This post is part of an ongoing experiment series centered around success and getting life back on track. (specifically mine, but these steps will work for yours too).
Today I’m giving you the fifth step in the process (action).

Like I pointed out yesterday (focus), you need to do more then just think about what you want, this is the 5th and final step in this part of the process. This last step is action. Once you have documented what your goals are, committed yourself to being accountable and accepting that you you are the one responsible for making the goals a reality, knowing that a minor setback is just that, focusing on said goal(s), you need to do one last thing. You need to act!

During the relaxation exercise you will have thoughts, its part of the process, make note of any thoughts that support or are congruent with your goals, we all know (even if we don’t want to admit it) what we need to do (most of the time). This last step is crucial, ACT. Do something that takes you one step closer to the goal. It should be the smallest thing you can do in the shortest time possible. Like Nike … Just Do It!

Step 5. – Take action towards a goal, regardless of how small the action is, and give yourself credit for the action.

For example, if you want more money, look at your spending, brown bag your lunch one day a week, cut out an excessive ‘treat’, you don’t have to make a drastic and uncomfortable change right away and become miserable about it, you just need to align yourself with the goals, and you can do it one baby step at a time.

Then give yourself the credit for the action, you want to get into better health? Skip a smoke. Do 20 jumping jacks (please consult your Dr. prior to doing physical activity), take the stairs, walk to the store for milk, etc, etc… Want to be a better guitar player? Pick up the guitar and practice it for 10 minuets. There is no excuse except the ones you allow yourself to make.

By giving yourself credit, you will feel good, and that will want you to take another action.

Does the goal seem insurmountable? Ask someone you know for ideas like the ones I have presented, (you did tell people your goals right? you are going to make yourself accountable right?) … I thought so

Tomorrow i’ll re-cap and ramble a bit more

This post is part of an ongoing experiment series centered around success and getting life back on track. (specifically mine, but these steps will work for yours too).
Today I’m giving you the fourth step in the process (focus) and some simple exercises.

I have to admit, focus is one of my personal nemesia. I’m the guy that reads 4 books at a time, always has multiple projects on the go, get distracted easily, etc … in a nut shell I’m ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) … (if you are the kind that buys into disorders (which, for the record. I don’t … (another post))) … See that distracted thought? but it was still along the same thought process and not totally all over the map, so thats a bit of focus and I’ll give myself the kudos for it.

Focus is essentially, a discipline of the mind. In todays fast paced instant gratification society where we bombard ourselves constantly with 30 second ads, and 500+ channels on the television, its no wonder that there are so many people that have a hard time keeping focus. Focus is a key to the universe, I’m sure that almost everyone here has read or seen ‘The Secret’, or understand the ‘Law of Attraction’ or the ‘Power of Deliberate Intent’, or has read some Napoleon Hill. If you haven’t you may want to check out one (or all) of the aforementioned so that you have a grasp of the direction I’m coming from.

Step 4. – If you can focus on a goal, for a minimum of 68 seconds, several times a day, you WILL manifest that goal into your physical reality.

Now that isn’t to say that all you need to do is focus on your goal, you still need to write it out, and you still need to make yourself accountable, and you still need to not focus on the negative side of the goal (for example, if your goal was a specific amount of money (coming up) don’t focus on your current lack of that money, that will continue the manifestation of the lack of money). Focus instead on the positive side of the goal (for example having the money in your possession already), and you need to know forgiveness for yourself when you fail. Being hard on yourself will not help in anyway.

So what can you do to improve your focus? As you will see for yourself, that mere 68 seconds of intended focus on a goal is not nearly as simple as it sounds, you will undoubtedly tell yourself that you are focusing (even when you are not), and in rather short form you will forget to focus and then you will say ‘that doesn’t work’ … well thats breaking Step #2 (accountability). So rather then do that, try this instead.

Tonight when you go to bed, get into a comfortable position (on your back) uncross your legs, put your hands at your sides, and take a few breaths (in through nose, out through mouth). Relax. take a few more breaths, don’t force them, don’t try to alter your breathing, just relax. Once you have started to relax I want you to direct your attention to your toes. Just your toes, I want you to ‘feel’ your toes, forget about the rest of you, there are only toes. Let them relax, then move into the ball of your foot (top and bottom) and again keep only that part of your feet in your attention, let that part relax, next into the arch (middle of your feet), same thing, relax that part and hold your attention on it.

