2011 is off to an AWESOME start! I wrote about a couple of experiments a few weeks ago, one involving weight and the other involving money. Well, both experiments are going very well.
The Tim Ferriss diet – On the weight side, I’m slowly but steadily losing weight and doing so in a way which I think is sustainable and quite enjoyable. I’m following an eating plan that was suggested by Tim Ferriss in his excellent book, The 4-Hour Body. It’s not too farfetched and essentially consists of cutting out junk calories, but Tim includes some good psychological tricks to make the whole thing work quite well (TIP – 9000 calorie cheat days are awesome!) If you’re interested in reading more about this you can check out the series of articles I have on my fitness site, 60 in 3.
The Steve Pavlina money manifestation – This one was a bit more of a reach for me. I’m a very logical person and I need to see solid proof before I actually believe in something. So when I read about Steve Pavlina’s “think about money hard enough and you’ll get rich”, I was skeptical. However, I’m a good sport and so I started thinking A LOT about money and trying to follow some of Steve’s ideas of abundance. End result, I’m finding a lot more pennies on the ground, sometimes even a dime or two! Ok, so that sounds a bit silly, but I have noticed more money coming my way recently.
Of course, this could be due to several things:
- Simple statistics – This could just be a random variation in my income (since some of it is based on side projects like blogging) and is completely meaningless.
- Because I’m thinking about money, I’m simply noticing income that I wouldn’t have noticed before.
- Because I’m actively thinking about money, I’m looking for and finding more opportunities to make money. In other words, I’m not finding more pennies on the street because my brain somehow manifested them out of thin air, I’m finding now because I’m actively looking for them as opposed to before when I would occasionally find one accidentally.
- I HAVE FOUND THE SECRET POWER OF THE UNIVERSE AND AM NOW MANIFESTING MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR!!!!! That sounded a bit dramatic, didn’t it? And there’s in fact a part of me that still thinks this is a completely ridiculous idea and is ashamed to even suggest it.
Personally, I tend to think option 3 is the right one. I’m actively looking for money and therefore I find it, both on the street and in other ways such as additional advertising income. However, I’m willing to keep an open mind and maintain the experiment.
Good News And Bad News
Before I move on the lesson I’ve learned, I’d like to add two more facts to the mix. One, I’ve failed at one of my goals for 2011. Due to the arcane stupidity of our government and banking system, I am unable to refinance my townhouse. However, I’ve succeeded in my most important goal of 2011 and convinced the wonderful and amazing woman in my life to say yes when I asked her to marry me. So yah, I’m willing to accept the slightly higher interest rate on my townhouse in exchange for this.
Lesson Learned
I don’t know if I can make money manifest by thinking about nor did I know if I could lose weight by trying out this high protein diet. I could have sat at home and used my skepticism as a way of avoiding both of these experiments. I could have also sat at home and thought about my past relationships and avoided new ones out of fear of being hurt or bitterness. In other words, I can use a whole wide variety of excuses as a way of avoiding doing something. If you want excuses, they’re out there. If you want results though, you got to go out and do something.
How many of you have already failed your new year’s resolutions? How many of you have picked up that diet book or self improvement book, read through it and then didn’t do any of the things the book mentioned? How many of you made a fancy project plan and then didn’t follow up on it? Honestly, losing weight, getting a better job, finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, getting laid, making more money or writing a book are not difficult tasks. You’re convincing yourself that they are because that’s a good excuse for not doing them.
You don’t need a whole workout and diet plan, you just need to get off the couch and go for a 30 minute walk. You don’t need a comprehensive plan of action, you just need one quick little item that you can do right now and then you need to get off your ass and do it.
So stop making excuses and start doing. Set up some large goals, break them down into smaller tasks and focus on a few things that will give you quick ones right now. That will at least get you moving. There’s plenty of material on doing things like that on this site and on others. And if you have questions, ask. If you need advice, ask. There are plenty of people out there, including me, willing to help. Just stop making excuses for why you haven’t done what you know you can do.
Yes, sometimes you’ll fail. Sometimes the bank and the government are too stupid for words and something like refinancing a townhouse when you have good credit, something that should have been simple, will turn out to be impossible. That’s fine. But other times you’ll succeed. You’ll get on the scale and it will say you’ve lost weight, you’ll make a bit more money or, best of all, you’ll see the look in the eyes of a woman you love when she finds the ring you hid for her to find. You’ll never experience any of these things if you don’t try. In the words of the great Wayne Gretzky “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”
Aren’t you tired of not taking your shot?
