of getting what they want the most. I know it - because when I finally got the chance to move to America two months ago, I almost didn't take it just because the prospect was so terrifying.

By focusing and visualising what's missing from your life, the Law Of Attraction will help you achieve it. And whether that's because of secret mystical energies, manipulating the fabric of the universe - or just good old fashioned focus and ambition - the results can often be amazing. 'The Secret' DVD is filled with anecdotal evidence to back up the philosophy.

Whether it works or not, one thing is certain. A little focus, ambition and positive thinking can benefit all our lives. Even if the Law of Attraction sounds like bunkum to you, give a little thought to what you really want and see whether or not you get it. The results can be surprising. As a Grade A Skeptic, I visualised a phone call from a potential employer on Sunday and, low and behold, I got that call the very next day.

The Secret DVD and The Secret Book are both available from Amazon.com.