Now if you have never done a relaxation or meditation before this will seem very foreign to you, but honestly what have you got to loose? you’re the only one that will know where you are directing your attention, there is no reason to feel foolish, and I know that the more you practice this exercise, the better you will become at it.

If you have done a relaxation or a meditation before you will undoubtedly be rushing through this part of it (don’t). Take your time, relax. The point of this exercise is to gain focus, that only happens by taking your time, the longer you take, the more your mind will wander and that’s OK and perfectly normal. its part of the process. So for the experienced, SLOW DOWN.

Your mind will wander, you will think about something that happened during the day, or anticipate what you need to get done tomorrow, or repeat a conversation in your mind, or review a TV show, or Movie you watched, or some other less important thought will come along. Thats all perfectly normal, what you need to do as soon as you become aware that you are distracted and not focused on the part of your body you should be, is finish the thought (that point where it changes into another thought) and gently but firmly direct the thought back to the last part of your body you were on and continue.

Personally, I like to use the following format … toes, balls of feet, arch(mid foot), heels, ankles, shins, calves, knees (back of knees / kneecaps), outer thighs, inner thighs, ass, genitalia, hips/pelvic, spare tire, tummy (lower abs), lower back, sides, abs, mid back, soloplex, rib cage, upper back, chest, sides, shoulders, finger tips, thumbs, palms, backs of hands, wrists, forearms, elbows (inner/outer), biceps, triceps, back of shoulder, neck, back of neck, throat, jaw, base of skull, back of head, ears, mouth (open slightly), cheeks, temples, top of head, nose, bridge of nose, eyes (closed), eye sockets, eye lids, forehead, and end on the ‘third eye’ (center of forehead just above your eyes.

The first little while you will undoubtedly drift off to sleep long before you finish this exercise, thats ok. Do it again the next time your laying down to go to sleep. The important thing is to take your time and relax each part of your body, make the part your attention is on the only part that you are aware of, don;t worry about littel itches, sounds, ringing, twitching, or any other distractions, just keep the attention and the focus on one part at a time.

You will get a refreshed feeling from this once you have managed to get all the way to your third eye and then focus on one of your goals for a few minutes.

I’ll expand on this exercise later, I think thats enough for now.

This post is part of an ongoing experiment series centered around success and getting life back on track. (specifically mine, but these steps will work for yours too).
Today I’m giving you the third step in the process and a real world example of how it applies.

So far so good, although I did oversleep yesterday and was kinda irritated with myself for it… Additional to the 13 primary goals that I would like to accomplish this year is at least a ‘30 day trial’ of the polyphasic sleeping pattern… for those that don’t know what that is, put simply rather then sleep for one long stretch each day, sleeping in much shorter duration’s throughout the day (25 to 30 minutes every 4 hours). Typically this would happen at say 2 am, 6 am, 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm, and 10 pm. totaling 3 hours of sleep for every 24 hour cycle.

While that may just sound totally insane to some people, I know that personally I have functioned best on 4 to 6 hour night time sleeping with an hour nap in the afternoon/evening for pretty much my whole life. So the thought of being more productive and alert, and the reported benefit of less brain chatter and clarity of thinking make this sound like an ideal way to live.

A 30 day trial is really just that, 30 days to try out something new, (like the plan to reduce my nicotine intake over the next 30 days (which seems to be going well so far)).

That aside … I did over sleep today and thats ok, because it helps to exemplify the next step.

Step 3. – When you fail (and you will fail), accept what happened as an opportunity, learn from it, know forgiveness for yourself, don’t dwell on it as negative, and keep going.

So, with that in mind, today is another day to try and get it right, I want to sleep less and get up earlier. So I will try again.

The opportunity is to access the amount and quality of sleep that I’m getting, I have been sleeping a lot more n the past few weeks, and that isn’t really congruent with my wants, by missing out on a good portion of my morning and feeling rushed for the first part of my day I was able to see that isn’t what I want, and see that it isn’t congruent with the direction I really want to go in, and that will server to re-enforce the goal.

Hopefully that makes a good example of a real life lesson in the process.

Next will come the focus stuff… something that I personally have had a great deal of experience with, so hopefully that will benefit some other people out there.

This post is part of an ongoing experiment series centered around success and getting life back on track. (specifically mine, but these steps will work for yours too).
Today I’m giving you the second step in the process and some details of the goals already listed.

