Mind the Beginner

The most common type of mind is the closed mind. Or so it seems…

“I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

This weekend I had a small social get-together with the in-laws and their social circle. My girlfriend was celebrating her birthday and I can tell you, she has an open mind, which seems to be a rare thing these days in real life. On the net you can talk to loads of people who don’t react funny when you talk about personal development, lifestyle design and even minimalist living. Those are topics I would hesitate to discuss in real life, but you would think that keeping track of finances at least would be a good idea and people could see the sense of it. Especially those who seem to suffer from chronic financial struggle and debt.

Well, forget that idea

The topic quickly changed to the habit of smoking and how some people there really should quit. Of course the money-going-up-in-smoke issue was discussed at length. I wondered how much people could spend on such a thing and if they had a clue. Quite obviously the wrong question because some of the in-laws there know I keep track of every cent myself.

And then came the jaw-dropping moment:

Laughter about me tracking my spendings followed. The smokers concluded that if they didn’t spend it on tobacco they would surely spend it on something else, without ever knowing where the money went! They seemed to share a way of thinking that goes a bit like this: “I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

I repeat: jaw-dropping moment.

As the evening progressed it didn’t get any better. Listening as a skill was in short supply. Everybody was talking about themselves and trying to best the others with an even unlikelier story. Mixed in were the occasional rants about self-pity, being victims of society and of course complaining about money -and the lack of-. You’d think that people discussing their problems would like to know how they could tackle such issues of life and perhaps make a change.

Another huge mistake

And then came the revelation as I heard a Heavenly choir sing to me: People like to be the victim, to shove all responsibility under the carpet and talk about how unfair the world is. It’s a safe place to be because it’s known and as most would agree: the unknown is very scary. It seems to be a taboo to talk about doing something you didn’t do before but should have done a long time ago. At least, talking to find solutions and asking others for their opinions, solving problems in life and developing oneself. How wrong I was. These people didn’t want solutions or a kick in the right direction, they wanted pity.

Taking responsibility for life and owning all your actions is terrifying apparently. This can not be done with a closed mind for the answers to problems and changing of habits are products of the open mind, ready for new things and uncertain adventures. Thinking outside of the boxed thoughts seems to me essential for change to occur and responsibility to be taken.

I don’t understand closed minds like these. Why wouldn’t people want to change the negative things in life and strive for better things? Why stay in the same place if there are ways to get out? Then again. I could be terribly wrong here and should be put back in my place. Who am I to act like I’m superior!

Closed minds are all around and more often than not clash with each other in a struggle for right of speaking. Not listening to one another and complaining about the unfairness of the world is what surely follows. Or so it seems…

What do you think?

Failure is a part of every day life for without it we wouldn’t be learning at all. Failure is level zero so to speak, it’s where we start from, we have nothing, no achievements, no successes. From this starting point we embark on a journey to get where we want to be. Without exception this is “better”, “successful”, “loved” or perhaps “being worthy in the eyes of others”. (Nobody goes forth in life trying to be miserable after all, we all have our golden dreams.)In the eyes of others is a very important statement here for we usually want things not for ourselves but so we can show others that we really are somebody. If bragging about ourselves to others would not get us higher up some social ladder would we still do it just or ourselves?

The single biggest hurdle to get over is to accept that we are utter failures in life when we start out. We can’t even take care of ourselves now can we? Diaper changes, meals served to us and all kind of other things. We don’t have control over anything, not even our own body (yet). The more we learn, the more we gain control over our own actions. The more control we have to more responsibility this brings along with it. But you -as avid reader of this blog and other blogs on personal development and lifestyle design- already know this don’t you? They say knowledge is power and most certainly knowing that, with more control comes more responsibility equals more power. You’re in control of your own actions every single day. Again this is old news if you’ve been reading about personal development.

Acceptance

Accepting the current failure is the big hurdle, getting over it can be done by realizing that you have the control to change things. You’re not a victim of your own life or a victim of circumstance. With enough knowledge (power) you can change just about anything. It might not make you a millionair rock star, but you can have a very comfortable life if only you take control and not let life slip through your fingers. Life isn’t that bad actually once you get properly acquainted with the way the game is played

But still, I haven’t written anything you didn’t know already now did I? For you see, that’s the problem with all these development blogs. We keep beating about the bush on that one issue that seems so hard to grasp: You are responsible and so it’s up to you to make the change.

