How to Invest in Yourself for a Better Life.

Practicing making yourself better can be hard to do in the world we live in.  We are surrounded by a society where we are used to working for other people all day but never make any time to work for ourselves.  Many of us buy things to impress other rather than ourselves, the neighbor buys a new car, so what do we do, buy a better new car, this is called keeping up with the Jones's.  We may even do it without noticing, maybe one of your friends gets a game, so you might get the special edition version that comes with a "special" or "collectable" item just to show off and say you have it.  Do these really add any value to your life if you aren't already where you want to be in life?  No matter how much you know theres still things you can learn from others, let's start with books.
What would you say if I told you that you could have the knowledge of world leaders, billionaire business owners, spiritual leaders and many more right now?  My guess is you would want to know more about this, so I'm going to tell you.  The easiest and cheapest way to get knowledge from anyone you admire or would like to learn from is books.  Right now you have the power to go to the store and buy a book or even buy one from your computer!  Crazy world right?  You could buy a book this instant on any person or topic you want to learn from.  To name a few you can get biographies and autobiographies of the Founding Fathers, Sam Walton, (the man who founded Wal Mart) and Tony Robbins.  All these people do (or did) really big things in life and you can learn how they did what they did and how you can implement their strategies just buy spending around $20 for a book.  Thats cheaper than going out even just once a week to a nice restaurant, no I'm not saying don't treat yourself to good food once and a while, but a lot of us go out to eat everyday or multiple times a week when we could make a healthier cheaper meal for ourselves, and have more money not only to save but also to invest in ourselves.

If you are reading this blog post chances are you've heard of youtube, this can be one of the best places for free content and if you look for something, theres a huge chance someone has made a video to help you with what you're looking for.  If your passion is skating you can look up things on how to skate, if you want to learn how to meditate theres videos for that, videos for making websites, literally anything you would want to learn you can find for free.  The only downside of things being free is we are less likely to take action.  Although we invest our most valuable resource (time) into learning on youtube many of us won't take action on what we are learning unless we pay some kind of money for a course.
In courses the instructor can go way more in depth and interact with you and other people in the course.  This is amazing because everyone can share tips, ask questions, show their success, and work as a team.  Having someone there to teach you what to do every step of the way makes it so much easier to do what you say your going to do and do it right because they have been through it and know the proven steps that work.  Putting not only time but money helps ensure your going to follow through with the program, last I heard nobody would want to just throw out their money for something they wouldn't used follow through with.

Why you Must Find Yourself.

Finding your ambition may just be one of the hardest things to do if one simple key aspect isn't in play.  We spend thousands upon thousands of hours doing things that aren't in our best interest.  We go to our job and use our time and energy to make money.  The thought of this is crazy, we do something that in most cases we don't like doing using time (which you can never EVER get back) and energy (which is hard to get back) just for a paycheck, which last time I checked money is in significant abundance.  This doesn't mean just quit you job, I myself still work a job, and when I have the time to read, write my blog, or post to social media, it makes my time before and after work feel so much better and more like I'm playing the game called "life".

What do I mean?
In my search to finding myself I found my calling was to help people in any area of life that I can master, and help more people master that area of their life, whatever it may be.  Finding yourself in life means to have full confidence in what you are doing and not letting anything stop you from achieving what you want to achieve.  If you have already found your calling you know what I mean when I say Im playing the game called life.  We all love one game or another, but what if you could play a game everyday that lifts you up?  You probably sounds like I'm making this up, but literally everyday the time I'm looking forward to is when I get to become a better person myself, and help all of you reading this and viewing my social media.  I get a feeling better than playing any video game. Try it for yourself, you may just want to hold the door open for someone you don't know or tell some complete stranger to have a nice day who seems to look in a down mood, or you could want to find a way to get civilization on living mars, whatever helps you find yourself will make you happy and live the game called life.  If you have a job you will want to rush home to work on finding yourself right away, if you don't have a job you'll be able to wake up and get yourself out of bed effortlessly.
There are two things I love that Arnold Schwarzenegger said that are very simple, but many of us don't do these.  These two quotes are, "Don't listen to the naysayers" and "Give back" so simple yet so powerful.  We often tell family or friends we want to do something and they tell us its either stupid or that you could never do whatever it is you want to do.  This one is very funny to me, so many successful people were told this including John Lennon, one of the most influential musicians to ever live, his own aunt told him he would never make any money with a guitar, but he didn't let that stop him.  Giving back is always a good thing to do, whether its just something simple like helping a neighbor carry something in their house, or giving to charity, or giving a generous tip and not showing off about it, it always makes you feel better and more at peace with yourself, and it is simple things like that, that will make someones day.
To find yourself, be humble, confident, and find yourself more and more each and everyday!

