The Right Way to Achieve Anything

Below diagram depicts the best cycle to achieve real results in life:

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(Image created by Andrew Bentley)

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Think about how fruit is grown.

1. Plant the seed.
2. Water the seed.
3. Help the seed grow.
   
4. Harvest the fruit.

Now infuse this idea, with how to live life:

1) Get ideas from your new results - The seed. Any idea you have is a seed planted in your mind, and into your reality around you. These ideas are usually productive, creative, and supportive in nature, unless you let weeds of negativity grow in the garden of your mind. You may have an idea of how to improve, enhance, create, or achieve something new. Think that idea, visualize it, keep it in your mind constantly.

2) Feelings Flood You - The water. Give the seed all the nutrients it needs. Provide it plenty of positive, confident, energetic, and passionate feelings! Your feelings will either energize you to your goal, or counter-force you back into your current failing results. Remember that you can feel anything, without reason. Be happy now. Feel positive about your new idea!

3) Move Your Body - The growth. Taking action is obviously an expectation to get something you want. Particularly when you have planted your idea seed, and watered it with lots of emotion and attention, your body will naturally be propelled into situations where your actions yield you new results! When that inspiration, creativity, energy, motivation, and decision strikes you, go do it, now! Hesitation and procrastination are silent but deadly killers.

4) Getting Results - The harvest. Now your ideas, feelings, and actions have synchronized you fully with your desire, and "it" is finally yours now. But dont stop, this is where you build momentum! The fruit you have now contains essential seeds, plant these and continue the cycle!

5) Repeat - This is where successful people accelerate their success. During the harvesting of results, more seeds are planted, followed with more feelings and actions, and more harvesting will repeat itself. Each cycle spawns new ones endlessly, and exponentially. And the best part is, it keeps getting better, easier, faster, deeper, and more fulfilling, each time you do it!

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Once you've begun using this, all of these will seem to magically weave together in the most beautifully elegant way:

• People - You'll start meeting them, and they will seek you out too!
  
• Tools - Physical and mental, what you'll need to use will be provided.
  
• Energy - Its better than redbull, its infinite, and its yours.
  
• Ideas - Thoughts, creations, epiphanies, and deeper connections with 'infinite'
  
• Visuality - The blur in your life starts focusing into a sharp high-definition image.
• Perspectives - New and different views, paradigm shifts, will flood your awareness.
  
• Time - Everything becomes timeless, and time itself becomes simply a social tool.
  
• Things - Your focus and awareness on 'things' will magnetize them into your reality.
  
• Feelings - Your entire body will be flooded with wholistic fulfillment, euphoria and ecstasy.
  
• Actions - Everything you do will weave together so congruently, like art.
  
• Wisdom = Knowledge + Experience. In the aftermath of everything, this is the minds expression of itself.

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The Wrong Ways to Do Anything

I just recently posted here on my blog about The Right Way to Achieve Anything. (Go read it now and come back!)

In this blog though, I'm going to discuss some of the Wrong Ways to Do Anything.

Its useful to know the wrong way too, so that when you do it, you can catch it, flag it, and eliminate it. If you dont know that "its" wrong, you might keep on doing "it"...

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With that said, according to the same structure as the "right way", here are some of the wrong ways. Assume that the first word in each cycle is the "starting point", which is simply the origin of the steps that follow it. It is the originator of all that follow it.

1) Results -> Thoughts -> Feelings -> Actions -> Results (again)

I like to call this the common man's failure. This is what the largest percentage of the population does. These people allow the appearance of things to control their thoughts; hence Results being the starting point.

Bob is meeting new women, and one laughs at him. Bob sees his results as "she's laughing at me". This realization sparks his thoughts about "how" he messed up, and "what" he did wrong, etc. These thoughts are flaring up feelings inside himself, like low self-esteem, low confidence, fear, etc. Now that his thoughts and feelings are swarming around his "negative" results, action is next. He says something else, this time even more incapacitated than before, and makes a bigger fool of himself. Now he has even more reason to feel like an idiot, and so he does. The cycle continues.

Everyone executes this cycle in some way or another! The problem is, its a self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that any results you ever get WILL ALWAYS BE CORRECT. If the results were wrong, you wouldn't be using this method. Thus the endlessness of this cycle.

There is no doubt about it, this is the most common way we all fail at anything we do. If you can become ultra-aware of yourself doing this one, like a hawk, I guarantee that your expansion of awareness alone will bring you astounding results.