Same old stuff, different day

We bloggers can write all we want and you can read every single blog out there on the subject. Fact is that reading is not the same as actually taking responsibility. I could write all I want about the major changes in my life, how I made the changes and how I’m on my path to where I want to be. Many bloggers do the same and their posts are always a great hit with the readers. Reading about how we live our lives and how we do things might give you some ideas, but reading alone will not change your life. Taking (blog-inspired) action is where the control is. Even if you do manage to take control failure will always be a part of the game of life, it’s here to stay.

I know I really enjoy reading about others traveling, about Leo planning to move to San Francisco, Alan’s latest adventures, Carl’s new blog, Sean’s escape from the 9-5 and all those other cool people out there. But the fact remains I’m not traveling, moving or having adventures. I’m just a blogger and a dreamer. I’m not where I want to be so in that respect I’m a failure. But at least I know it and want to change things. I’m not a victim, I’m responsible for my own life and so it’s up to me to make the change… I got myself into this mess, now I’m getting myself out!

Nothing new to report here, you know all this stuff

…so turn off the screen, get off your behind and start acting responsible. And you know what? It’s not about being worthy in the eyes of others. It’s about being who you want to be, regardless of others. I have nothing new to offer you, nothing that deep inside you don’t already know.

Are you with me? Let’s see what’s next. A new adventure is never far away, that’s life for you.

In my view there is one single skill that’s at the basis of all other skills and that’s truly essential to personal development. Although it’s very important few people ever master it. I would even goes as far as to say that without this one skill -although mastering it isn’t necessary- it is impossible to have personal development, personal growth, success, getting things done, meditate, or learn anything.

An essential skill indeed for without it, you’re stuck.

Quite literally stuck, stuck in either the past or the future. Because that’s the whole problem. This one essential skill is:

• Being in the present

There are many variations on this subject but they all boil down to the same thing. If you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing things can go terribly wrong very fast or on a smaller scale you’ll not remember the name of the person who just shook your hand.

Remembering names and reflecting

If you’ve ever read a book on social skills (Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends & influence people for instance) you’ll know that the single most appreciated word by all people is their own name. If you’re able to remember a name because you were totally present when you heard it you’ll make a great impression if you manage to call that person by his name the next time you two meet.

Whether it’s learning a new skill, meeting new people, writing a blogpost or going for a drive. There is so much to gain from every experience in life just by being present to experience it.

So why is it so hard to be in the present? It’s because we’re constantly either thinking about the past or dreaming up a future. The first can be relived (well, sort of) the second is pure fiction. Reliving the past is completely useless save one thing. Lessons to be learned or in other words, reflecting on what happened to avoid those mistakes in the future. It’s what all students should do after an exam. Check the mistakes and reflect on them.

If left unreflected you might act the same way in a similar event, even though it was the wrong answer/way the last time. Just because you either don’t know what’s the right answer or because you’re not present (thinking of the last time it went wrong) and going on auto pilot.

There you have it, the one skill that is at the basis of everything in personal development: being in the present. For without it you can’t learn, you can’t grow, you’re stuck.

Get unstuck, come into the present, right here, right now is where it’s at. Stop waisting time in the past or future, the past won’t change and the future isn’t here yet.

A small sidenote, not related to this blogpost it’s more of a notification. I won’t be doing a weekend update this weekend as I’m participating in a introductory period at university. I won’t have a pc or wifi where we’re going this weekend.

I’ve quoted this one before but it’s actually a huge reason for me to have this blog:

• To learn: read
• To know: write
• To master: teach

There is only so much you can do for yourself by reading self-help books, blogs on personal development and other sources. Most people who realize this quickly become bloggers themselves in order to put to writing what they have learned. Over time -months or years- these people become experts of sorts in their fields. They know what they write and they practice what they preach.

Take Jonathan Mead over at Illuminated Mind for instance . I don’t believe could have quit his regular job and gain his freedom if he didn’t blog about it. The same goes for Darren Rowse aka Problogger. Although there was little on blogging in the early days when he started (so he couldn’t read much) he quickly took to writing about it and thus really getting in to the know of blogging.