Set Aside Quiet Time Every Day.

I was reading a book today called, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, by Richard Carlson.  I came across one of many chapters that hit me right away that I want to share with you guys.  The chapter is called "Set aside quiet time, every day".  I knew right after reading the title of the chapter that I needed to share his message in the chapter with more people.  How often are you setting aside time for yourself, even just 5 or 10 minutes?  Today we have so many distractions, Facebook, Instagram, texting, music, and many more things that may distract us from being at peace with the present moment and ourselves for even just a small part of the day.  Richard states in the chapter "Personally, when I set aside quiet time for myself, it makes the rest of my day seem manageable.  When I don't, I really notice the difference."  I have been practicing meditation for almost a year now pretty consistently, I do sometimes miss days, and on the days I do I really notice a difference.
Quiet time is useful on not just days where you are anxious but also on the days where you feel like you are on top of the world.  You can literally take a minute to just look outside and enjoy all the life in front of your eyes and the breathes of fresh air you can take, this will especially help on days where you are feeling down or depressed, but when you do this on a great day, it'll make it even better.  Just today we had the most amazing sky I've seen in a while, the sky has been cool the last couple weeks, but this sight just blew my mind.  Just taking a minute of my time to enjoy the view really helped bring me to the present moment as I stared at the sky with amazement.

My experience with taking quiet time.
Before about halfway through my senior year of high school I used to think of meditation as some silly thing only hippies would do.  I soon came to realize that almost everyone who had their life in line practiced setting time aside for them to relax without distraction, and adopted this technique.  Myself I am able to take a deep breath whenever I need to in any situation if I am feeling tense or stressed, and right away I feel more calm.  Give it a try right now, close your eyes, pause from reading this for about 10-20 seconds, take a deep breathe and inhale in for 3-6 seconds then hold for 4-5 seconds and exhale out for 5-7 seconds. Feel better?  I know after doing this exercise I always feel more calm and in the moment, and the best part it takes less than 30 seconds!
Quiet time is also always used when working out.  If you have ever worked out for any period of time you know that you need your quiet time (rest days) in order for muscle to grow, and not get overworked.  So if you already are working out consistently, you already have experience with making quiet time, all you have to do if you aren't already is set aside quiet time from all distractions and see how much better you feel, and how much better your life gets.

Take Charge of Your Life.

   Have you ever been put in a situation where some people want you to do one thing and other people want you doing something else?  Maybe you want to pursue your own passion instead of go to college and get a job, and your family wants you to stay and go to college because they view it as safe, but maybe you have a successful family member or friend who never went to college and learned how to do things their own way to do what they did to become successful.  You can do both but probably have trouble if you do them a the same time, after all doing both would please everybody.
What do you do?
   Theres two things you must know right away about taking charge of your life, 1: You have to make the choices for your life. 2: You can't please everyone, and if you try to you'll end up pleasing no one.  Understanding these 2 principles will make making decisions easier.  While at first it might sound simple it might not be easy, but implementing these into how you make decisions will make you succeed a lot more and make split second, smart decisions.  Using tool number 1 will give you the power to take more charge in your own life, if you let everyone tell you what to do your gonna be miserable and let them take advantage of you.  Tool number 2 can luckily be used in any area of life.  From fast food to corporations to politics, theres nothing that will everyone will agree on, we all have different beliefs.  having the knowledge of tool #2 can help greatly to decide how decisions should be for your life. 
   So lets implement these to the first paragraph, you have 99% of people around you telling you "go to college, and get a good safe job for 45 years."  (Keep in mind in the above story you think college and a good safe job isn't for you) You have everyone telling you to go, which is peer pressure for you, because you want to start a business or help people, but everyones telling you to do whats safe and with starting a business or helping thousands or millions of people is risky.  You have the chance to go bankrupt, have lawsuits filed against you, you have competition, you may have little money right now, and there are many who failed before you.  Everyone around you is telling you all this and you don't want to let them down right?  Thats your family and friends who only want you to live a safe life.  To put both of these rules together, its your life, not anyone else's, even if they want whats best in their eyes for you, if its no what you think your life is supposed to be about don't do it, you'll become sad in life just to make everyone else happy.  Although they may want you being safe, you have to pursue your dreams, even if it doesn't make everyone else happy, what matters is it makes you happy that you have the power to work everyday to pursue what you want to pursue.
  This was not a story on bashing going to college, I believe if thats your dream is to go to college and get a job you love, then do it!  If its your dream to do something that you love that doesn't involve college, then do it!  What I would hate to see is any of you reading this losing the dreams you have because you are doing what other people want you to do instead of living your life and following your passion.