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2) Feelings -> Actions -> Results -> Thoughts -> Feelings (again)

This one is interesting, I like to call it your average "addiction". Your starting point is a feeling.

Lets take Bob again, he enjoys drinking alcohol. His "starting point" at a certain moment might be his feeling of wanting to drink a beer. Since a feeling is his starting point, if he just acts instead of critically thinking first, he'll go get a beer. His results are then having that beer, and drinking it. This in turn will affect his thinking, perhaps thinking "man, beer is awesome.", which then spark his feelings about how awesome the beer is, which may even make him get up to go get another. If left unaltered, this cycle can lead to horrible physical and emotional addictions.

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While I'm at it though, I'd like to mention a cycle that I've found to be an "alternative" to the main right-way I posted earlier on.

3) Actions -> Results -> Thoughts -> Feelings -> Actions (again)

I like to call this one the "accidental" discoverer. Actions come first, all else follows.

Take Jason for example. Jason has been taught to always go for it and get his hands into what he's doing. If given a choice of passively and actively learning, he will always choose active. One day, Jason is with a woman, and he does something in the spur of the moment. He notices his result is that the woman laughs and is intrigued. This next step can actually be either/or, he'll either think about it and internalize it, then feel about it; or he'll feel good about it, and then think about it later. Either path will bring him forward with new mental knowledge and gut understanding (feeling), and when presented with a new situation, his actions can replicate his success.

This is much better than the wrong-ways, but its not quite the best way. Here, you are normally working with surface-level resources, seemingly at-random results, and overall you're fumbling into success.

The way to ultimate success is to choose and decide consciously what you want, first. Everything else follows.

Visualization for creating your reality.

I may have just stumbled across one of the greatest tools that our minds possesses.

What mind tool am I talking about? Visualization

Why is it so powerful? Because it shapes our reality around us. Literally.

Remember back when you were in grade-school, around 5, 6, 7 years old. You would sit in class, listening to the teacher, and eventually your mind would start to wander off. Fantasizing about that new bike, or the new barbie doll, or jumping on the trampoline, or anything you wanted to be doing.

If/when you got caught, your teachers scolded you and told you "Pay attention! Stop daydreaming!"...they were so wrong... Daydreaming is one of the most amazing things that you can do. I'm not exaggerating either. Its great for children, its even better for adults...

But its been so many years since then, most of us are out of practice. How can start doing it again? Even more, why should we?

You see, your mind works with images. These images are what you relate to the world with. What you probably didn't already know is, the images you hold in your mind make you resonate at the same frequency of what you are seeing.

And when two things are vibrating at the same frequency, they sync up. Like magnets.

Does this sound too esoteric or airy-fairy to you? If so, look at it this way...

• The poor man in our world speaks most about poverty.
• And the rich men in our world speak most about riches.
• It is no coincidence that poor people dont become rich.
• Because they dont know how to become rich.
  
• Even more, they never visualize riches. Or if they do, its counteracted with visuals of a poor house and empty bank accounts.
  
• Everything in these peoples lives are there because of their visualizations, emotions, and allowance of surrounding proof to continue manifesting the same into their daily lives...

"If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got." - Anon

Think of visualization as a vibration-creator. Any mental-image you view, repeatedly over time, will sync you up with its physical manifestation. Think about coffee, I bet you'll have coffee very soon. Think about the opposite sex, you'll run into it soon. Think about money, watch as the abundant sea of money crashes its waves upon your beach.

Another example: Many sport athletes trainings consists of hardcore visualization techniques. They've hooked athletes up to a machine to monitor heart-rate, etc. They told him to imagine, in his mind, as if he was on the playing field, running with the ball.

Sure enough, his heart started racing and his palms started sweating. His whole body started responding, even muscles started firing off in the same sequence they would while really playing. Researchers realized something breakthrough about this connection...

The unconscious mind cant tell the difference between imagination and reality.
Why is it difficult to believe, when you are suddenly awoken startled, that your dreams really aren't real?

This is magnificent though! Because... we are in control of our minds. Hey you reading this, right now think of a black cat....... What just happened? Now, DONT THINK of a black cat. No really, dont.... Stop!

So, we can visualize anything at any moment. What kind of refrigerator do you have? Does it open to the left or to the right? Top and bottom or side-doors? Whats inside? See, as you think about this, you are visualizing your fridge. I bet you can even see the vague shape of everything you think is in there, the colors, even the sounds opening it, and the smells inside too. You might even feel a little hungry when you see it open up.