Remember this is an experiment, and at all costs it should be fun if it isn’t an enjoyable experience then there is less likelihood that you will actually follow through on the process… Did you notice that yesterday when I posted my goals that they all have an upbeat feeling to them? This helps me in part with goal number 4 (meditation and a positive mental attitude).

Step 2. – Make yourself accountable to your goals so that they are not just willy-nilly dreams (set specific time frames and tell people about your goals).

Notice that I have already accomplished this in part, just by blogging about it (everyone now knows what my goals for the year are). I do need to enforce some stricter times (other then just within the year) to these goals to help make them a reality, after all someday doesn’t ever come along its always right now.

Goal 1 is an ongoing process, I think I’m a great Dad, and more importantly my kids think so, but there has been a lot of turmoil in their lives, specifically in the last year. So I need to ensure that I come up with fun and creative ways to grow our relationships stronger then ever before. (we will re-visit this one).
Goal 2 is a breeze providing that I can remember that life is far to short to take seriously all of the time and loosen up. (again, an ongoing process that we will re-visit).
Goal 3 is something that I can make firmer. I need to stop smoking (this would be congruent with better health), and even though I have some stressful days in the very near future, I do want to stop, so from today forward I will smoke at least one cigarette less each day (I currently smoke about a pack (25) a day). That will have me down to zero smokes before the end of this month. (hows that for a timeline?) I already know that nicotine addiction is so retarded that I never even really experience a physical withdrawal its a 99% mental addiction (the physical withdrawal isn’t strong enough to wake me up in the middle of the night), I also know that my main trigger is coffee (with lots of cream and sugar), so I will switch back to tea which I drink black and that too helps to achieve this goal.
Goal 4 I placed into my daily routine by waking up 30 min earlier starting yesterday, I spent the first 30 minutes of my day in quiet meditation, I typically have done this off and on several times a week for years and I uses a relaxation technique at night (and have for years), I started adding in a chakra centering meditation last month and I’m enjoying the calmness and clarity that it has brought (i’ll document the details in a future post).
Goal 5 I need to get a move on, I think that I will follow the lunar months for this one, that will give me 13 songs in a year, were coming up to the first quarter of the moon cycle (so from full to full were a little over half way). I’ll start with
Goal 6 is ongoing for the Ruby stuff, I’m currently working on a project in Rails, and I’m learning more and more every day (even if it doesn’t feel like it all the time).
Goal 7 is hopefully being met by the posting i’m doing here, but I will find other things that inspire I’m sure as the year progresses. (will re-visit).
Goal 8 will take some planning, I will spend a minimum of 68 seconds of focus on a synergistic mind mastering group and see what the universe shows me in the way of direction (this is where the documenting of such things gets exciting). I know that my friend T will be part of this group (from a spiritual standpoint). But do not yet have a clear picture of the direction / purpose for the master mind. (will re-visit)
Goal 9 ongoing and on track, still longer then I would like to have, but the start of something new usually has that over abundant eagerness too it, I’m sure that the post will start getting smaller at some point (I have taken the liberty of scheduling a few of these so that they roll out on time, even if I sit down and brain fart two or three out at once)
Goal 10 I will get this underway today. (update tomorrow)
Goal 11 through 13 … I think that were underway with these (will re-visit)

If you read yesterdays post, you will know that this is part of an ongoing experiment series centered around success and getting life back on track.
Today I’m giving you the first step in the process and my personal outline of goals.

Step 1 – Document your goals. Know what you want. (you cannot hit a target if you do not know what it is).

Seeing that it’s a new year, this makes it a perfect time to implement in writing what your specific goals are. (did you catch that? IN WRITING) … This is a secret that many people fail to grasp, something wonderfully subjective happens when we write down our goals, we take the first step towards manifesting them into our physical realities. How can you expect things to happen if you do not take the simple steps to ensure that you are doing your part?

My resolutions (goals) in order of priority for the year of 2009. (these will be broken down into simple steps over many up and coming posts).

1. Be the very best Dad possible for my darling daughters.
2. Have more fun then I have had in any previous year to date.
3. Be in better health then I have been in any previous year to date.
4. Maintain a daily meditation schedule to keep centered and keep a positive mental attitude.
5. Learn a new song on the guitar each month.
6. Become proficient in last years new programming language (Ruby) and learn one new language (To Be Decided).
7. Inspire as many other people to be the best that they can be, and inspire them to inspire others.
8. Produce and be a part of a successful and synergistic Master Mind group.
9. Post a new blog entry for every day of the year (minimum 300 words). and create a healthy subscriber base.
10. Launch the clothing line.
11. Learn, Laugh, Live. (healthy, wealthy and wise).
12. Make a metric ass-load (technical term) of money.
13. Be debt free before Jan 1 of 2010.