And now there is me. I’m a zen enthusiast but it’s hard to grasp what zen is about. By writing about it and time and time again trying to put to words what it means I’ve gotten a far better idea on what zen actually is. Hopefully the same goes for you. Through reading you get to learn things that others write about and thus know.

It’s personal development on a new level. Helping others by writing about your experiences will steer them in directions they didn’t know existed. Although truly conveying and experience is impossible you can get people to look in a certain direction.

Not only does personal development this way help you develop yourself but in doing so you help others who are willing to read what you’ve put to words. You get feedback through comments (your readers start writing/knowing) and you all gain new insights. A repeating cycle where eventually you -the writer- gains so much knowledge that you start to teach others. You mastered what you learned.

Again, Jonathan and Darren are perfect examples. They set out to achieve something and now that they are there they want to help others get there too. Darren teaches bloggers how to build a better blog and Jonathan teaches you how to reclaim your dreams and cut the cubicle umbilical cord.

Two prime examples of writers who know so much they now teach to master their field. The very tip of the personal development pyramid.

So it’s up to you now…. do you want to learn? Keep reading. Do you want to know? Start writing. Do you want to master? Read a lot, write about your passions and teach whatever it is you want to master.

It’s a long way up, but from everything I’ve read, it’s awesome up there! It’s the ultimate in personal development.

Cath Duncan from mineyourresources.com made a comment a while back on one of my blogposts (What all the “get rich” Blogs don’t tell you) I’d going to have a closer look at today:

I totally agree that action is what makes the difference in results – even imperfect action. In improv storytelling they have the mantra “it’s all about having as many goes as possible, rather than trying to have 1 perfect go,” and I think this is a great mantra for life, and one of the foundational ideas in Agile Living. – Cath

If you’ve been reading about personal development for a while this will sound very familiar. It’s true in all paths of life actually. Practice makes perfect but better yet failure is the way to perfection as paradoxical as it might seem at first glance.

Embrace failure as the path to success and don’t get paralyzed by your thoughts while waiting for things to unfold and happened like you want them to. They almost never happen like you thought they would.

Failure to meditate

Somehow this all makes me thing of my every day practice of meditation. More often than not it seems a total waste of time. I’m sitting there and thinking of all sorts of things while counting my breaths on auto pilot. The thought crosses my mind to just get up and stop this charade. Stop pretending to be meditating and doing it perfectly. But you know what. I’m actually meditating, although not perfectly. I just fake it untill I make it. There you have it. My meditation is fake, I’m a fraud, I’ve been meditation for little over a year now, spending roughly 130 hours in meditation so far. Can I call myself an expert on the subject? Hardly… Have I failed miserably to meditate the way I want to be meditating? Most certainly!

You could call me an expert at failure. I have over 130 solid hours of failure under my belt, and that’s only in meditation. Or you could call my entire life a failure, in which case I’ve had over 2 million hours worth of experience on the subject. By Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory I’m an expert at failure many times over.
And guess what, so are you!

The expert failure

Yes my dear reader, you’re an expert at failing. That’s the bonus of not being content with your own life and reading about personal development and lifestyle design. You wouldn’t be reading about these things if you were totally content with your life now would you?

What’s the value you might think by now, why is being an expert failure useful in my life. Well, the failures we had in our early days were simple: If we failed in staying upright we might bump our heads. Later if we failed to write legible we could fail a test. Failing to apply the brakes when driving created a nice dent in the car. A simple failure got bigger and bigger consequences over time as we got better at spotting what could go wrong. By the time you graduated you had enough experience in failure to spot things before they went wrong and correct them.

If you didn’t learn from mistakes you’d be wearing a crash helmet, not be allowed to drive, couldn’t complete an education and certainly couldn’t develop your person or design your lifestyle. Your life might not be perfect right now, but be happy about it. Perfection would mean you can’t learn anything anymore and what a bore that would be.

• Embrace failure, it’s your best friend in life. Seek imperfection in everything you do. Learn from it and be happy that you failed.

