No I’m not talking about the band “Spinner,” and if you’re at all interested in internet marketing then you’ve heard of the hottest article spinner out there at the moment, The Best Spinner.

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Click here to find out more about The Best Spinner.

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1. 3 Less Common Ways of Using the Internet to Save Money When Shopping

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

Have you ever read a wonderful piece of advice and then completely failed to implement it?

I’ve recently been looking a lot of advice in the face and asking, “Why bother?”

All those gurus sitting in their white castles don’t know the details of your life. You might be a single mom with two young children, or a young graduate desperately trying to get noticed at work and with the ladies. You’re going through so much in life already that you don’t see why you should waste time trying to implement someone else’s advice, no matter how sound it seems.

In addition, most advice is uncomfortable to implement. It takes time, energy and resources, and you already have enough demands on them: from work, family and friends. You weigh the pros and cons subconsciously, and come to the decision it’s not worth it. The advice you nodded along with gets forgotten. “It sounds great,” you say, “but I couldn’t do it.”

We don’t bother to analyse why we’re not trying to implement those tips the gurus say are worthwhile, and we put it down to laziness. But it’s really not laziness, it’s just a lack of motivation. We don’t do anything till we decide that we really, really want that thousand-mile journey. And self development is a really long journey, so why bother? No matter how much other people say that it’s important to be better, richer, healthier, smart, more productive… you shouldn’t bother unless you think that goal is important.

Take waking up early, for instance. A few years back this was the rage among productivity bloggers, and then someone came along and said it doesn’t work for him. Do you wake up early? If you answered no, it’s probably because you’re not sufficiently motivated: there are lots of things that can be done at night or on the commute, and sleeping in is so much fun! However, it’s easy to wake in time for something that can only be done early in the morning: that’s why most people who love sleeping in still manage to catch their early morning flights, and most employees make it to work by 9.

Some things just don’t seem worth it. I’ve read lots of house cleaning tips, but my place stays a mess: I can live with mess as long as it doesn’t attract bugs or get underfoot – my day is too crammed to make room for obsessive mopping.

You can never go down the road towards self-improvement till you identify what you love, and what your own goals are. It doesn’t have to resonate with anyone else: if you’re a recent grad you can admit to yourself that you want to get a job in an investment bank, make lots of money, work heaps, and retire early; you don’t have to join a non-profit, you can make the world better just by being yourself. It’s your life, you don’t have to justify your dreams to anyone else. Someone else might be on a weight-loss journey, but if you’re fine with being slightly overweight for the moment, don’t feel guilty: understand why it’s like that (other priorities maybe) and whether you plan to tackle your weight later. Don’t feel the need to be like someone else; another person’s goals will never matter to you.

The first real step in a journey is introspection: deciding what journey you want. I’ve done some soul-searching myself, before deciding to take baby steps down the self-improvement path. These are the areas that I’ve decided I want to improve upon, and that I’ll be discussing in my blog. Check if any of these goals fit in with your own goals:

1. Career Optimization
   Unless you’re acting immorally, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn money – it lets you raise children, support your family, donate to the needy and enjoy life a little. However, my primary motivator is working at something I’m passionate about, so I’m happy making a small income that allows me to survive without handouts.
   I write about following your passion, and it’s a wonderful life when you can merge your career and passion. For some people (including me) this may take a while to achieve, and it’s ok to build up a nest egg by working hard at a job you don’t dream about. Your job will take up most of your life, and it’s important to try to enjoy it, do well at it, and leverage it as much as possible without dying inside.
2. Frugality
   I equate wealth with freedom. Money doesn’t mean a flashy car for me, it means time to devote to work I love rather than work that just pays. Wealth can bring security, comfort, experiences… and income generation is only one part of the equation.
   I was forced to be extremely frugal after a lifestyle change led to two people living on a tiny income, and it’s taught me a lot – mostly that frugality isn’t painful. When you have a vision of what you want from life (travelling, being with your kids, starting a business) wasteful consumerism fades into the background. That’s not to say that you should live a miserable stingy life. It’s just that I believe that frugality can help you achieve your longer-term goals by eliminating the stuff you don’t really want.
3. Healthiness
   This is one of the more difficult goals since it involves abstaining from foods you love and undertaking strenuous activity when you’d rather do something else. This is something I’ve thought long and hard about, and I’ve talked about how I do it. It’s totally worth it for me – I feel more energetic, and tend to fall ill less often. However, without sufficient determination, it’s difficult to try to be healthier.
4. Happiness
   Gretchen Rubin says her year of trying to be happier did, in fact, make her happier. The surprising thing is that being happier is not necessarily easy: it involves an amount of restraint, selfless giving, work and social interactions. At the end of the day though, I’d rather be happy and exhausted.
5. Productivity
   What is the point of doing meaningless work quicker?
   I was totally disinterested in productivity hacks until I discovered what I really wanted to do with my life. Sure, you can apply some tips to improve your social life, but most tips are work related – and before trying to go through tips for working better, make sure you want to be doing that work. Of course, if there’s something you look forward to doing outside of work you can try to work more efficiently to have more time to devote to that activity. Productivity is closely tied with career optimization.