This, my friend, is the power of visualization.

We can visualize something, anything... and we then become synced with that frequency (keep visualizing), which brings it into your awareness both mentally and physically... then imagine what you could do with this power.

Its like... you're in a dream. And at any moment you want something, you have it. Snap! Its yours. Except, when your awake, when you think about something, that idea is a seed, and theres a gestation period. As you continue watering it with attention and awareness (visualizing that image constantly), it grows into a large and powerful tree. A redwood even, as you keep watering it.

I have years of experience with this, and I didn't even know it. Beyond any doubt at all I definitely know this works. I have well enough experienced-proof to believe in this, and it takes alot for me to believe something. I have some techniques that will let visualization prove itself though...

Technique #1: Daydreaming about your fantasy life.

• Just take a moment... this is your moment.
• Pick something to visualize, like something you should do later tonight, or tomorrow.
• Something simple, perhaps something thats not at the top of your todo list.

• Now, go into daydream mode.
• See yourself doing that task.
• You possess all the paints, colors, and brushes to use, so make it exactly the way you want to.
• Paint it positive, with bright colors, happy faces, whatever you want.
• You are literally DOING that thing in your head right now.

• Now, while you are visualizing...
• Feel what its like to be doing it, be creative with this.
  
• Feel excited!
• Feel productive!
• Feel immersed!
• What do you want to feel when your doing/done with it? Feel that.

• And... when your done, come back to the real world.

This whole cycle can last anywhere between 10 seconds and 10 minutes, or more! You gauge how long you want to. Also, be sure to repeat this over and over again, throughout your day and week.

Technique #2: At night, before you go to bed, visualize your next day. (This one is so powerful)

• Think about the things you must, or want, to do the next day.
  
• See yourself doing those things.
  
• Get specific, but keep yourself open to new things.
  
• Feel what its like to do and accomplish these tasks.
• Remember, what you see and how you feel will be the pieces used to create the actual events in your life, so imagine how you really want the results to be.
  

My experience with this: One night, I visualized all the things I needed to do the next day. Then, the next day, I accomplished 6 of those visualizations within a few hours. And 2 people that I wanted to contact, while on my mission, I ran into them! I felt so in tune, like every thing I was doing was what I was really supposed to be doing. You know that feeling? At the right place at the right time.

This technique alone can literally change your life. You might be thinking "yea right..." but just try it, you cant not get results doing this.

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-CAUTION-WARNING-

This is where most people slip up and are completely blind to a critical counter-intuitive point in life.

Dont try to prove any of this to be true, at least by the standards of person-to-person communication. It'll prove itself to you naturally through experience, but proving it to others is like... just go try it yourself and find out the difficulty.

Its impossible to find the proof when you are looking for it. Why? Lets say you are poor, and you are visualizing being rich! Then, when you're done, you look around and see the proof of poverty literally surrounding you. Just being aware of this itself will counteract all vibrational training you did on riches. Cuz you remember you're actually poor. :(

This is most certainly where the saying "Believing is seeing" proves itself. Thats right, its not "Seeing is believing" at all.

Visualizations work only as well as your belief in them. This is not just hope and faith, but a true knowing that YOUR belief in it literally IS the catalyst, the determining factor, the key, to your success. Without belief, the candle will burn out instantly.

If you want $50,000, visualize it! When you're not visualizing, just imagine this reality as only a residual effect of an old dream that you are waking up from more and more. If you notice you dont have $50,000, just think about having it again. Keep yourself on that money like you actually had it. Thats all that matters. Forget any proof of any lack.

If you are a natural doubter, thats "ok". It'll just take you alot longer to see results, and you might even completely deny and doubt any shreds of proof that come seeping through the cracks.

Just try completely believing in it. Believe in it 100% for at least a couple of weeks. At the end if you dont see any amazing results, stop believing. Haha but that wont happen...

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I'll wrap this up with an example of one of my visualizations. Take note of my process, and try using this to enhance your own process!

• I'm visualizing getting a place to live.
• I see myself talking to some people.
• Shaking hands, smiling, feeling good.
• I see myself looking around at new apartments.
• Seeing big open rooms, saying "hmm, yes yes..."
• Looking at the person I'm with and agreeing.
• Sitting down and writing my finances out.
• Seeing that its all going to work out perfectly!
• And feeling excited! Jumping for joy, literally.
• I see myself moving my stuff from here into my new place.
• Getting everything settled.
• Throwing a new-apartment party.
• Sitting in my chair, reflecting back on everything.
• Feeling relieved, and relaxed, and so happy.