You may have more, or less goals and its ok if you don’t know HOW you’re going to succeed at them, I don’t have clue one how I’m going to accomplish all of those there, I just know that I WANT to succeed at each of those, and I have faith that the universe will provide a way to accomplish each of them.

I also think that this list will grow as I gain momentum. I just started out with some things and put them in order or importance (as far as the bigger picture goes). Note that cash came at the end of the list. This isn’t to say that I’m putting that off, this is to say that money is not as personally important to me as everything else. I have been at the top and the bottom, several times.

Got your list? Why not? Afraid to play along? Don’t know what you want? You can’t move to Step 2 (tomorrow) unless you finish Step 1 (today).

Please Note:
I don’t want blogging about this experiment to take up too much of my time, and I don’t want it to be the only thing I’m blogging about, so I will try to do a shorter daily updates (like this one) for the remaining 364 days in the solar year, and at least one weekly blog post on something more interesting to the development, programmer, geek, techie community (for subscribers that aren’t interested in this experiment). As you see above, expanding this blog and writing more is one of my personal and professional goals for this year.

Welcome to 2009 and the Back On Track Experiment!!!

Over the next 365 solar days, I’m going to let you in on a few secrets. Secrets that could potentially will change your life if you actually implement them (which is actually the only thing holding anyone back… action). I’m also going to track the progress of the results of these secrets as *I* personally implement them one at a time, so that the skeptics in the crowd can observe the results as they happen to me, because we all know that they are too chicken shit to take the risk required to try something for themselves first. Thats ok though, The smart people reading this will undoubtedly implement these secrets and gain from their benefits as quickly as I do and hopefully we can work together for our mutual benefit.

These are not new principals by any stretch of the imagination, some of what will follow will be my own orderly regurgitation of very old principals, however I know from taking a long and hard look at myself and my own life that the principals are true and do work independently of anything external to ourselves. I know this, because I have been honest with myself, because I have experienced many, many things so far in my life, and I know that *I* am 100% responsible for my attitude, my thoughts, and my actions.

So, the reason for this little online experiment is simple (for me), I need to get my life back in order (currently its a bit of a mess) and one of the primary principals of success is to be accountable for your actions and goals, this experiment is my way of making myself accountable. Its here for anyone to read, so that should help motivate me into action. Feel free to join in, simply sign up for an account here on my blog, and do as I do, or if you have your own blog, follow along and post your own results. I know that success is imminent.

Further to the self motivating factor, I enjoy being helpful and this is a great way to provide some solid information aggregated from many sources over many years into a single location and format… Where it goes from there is anyones guess (a book perhaps?). Because I want to share this information and allow everyone else to share it, while still remaining the copyright holder… these posts (Back On Track Experiment) are released under a creative commons license.

Back On Track Experiment by Robert French is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.robertfrench.ca/contact.php

That means that you are free to copy, distribute, and transmit the work, to remix or adapt the work, but you must credit me as the source if you do, and you may not use the work in a commercial product or for your own financial gain (contact me directly if you need a way around this, I’m sure we can work something out).

Lets be real …
Money is one of the only things right now thats holding me back, there are some other (pretty crazy) factors, but cold hard cash is a big one, I miss my six figure income. Three years ago I was making a one hundred and fifty thousand yearly income writing software, in my own home, and most of the time, in my underwear. Sounds great, but I wasn’t being true to myself, the amount of work I was doing consumed so much of my time that it made me a miserable person, as a result of being a miserable person, I lost everything (and I do mean everything).

Three years later and after plenty of self absorption, analyzation, acknowledgment, planning, and finally acceptance, it’s time to get up, pull my socks back off (I dislike socks) and get my ass back in gear. This time around however, I intend to continue being the happy and strangely optimistic person that I am. I know that money does not, will not, and can not, buy you happiness. But I also know that it does help ease some stress in your life and that in turn will help to make you a happier person (as long as you do not let it consume you). Money is a means to an end, not the end in itself and therefor is not the only focus point of this experiment.

This experiment will yield success in all aspects of life. It does not matter where you are starting from, it does not matter what the specific goals are that you personally are reaching for, the principals and steps to success are exactly the same for everyone.

All that said … onto the experiment!!!