Everyone’s journey is different. Before you read about how to have a more efficient journey, it’s important to think about which journey you want. Hopefully this post will inspire you to do that.

Related posts:

1. How to Integrate Your Dreams and Your Life
2. Don’t Be Scared of Obstacles!
3. Why is it so Hard to Lose Weight? My Giant List of Weight-Loss Tips

“Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them… they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.” – Orison Swett Marden

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1. Self Improvement – Why Bother?
2. Carpe Diem!

Our natural tendencies (or mine, at least!) steer us towards weight gain rather than loss. It’s much more fun to gorge on fast food and chocolates and avoid the gym. I’d rather have a cocktail than sparkling water.

However, I’ve made a commitment to being healthy, and though it’s not easy, hopefully it’ll be worthwhile in the long run. Here’s a long list of tricks that I use to try to stay on course:

1. Motivation
   I gravitate naturally towards chocolates, puddings and all things sugary. It’s hard for me to give those up, just as it’s hard for me to sweat out an hour-long workout. So I’ve had to think about this long and hard. Is it really worthwhile for me to go on a health kick? Should my days have more exercise and less dessert items?
   I’m not that overweight, but I’d really like to be healthier. I’d like to live longer, and not come down with illnesses (like diabetes) that I can put off through a healthy lifestyle. I like the increased energy that a healthy lifestyle gives me, especially since I’m working a lot on things I’m passionate about (including this blog).
   Looking at my reasons to want to be healthy, I can decide that it’s worth a few sacrifices. The first step towards sustainable weight loss is the determination that you’ll make it happen.
2. Lifestyle
   After I took a decision to act more healthy, I changed my lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle sounds difficult – it means incorporating healthy decisions in every aspect of your day, every day. Starting from the morning, when I have oats or avocado on toast instead of cocoa pops, to avoiding fast food, to an afternoon workout. It’s a shift in the way you do everything. However, the funny thing is, when you turn your lifestyle around completely it’s much easier to be healthy, compared to if you occasionally deprive yourself of treats and force yourself to go to the gym.
   A lifestyle change means adding things to your life, not just taking things away. For instance, I haven’t just removed sugary cereals from my breakfast, I’ve added healthy things that I like (avocado – yum!) A lifestyle change also means bringing your friends and family on board.
3. Clean Home
   I don’t mean a physically clean home, I mean a home devoid of foods that I’m trying to avoid. The easiest way to cut down on ice-cream has been to not stock it in my freezer. I’m incredibly bad at self-control, so I make sure that I don’t need to exercise it frequently. If I do buy treats, I try to buy them in smaller quantities, or keep them out of sight. Occasionally, I’ll ask my husband to hide them somewhere out of my reach.
4. Home cooking
   The easiest way to cut down calories is to cook at home. Most of the food served outside contain much higher levels of things like oil and sugar than home-cooking – because it’s their business to serve food that tastes good, not food that’s good for you. Cooking at home does take a bit of time, but I’ve grown to enjoy it, it’s incredibly frugal, and I’ve learnt a lot of shortcuts that make life easier. If you really don’t want to cook at home, at least try to buy food that’s marketed on its “healthiness” factor.
5. Eliminate the unimportant
   What’s unimportant to you? For me it’s food that’s not of the highest quality. You know what I’m talking about: stale fries, chocolate that’s oily, custard, sweets that are too sweet, food that’s too starchy and too oily. These were the first things I got rid of. I’m also not that keen on alcohol, so I’ve more or less given up drinking.
   It’s a value equation for me: unhealthy food that I’m not crazy about isn’t worth the calories.
6. Indulgences
   After I eliminate the unimportant, I focus on the important. Being healthy is a marathon not a sprint, so I think about what I could never do away with in my life. I indulge myself regularly and have lots of food that I love. I eat what I really want to without any guilt. The first step towards incorporating these indulgences is…
7. Acknowledge my weaknesses