More blogposts, related to this subject:

Taking a chance, it is worth the risk

Settling for perfection

This blog has been running now for about six weeks and it’s time for me to tell you why I chose to blog, what I want from it and what’s in it for you. It’s a bit of a lengthy post, but I want to let you know who I am and what I’m aiming for.

About me

The “about” page on this blog does tell you some things about me but to keep it easy to read I haven’t told you everything there is to know.  It states that I’m an exercise therapist. (A bachelor’s in Health) What it doesn’t tell you is that I am now 26. If everything went according to plan I should have had that degree at 22. Four years that don’t really make my resume shine. 

So what happened? It took me a long while to decide what I wanted to do after highschool. I dabbled in chemistry and physiotherapy but neither of these quite did it for me. To make matters worse when I was about half way through my bachelor’s the realization came that this wasn’t for me as well. After investing 2 years already I thought I might as well get it finished otherwise I would have spent all that time (and money) without having anything to show for it. Little did I know that there were a few huge walls ahead that would slow me down even more. Walls in the area of social interaction and empathy. 

I’m not the most social guy around, it’s what you get when you grow up in a family like mine. I don’t want to blame it all on them, it’s just that to me it was normal not to interact with people so much and try to sympathize. A gap in my skills that became apparent when I started working with patients. Part of the problem was that I was constantly drifting off with my thoughts. How to manage that? That’s where my zen training started. The rest as they say, is history. It changed the way I thought and allowed me to develop empathy (finally). I got through the last part of my training with flying colors. 

Seeing as exercise therapy wasn’t my calling I started to look round for other things to do with my life. I’ve always been “good with computers”, I enjoy working with them so much that I wanted to pursue a career in the IT sector. Many people have written about being good at something doesn’t mean you should make your job of it and kill all the pleasure you have with it but I feel that for me it would be the best choice. 

I’ve decided to get a masters in information science. The link between the programmer and the consumer. You can see it as the architect, whereas the programmer is the contractor and the consumer is the client. A mix of computer technology and people, just my niche. 

Why I started this blog

Although zen is the main reason for me to get through university it’s not the only thing that made my life easier.Over the years I’ve picked up all sorts of skills, habits, lifehacks and whatnot that got me where I am today. 

When my teachers told me I had a writing style that was very accessible and a pleasure to read they advised me to do something with it. Although they have only read my assignments in Dutch I’m sufficiently bilingual to try and write in English. Although my grammar isn’t perfect at best I do my best to put my thoughts to words. This blog is constantly helping me with developing my language and writing skills.This blog is my channel to develop myself and to tell you what I have learned and how I did it. 

I have started to think more about what I want to do with my life and I can tell you it’s not a full-time job and retire when I’m 65. I want to see the world and have a degree of freedom. To pursue this further I will be using this blog to generate a side income if I can. Although I won’t do this shamelessly with all sorts of advertising. You deserve better than that. No ad sense…Personal development, development of my writing skills, geting to know people and a very modest side income are what’s in it for me. 

What’s in it for you

I believe that I’ve acquired certain skills in my life that can help others with developing their goals. I want to help you with reaching your goals in life, with the use of elements of zen and (un)common sense. I want to get you to feel excited about what you do and thoroughly enjoy your life, even if what you want to do is nonconformist. 

I want to get to know you so I will be interacting with you and try and find out what I can help you with.

What will happen on this blog

This blog will continue to get at least five posts a week. Currently I post every single day, I don’t know if that will stay possible when I go back to university but that’s not until September 2009. For the time being I will keep posting daily. (update 2009-05-14: I’ve reduced the number of postings a week to somewhere around 4. This because my posts were lacking in quality and I was making that up with quantity. In favor of quality I will no longer churn out posts just to say something but will blog only when I truely feel I have something to say.) 

Posts will become better as I develop my writing skills.

Aside from the blogposts I will start writing a few longer essays that will become available as eBooks. 

This blog will slowly grow over time and I aim to reach over 1000 readers a day in the course of a year.

Within a few months this blog will move to a different domain: www.mindthebeginner.com. Once there I will tinker a bit with the layout but the feeling will stay the same.

I hope this post gives you a better understanding of what mindthebeginner is. If you like what I’ve written so far and want to keep up to date on all my posts please subscribe to my RSS feed. If you ever have any questions, suggestions or just want to talk feel free to mail me.