• ...and when I'm ready, I return my awareness back to "now".
• As my day continues, I keep repeating that final frame, the very end goal, over and over.
  

What is Success?

I'm interested in discovering, what does each person define as success?

By the way, when I say success, I refer to the necessary proof for happiness to exist.

I've talked to business people, engineers, philosophers, lots of different types. And each response is different. I've noticed some interesting patterns...

For instance, business folk tend to say that success is making alot of money. It may also be starting up a business or getting a great job. It could be learning enough to be great at what you do. Generally, their sense of happiness and achievement comes, you guessed it, business.

Engineers find their success in the creation of a great new device, or structure, or organization, generally, when something has reached completion with time and focus, the feeling of achievement is success.

Philosophers have the most interesting responses. Here is what philosophers say success is...

• Discovering the ultimate answers in life.
  
• Understanding the minds of those before them.
  
• Achieved by helping to change the thoughts of all naive people.
  
• Eliminating our own naivity.
  
• Well, there is no goal to achieve, you cant believe you've achieved it because your senses can fool you.
  
• An effect of something you dont control, therefore happiness has no grounds to exist.
  
• Just to name a few. There are some confusingly unfathomable entangled answers I've heard.

So across all these definitions of what success is, who is right? Is there only one right way? Could multiples be right? Could even they all be right?

They all might be right, but does knowing what success is make them successful? No.

Infact, most people I talk to aren't happy and successful, by their very own defintions. Why is that?

You know what I think it is...

By a raise of hands, who here can just be happy? Without a reason at all. Just be happy, right now, let it flood your body and permiate your surroundings. Open up and expand yourself into happiess, feeling joy and warmth from within your chest, feeling a buzzing radiating outwards in every direction. You know, being happy.

Wait, you did know you can do that at any moment, without needing a reason first... you just forgot you knew. But you remember now.

So, even though you may know what success is, and what to be/do/have/know to be successful... Be sure to spend right now, as often as possible, just being happy, without reason.

You'll find more happiness in your life. And it came from right there, inside yourself...

Is Your Jar Full?

This metaphor for life really stuck with me.
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A Professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "Yes."

The Professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the Professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff."

"If you put the sand into the jar first", he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

When he had finished, there was a profound silence. Then one of the students raised her hand and with a puzzled expression, inquired what the beer represented.

The Professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."

Anima & Animus

In a previous blog post, I talked about Awareness and Energy. Quite honestly, I'm working on coming up with a better name for each of these. Here is what they basically mean.

The Awareness / Masculinity - A man is removed from his mind, and is simply being aware.
The Energy / Femininity - A woman is unlocked, open, and being radiant with energy.

So what about men that have a developed feminine side, and women with a masculine side?

The Anima - The inner feminine side that all men have.
The Animus - The inner masculine side that all women have.

You might think of a mommas boy having a developed Anima, and you might think of a business woman having a developed Animus.

Theres nothing wrong with a woman running a business, or a boy wanting shelter from his mother... but it is unhealthy if these individuals are opposing their own core energy.

For instance, a woman that is very core feminine, but learns via her very business-oriented father how to grow up as a business lady, is going to experience from very uncomfortable pains and sufferings in her life. Seriously, what woman that is a better man than most men she meets is going to be happy? No matter how much money she makes.

Or the boy-man who is still living at home, letting his mother take care of him and protect him. This boy-man probably learned alot of masculinity from his mother, she may have been a fix-it-up lady, or took care of the checkbook, or in someway provided this boy-man more masculine teachings than his father did. If he had a real father at all.

Like I said, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these scenarios. But I bet you neither person feels healthy. Both of them will feel like there is a big hole in their being.

Why is this though? It boils down to discovering your own core-energy, your born role in this world.

• If you were born as a straight male, you almost definitely have a masculine core that needs a masculine father AND a feminine mother to help you develop into an adult MAN. Full fledged.
• If you were born as a gay male, or later discovered you find men attractive, you might have a feminine core in a mans body, which mens you will look for other men that supply energy opposite of you. If you are the butch, you'll look for a submissive partner.
• If you were born as a straight woman, you almost definitely have a feminine core that needs a feminine mother AND a masculine father to help you open up to your infinite potential for love and depth.
• If you were born as a lesbian woman, or later discover you find women attractive
  

The pattern I have noticed is, as men and women grow up into adulthood, they magnify their childhood learnings.