   I love, love, love, love sweet food. My ideal day would be full of sweet foods. Chocolate, cakes, milkshakes, fudge, mousse: the list goes on. Of course, if I gave in to all my favorites, I’d be down with diabetes by now (it runs in my family anyway). What I do instead is ackowledge the fact that I love sweet food, not necessarily the cake or milkshake itself. And I try to make substitutions frequently: I have low-fat yoghurt, dried fruits and frozen berries.
   I also love pizza. Once a week, I make pizza at home: it’s not quite as unhealthy, and it gives me my “oo I’ve had pizza” joy.
   I adore chocolate, so I keep some dark chocolate at home: it’s healthier than chocolate bars, and a little bit gives me a lot of chocolateyness.
8. Home treats
   Did I mention that I love sweets? To be slightly healthier, I try to make most of my treats at home, using low GI sugar. I often crave cake, so I make orange-poppyseed muffins at home. I use a lot of oranges and a lot less sugar and butter than the recipe calls for: it tastes awesome, but isn’t so bad for me.
   At the end of the day, however, I treat my treats like treats. That means, I don’t eat dark chocolate all day, or have muffins for lunch. But when I feel like having dessert, I go right ahead.
9. No liquid calories
   Liquid calories fall under “unimportant stuff” for me. However, it’s something I’ve had to consciously think about. One glass of soda contains ten teaspoons of sugar: I’d rather have five of my orange poppyseed muffins. One cocktail contains 200 calories on average: I don’t drink unless I’m going dancing and I know I’ll burn it off that night. I eat a lot of sugary food, so I have sugarless tea and coffee.
   If I really want a cola, I have something diet. If I want a cocktail, I have juice (lemon or orange usually) mixed with a lot of soda/tonic water. Substitutions rule. Of course, mostly I just drink lots of water.
10. Snacks
    I am a chronic snacker. I get hungry all the time; I also eat for fun. I’ve accepted this as one of my weaknesses, and I do my best to work around it.
    I keep healthy snacks (fruit, nuts) ready for between-meals hunger, and I try to limit the amount of snacks I eat. I also take into account when my next meal will be: if lunch is a long way off and I’m starving, I have some oats or a bit of bread. If dinner is just around the corner, I’ll have fruits.
    I also check whether I just want to eat for fun and I’m not really hungry. If that’s the case, I’ll have a soda with juice or some green tea; I used to have chewing gum.
11. Be prepared
    You’re at work, you’re hungry and you have no food. The nearest food source is the vending machine. Before you know it, there’s a bag of chips in you. And you’re not even that fond of chips.
    I protect myself from vending machine attacks by carrying a tiny box of nuts or dried fruit with me. You might like to carry a protein bar. Whatever it is, make sure it stays in your bag.
    I also like to keep frozen meals in my freezer to stop my Happy Meal runs: I cook up a big batch of food and freeze some of it for days when I don’t have time to make anything.
12. Make time
    Losing weight and being healthy takes time. That’s time you have to carve out somehow: time for exercising, cooking, baking. I’ve already determined that being healthy is a priority for me, so now I somehow have to fit it into my day!
    This is how I do it: On Friday afternoon, I do my baking. I love baking and find it relaxing, so I do it as a TGIF celebration. I bake heaps, and freeze the excess. I cook over the weekend, and freeze some for weekdays. I also cook once or twice in the middle of the week. I’m lucky that I’ve got my partner to help me out, but I used to do something similar when I was single.
    I also decide that I’ll dedicate an hour or so a day to exercising – daily.
13. Portion-limit
    In his book, Mindless Eating, author Brian Wansink talks about how we over-eat and make unhealthy choices without even realizing it. One of the major things I learnt from this book was: bigger plates and glasses lead to bigger servings. In my experience, I’ve also found that bigger spoons lead to more eating as well.
    I trick myself into eating less by not using huge plates and using smaller spoons to eat foods like icecream and yoghurt.
    I try my best to be conscious of what and how much I’m eating: it’s not always possible, but I try to check that I’m not just randomly eating heaps of food without realizing it. For instance, I try to consciously notice how many spoons of something I’m serving myself: since I like yoghurt, I limit myself to three tablespoons each time.