   I hope you can take what I said here and use it in any area of your life, I would love to hear how these 2 tools helped you!

How Working Out Changed my Life.

Have you ever done something that just makes your life 100 times better once you've done it, or maybe doing this thing makes you love life?  For me the first thing I really implemented into my life was working out and fitness.  Like all things that better you this started off challenging, I would always think "oh my god what are people going to think? My muscles are small and everyone is going to notice how weak I am."  The truth I shortly learned is that people don't even pay attention to how much your lifting, they are too busy focussed on their own work outs.  I've seen people help others with their form if they see someone doing something the wrong way, and talk to others about their workouts, but what I've never seen is someone making fun of someone for being "weak", its from what I've seen the opposite of that, people lifting each other up, after all everyone is there to better their body and connect with like minded people.

So what got me to realize no one is going to judge how small my muscles are?  At first I still thought people would judge and laugh, but after a few times of going I noticed 2 things, no ones saying anything about it, and almost everyone at some point had small muscles.  First lets take how no ones saying "oh your muscles are so small" and stuff like that.  People know its better to start, and chances are if they see you a few times a week in the gym they know your working on getting stronger.  Number 2 about everyone having small muscles at some point, everyone knows someone can start at the bottom and get to the top by working hard and smart, so people will congratulate you on your gains.  The same thing applies for people who are over weight,  nobody is ever judging bad if they are always at the gym transforming their body.
How does changing one habit change them all?
Starting out anything you've never tried before is always hard, no one ever said it was easy.  What happens after day 1 in the gym?  You want to go back again the next day, even tho the workout was hard, theres still something that makes you wanna go back.  You probably thought you couldn't last that first day in the gym, but what happened?  You conquered what you thought was impossible, and know the next day is possible and will be easier until you build the habit of going consistently.
How did this change my life and how can it change yours?  before this year started I used to hate reading books, and when I say hate I mean HATE it!  You couldn't pay me $1,000,000 to read, but something changed.  I knew in order to grow stronger I needed to feed my brain with knowledge.  What happened about a week or 2 of forcing myself to read?  It simply became a habit and hobby of mine to pull out a book and start reading.  For me it is also relaxing, sitting there in peace, holding a book in my hand, almost a form of meditation for me.  If you look how different my life is from the way it was one year ago you would be amazed, I used to always have a gaming controller in my hands and could NOT put it down, but luckily I have replaced that with reading, and now believe it or not have to force myself to play games to relax, and have a hard time even playing a game for 10 minutes without turning it off.  I'd rather work on helping spread my message and developing myself and giving you my tips to develop your own life better than play games, but I do understand you need down time to chill out from working, and reading even tho I love doing it now its still something that can be overdone.  Even as I am writing this I turned on my PS4 to play Fallout 4, and turned the game on and just turned my computer back on to type some more.  Which sounds good but can be bad over time, if you are always working it can not only take away from relaxing time but could also take away fro time with loved ones and friends, which is what we don't want happening.  There must be a balance, without it you are either lazy in life or overprotective and get bored after a while and lose focus.
Above all developing these habits of working towards goals you might not even see the end of right now are important but keeping the balance between working and down time is just as important.