If a man learns alot of masculine things from his mother, and not enough from/with his father, he can still have a masculine core but he will have a very deep connection with the feminine as he grows up, which almost definitely cause him grief in connecting with women, because full-feminine women are looking for the opposing masculine. This guy will tend to mate with women that have a developed masculine side, like his mother, and like the opposite of his own energy. Girl-guy fits with Guy-girl.

I want to reemphasize, there is nothing "wrong" with being a man with a developed feminine side, or a woman with a developed masculine side. If you dont have a partner, you literally CRAVE the opposite energy-role, and will do anything it takes to get it, whether it comes from outside of you, or from within yourself.

As soon as you really are ready for a truly enlightened experience of life, full of love, trust, happiness, and deep connection, you'll stop depending on yourself for both energies, because you will be with your partner that supplies you with the energy set you crave.

When two energy-roles, masculine man and feminine woman, come together, each person can be 100% of the energy they are giving to the other person. This makes for a great relationship, and a great live.

So, what energy-role are you at your core? Develop on that to find the secrets to a happy life.

Great quotes to live by...

Below is a list of quotes I have heard through time that really stick with me. I'm looking for author names, so if you recognize these, tell me who wrote them!

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"The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

"I use my memories, but I dont let my memories use me."

"Reality to the subconscious mind is whatever images are impressed upon it." - Bob Proctor

"Before anything in your life can be changed permanently, you've got to change your paradigm."

"Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our lives and we will call it fate." - Carl Jung

"Discomfort is the energy of growth." - Myself

"If you have been so focused on sawing that you haven't noticed the saw needs sharpening, slow yourself down."

"What is an addiction? Not getting enough of what you dont want."

"Losing weight? No way! My mind is programmed to find things I lose. I'm finding healthiness."

...more to come.

Questioning, as a growth process.

To have anything in life... you must first ask the right questions.

Asking yourself any question over and over and over again will always get you a reciprocal answer. Ask a negative question, get a negative answer. Ask a positive one, get positive results.

Asking "Why am I so fat?" yields...

• Because I eat so much.
• Because I never work out.
• Because I am undisciplined.
• Because I just cant lose weight.
• Because being fat isn't bad enough to make me change right now.
• And so on...

And every time you get the answer "I never work out", guess what, you accept that as true, and then into the future... its even more true that you never work out...

Asking "How can I become skinny?" yields...

• By eating healthier and in less portion.
• By going to the gym and setting a consistent workout plan.
• By making friends that help support and encourage me throughout the skinny-gain process.
• By allotting the amount of money aside that I need to fully achieve my skinny goal.
• By dedicating the time and energy I must spend to obtain a healthy body.
• By having the undying passion and desire to become skinny, which keeps me on the goal.
• And so on...

You're probably already starting to see what I mean about how asking the right questions can really make a big difference in life. Anthony Robbins wasn't lying about it.

A few guidelines to help dodge some common hurdles:

#1 Its OK if you don't have all the answers right now. By asking, you are taking part in a long-term practice that acts as a fountain for the answers you are seeking. Give it time to pick up momentum.

#2 Have what it is you want, right now. If you had what you want already, right now, what would happen next? Daydream about it often! What if I had it already, what would I do??

#3 Ask yourself the right questions constantly, and stop asking the wrong questions completely. This is the way of making habits, stop doing something that doesn't work, and replace it with something that does work. Simple.

#4 Most importantly, be open and ready for the new answers. And be ok with letting go of your old habits and beliefs, so that you really can FULLY integrate the new positive changes.

Soon, or now...
(depending on how ready you are)

You'll begin receiving answers in many different forms. If you haven't trained your 'answer receptors' in a while, you'll probably go without noticing anything for a while... even when its all still happening, just beyond your threshold of awareness. You can thank your subconscious mind for the concept of filters.

And after you thank it, welcome those filters to leave. Its ok right now. Say goodbye to your filters, because the process of growth IS about removing old filters.

All of a sudden, you start noticing and picking up on new patterns that now you just 'get'.

Metaphor to help explain:

Consider this situation... Bob is talking to a female. While he is talking, she is becoming frustrated with him. His unconscious filters are so weakly developed that he cant even notice that she isn't interested in what he is saying. Bob is just talking talking talking, as she gets more frustrated.