14. Eat less
    Along with limiting my portion-size, I try to consciously eat less at meals. I’ve already mentioned that I’m a snacker, and I get lots of calories in between meals. At major meals, I try to not to overdose on carbs: I don’t go hungry, but I try not to eat more than I have to. It’s been quite easy for me to have one sandwich rather than two, and half a plate of rice or pasta rather than a whole bowl.
    I also do this when I’m having a “treat”, usually something sweet. The most pleasure comes from the first two bites or so, so when I bake muffins, I make them small. I cut up my big chocolate bars into smaller pieces so that I don’t have a big chunk by default. Eating less has been an incredibly painless way for me to eat healthier.
15. Make exercise fun
    Ugh, I never thought I’d put the words “exercise” and “fun” next to each other. There’s so much I don’t like about exercise: it’s either boring (walking, slow weight reps) or really difficult (pushing yourself to run that extra mile). However, there are ways to make exercise less painful. The first thing is to do something you love: for me, that would be dancing. You might love swimming, or kickboxing. Try to find an activity you actually enjoy.
    Make what you’re already doing fun: music is the easiest way to brighten up a boring workout, especially if you’re outside running or walking. You might also try doing a “workout meditation” and clear your mind during your workout – this often works for me! At this point though, my major cheat is tv shows: I ask my partner to have episodes ready (you can do this via Netflix or DVDs) for me to watch when I’m sweating it out on the elliptical. Now I don’t dread my forty minutes of exhaustion so much: it’s my excuse to watch another couple of episodes of Family Guy.
16. Make time for exercise
    Exercise involves a time commitment. I only work out after I’ve determined that I really can’t get by without it, and I’ll have to squeeze it into my day somehow.
    I actually went through a lot of thinking to decide on the type of exercise I’d do. I had to eliminate the option of going to the gym, since I don’t want to waste time (and money) travelling. I decided that it would be easier for me to work out from home. So now all I had to do was fit it in. I don’t want to exercise just after a meal, so I try to pick a time that’s a while after I’ve eaten: possible options for me are before breakfast, mid-morning, afternoon, or way after dinner.
17. Don’t insult your intelligence
    These are all little things I do to make life easier when I’m trying to be healthier. However, you’ll note that I’m not about to mention “get off 15 minutes away from your destination and walk the rest of the way”. That just wouldn’t work for me: I know why I’m doing that, and I couldn’t be bothered, I’d rather do a big chunk of exercise than waste travel time. It might work for you, but don’t fool yourself into doing something – it won’t work on a consistent basis.  Try to think about the reason behind what you’re doing: don’t eat Subway regularly because it’s healthy fast food. Think about why you want fast food in the first place: it may be a cheese craving, in which case you’re better off having crackers and cheese with sundried tomatoes.
18. Do what works
    Since I started trying to be healthier, I’ve found out that lots of things don’t work for me. For instance, exercising first thing in the morning has many benefits, but I just can’t do it: early morning time has a high premium for me, and I use it to write. On the other hand, I’ve found that if I jump onto the elliptical soon after coming home from work, I can get my daily workout over with easily.
    When I lived in the outer suburbs I used to go running, but now that I live in the inner suburbs I can’t find a nice place for running. In addition, I keep wondering if it’ll start to rain just as I’m at my run mid-point. So running just doesn’t work for me.
    By a process of trial and elimination, I’ve arrived at what works for me. You should probably do the same: look for a better alternative when something isn’t going well.
19. Buddy up
    Peer pressure is an awesome motivator. One reason gym classes work so well is that you don’t want to look like a weakling who stops in the middle of a workout.
    An easy way to buddy up is to work out with your partner, or a friend: outside of group exercises, running and cycling are two activities that are easy to do with a friend.
20. Get gear
    I’ve found that having appropriate gear makes me more likely to exercise: it doesn’t have to be very expensive either.