Wherever You are Start Now

Many people are discouraged to start because they feel like they are "far away" from where they want to be.  They make up excuses for why they shouldn't start now, or maybe people discourage them to start and say things like "oh you can never do that" or "thats impossible for someone in your situation".  Many of us may believe what they say and just give up or even worse, not even start at all.  What you need to realize is that its their limiting beliefs holding them back, not you.  If someone tells you something is impossible, what they are really saying is that they can't do it, and because of their belief they try to make you think you can't either, and try to make you stay at the same level as they are.
So who gets to decide who you become, you or the critics and doubters?  The choice is yours, you have to control and take charge of your own life and make what you want.  The time is now if you are 25, 50, 100 pound over weight, are broke, in debt just start now you can only get closer to your goals the more you push through the pain of starting.  No one ever said it would be easy, but I can tell you right now it's a lot harder to never start, to live a mediocre life, and to think on your death bed "what could I have been if I just started."  Everyone knows about that thing they wish they would've done 5 years ago but never did, and the best way to look at starting now is thinking of the difference of your life a year from now if you start and if you don't.  Its just like making the decision to go to bed early or stay up late, which totally affects how you are the next day by being tired and in less control of yourself and how you act.  Everyone knows what I'm talking about and always wishes they would've just went to sleep when they said, so its easy to think of starting like getting more sleep, even if right now you don't see the end in mind or how it would even be possible to achieve what you want in life because your goals are so big and you've never made that much money, or helped that many people, it doesn't mean that your goals aren't impossible and you shouldn't start, instead you should start now and build closer to what it is you want to achieve in life.

The impossible might just be possible.
Who ever would of thought we could ever have a car, fly planes, have boats and travel across the ocean, go to space, or have the ability to connect with someone on the other side of the world in seconds?  Nowadays these are common in everyones life, if you are reading this right now, you probably have a car and defiantly have the power of the internet to learn anything or meet anyone you want, and have probably been on a boat or plane.  You have the ability to take college classes online, to make a blog or youtube channel and spread whatever you want people to know about, just about anything you can think of you can do on the internet that 50-100 years ago would have seemed impossible.  The impossible became possible now its hard to live without something that a few years before I was born we never even had.
There's no better time than now.
So whats the thing you want to do that might seem impossible right now?  Get out there an start right now.  and share what it is your going to accomplish!

Surrounding Yourself With Things and People That Motivate You

Have you ever heard the saying "you are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most"?  The job you are in is very relatable to this saying, in you job you are surrounded by people mostly at the same level as you and chances are you'll stay around the same vibration as they are.  This can be both good and bad, if you are in a job with no progression and the people you work with are unmotivated the only thing you can learn fro this is how not to act and how to teach yourself to get somewhere better, but if you are with people who keep progressing in their life and motivate you to progress in your life chances are you're going to become stronger and stronger in your life.  Most of us including myself live in a world where we are scared to branch out to people who are where we wanna be.  These people we wish were all around us and sharing their wisdom with us in whatever they excelled in.  For me I would want to surround myself with people who have the knowledge and skills of fitness, positive impact, business and business structure, socializing, and meditation.  And if you are reading this my guess is you agree very similarly to the people you would want to be around the most.
How to motivate yourself.
We all find ourselves from one time or another unmotivated or losing motivation.  Often times losing motivation can start off slow but before you know it you're not working like you did before, so how do we gain motivation back?  I like to surround myself with pictures of things I want in life, or watch videos of the things I want, to motivate me.  It doesn't matter if you want something material or want to help people or both, you motivation is your motivation.  The easiest way to put pictures in front of you everyday is to make the picture or pictures your screensaver on your computers, phones, and tablets.  This way you are always reminded of what you are working for.

I have the example above of my screensaver on my computer (Brabus 6x6) one of 3 in the U.S. which reminds me why no matter how unmotivated I feel that if I keep at what I'm trying to accomplish it'll be worth it, which in turn keeps my motivation up in the long run.  Or maybe its something like a beautiful sight, and you love spending time outside or in nature, whatever your goals are surround yourself with them.