Also consider that Bob has noticed a new perspective, probably from a friend shining a new view on his situation. Bob notices his filter, he just doesn't pay her any attention really. He lets that go, and with the new empty space, creates a new habit of paying-more-attention-always.

Bob is talking to a new female. As he talks, he notices she is acting differently all of a sudden. He may even notice her turning her body away slightly, or crossing her legs, or taking deeper breaths... Bob stops himself, and asks her "so whats up?", and watches as her entire posture changes.

Bob has now internalized a new filter.

Psychological perspective of "why":

His filter could've been something like, "Everyone finds me really interesting", or "Everyone always loves listening to me", or even "I'm the most important person, always."

A person can be so completely unaware that they believe something, until a moment of epiphany is sparked by a friend or book that shares a new point-of-view. These kinds of beliefs are usually internalized at a childhood stage in life. Because the belief is never challenged, and is held so deeply to be true, it continues to exist on your map-of-reality into the future. This is what most people call "Thats just who I am." or "Thats in my nature."

And when you age into adulthood, you find that thinking "I'm more important than you" is not such an "OK" thing to believe, if you want friends. There are lots of beliefs we all still have that aren't quite worth keeping anymore.

Back on the main track:

Questioning can be the spark of a new point-of-view, or perspective, into a situation.

Bob is talking to the female, and he asks himself at any moment "Is she listening to me right now?", instead of "What am I going to say next?"

I think you can now see how differently his life can become because of one simple shift in his actions.

Apply this metaphor into any area of life. What are you thinking and asking, around anything?

Here are a few things to start asking yourself new questions about:

• What your goals in life are.
• What you want to do for lunch.
• Money.
• The women, or men, in your life.
• How to be a better questioner.
• How you can better become a better person in life.

ANYTHING.

Remember in the beginning, I mentioned this was a long-term practice. Once you start asking better questions, and getting better answers, you'll begin to fathom the next-level-up questions/answers. You'll then need to reform your questions again and again to get the best results possible.

#5 Dont expect the first, second, or third sets of answers to be THE final answers. You'll find that certain answers work better for certain situations, and rephrasing the question can achieve totally different results.

The evolution of the question-stream:
(may go something like this)

1. Why do I feel so crappy?
2. Why am I so fat?
3. Why is it so hard to be thin?
   
4. Why would I want to be thin?
5. So, what should I stop doing to stop being fat?
6. Wait, what do I do to become thin?
   
7. Where can I go to workout?
8. Who must I get to know to stay thin?
   
9. What are all the ways that I can become most optimally healthy?

You can see the evolution of the questioning process. The person starts by questioning their current feeling, then progressing to a logical deduction of why they feel bad, continuing into frustration of not having it, to even a questioning of if its worth trying for; then a realization comes from the prior question that sparks a question of how to stop whats happening now, which then helps to realize double negatives dont work, and a more progressive question of where to go to start, and further into who to get to know, and finally into a full acceptance of achieving the goal and questioning what all must be done to fully achieve it?

This is just the beginning, of one single question-stream. You'll have multiples going on constantly around all the topics of your life.

This evolving questioning process IS growth itself.
Embrace it, it will be your friend for the rest of your life.

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Right Now...

Right now... is the only moment that exists.

Whether you are...

• Being present to all your senses, enjoying the sights, sounds, and feelings...
  
• Or you are in your mind, noticing your thoughts, following a train of thought, having ideas, talking to someone, believing in your story of past and future...

It doesn't matter which one you choose... right now is still the only moment that exists.

Whether you are a scientist, theologian, new-ager, atheist, pessimist, optimist, devotee, or a skeptic... it is undeniable that this moment right now, is.

When you're in your mind, listening to the swarm of thoughts, talking to other people, following a train of thought, or just thinking about the past and future... take a moment, every chance you get, to just return to this moment as it is now.

Dont define, label, categorize, identify... anything... just notice everything. Just notice.

The big idea here is: Simplicity. Stop trying to discover "how" to do it... you cant. You need your mind online to know "how", but the idea is to take your mind offline.

Once you can be in this moment, now, without your mind... you can be anyone and anything, without need for proof at all!

The paradox is that your mind must discover "how" before you can have something...
But the very act of not having it because you dont know "how", IS itself what holds you back...

In short, your mind is usually the problem, not the solution.

So just return to now, mindless... as often as you can, and watch what happens.
You'll be surprised what can happen without "you" needing to do it, or know "how to"...

When you've practiced and mastered this, I believe you've mastered life.