    I like spending on activities – dance class being next on my list. Most recently I’ve purchased an elliptical machine to work out at home; I don’t feel guilty because it’s been cheaper than a gym membership, and it gets used almost every day.
    I like having workout clothes: when I put them on, I know I’m going to exercise. If I’m exercising in public (running or at the gym) I don’t have to waste energy wondering if my clothes are ok.
    The important thing is to not stop after buying the equipment or gym membership: put it to use.
21. Fast/Detox
    Note: this could be risky.
    Losing weight is demotivating because it takes forever to see any results. This time round I decided to cheat a bit. I’d read a lot about fasts and detox diets (acai berry, cabbage soup diet, lemon detox etc) and after doing my research I decided to go on a shake diet. Now, this isn’t a lifestyle change or something sustainable, but it gave me quite a nudge. I made fruit shakes at home using frozen berries, oranges, milk, soy milk, oats, lemon and salt (not all at once!). I liked the shakes because they were sweet, and they filled me up. I made sure to have a multivitamin daily as well. I kept it up for about three days, and I didn’t feel any side effects. The only reason I stopped was because I wanted to chew my food again! In three days, I lost quite a bit of weight, which I haven’t put back on. Since my home-made fruit-shake diet went so well, I’d like to try one of the commercially available detox diets at some point in the future.
22. Exercise daily
    I can’t always make it, but I try to exercise every single day. If I allocate days of the week, e.g. I’ll work out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I try to bargain with myself, or put it off till tomorrow. I allocate a time of day and a type of exercise and I do it every single day. Sure, some days I’ll also do yoga. Some days I’ll throw in a bit of strength training, and somewhere down the line I’ll go to dance class. Those are novelties for me, but exercising is part of my daily routine.
23. No 2 days off
    Having said that I try to exercise daily, I’ll admit that sometimes I can’t fit it in. About once a week a major distraction comes up. But when I miss one day of exercise, I’m extra careful to ensure that I exercise the next day. I’ve found that when I skip two days in a row, it’s even more difficult to get back into the routine, and more tempting to take it easy. In addition, my stamina goes down, and I just can’t work out as long.
24. Allow for imperfections
    Shit happens. Sometimes it rains when you want to go running, or your workout buddy fails to show up. You need to be flexible enough to take these things in stride and still exercise. For instance, the other day I didn’t have two episodes of Family Guy ready for watching. I had to take a deep breath, and decide to do a workout meditation instead.
25. Forgive your failings
    One day my partner came home with a block of Lindt chocolate with crunchy carameley bits in it. I didn’t even like it that much. I finished it in two sittings.
    Sometimes we do stupid things, things so far off the realm of what we want to do to be healthy and lose weight. However, a single failing isn’t a great tragedy in the scheme of things. It’s only a tragedy if you tell yourself that this time you’ve failed, and there’s no point in trying so hard to be healthy. You defeat yourself not by failing, but by continuing to fail. So if you do give in to the voice that tells you to skip the gym and eat a huge pizza, look back, forgive yourself, and move on.

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1. Self Improvement – Why Bother?
2. Weight Loss – Why Bother?

They brought him back a ring with the inscription: “This too, shall pass.”

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For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way.  Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.  Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.  ~Fr. Alfred D’Souza

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1. Don’t Be Scared of Obstacles!

But it’s a fact: we can’t have it all. We have limited resources, and it’s good to accept that. At any given time, there’s only so much money (or net worth) we have, but there’s an unlimited number of things we could spend that money on.

Once you can accept the “limited net worth, unlimited stuff to buy” dilemna, you can take steps to deal with it, i.e. by making good choices.
This is where the concept of “opportunity costs” comes in. An opportunity cost is the next best alternative you give up: so if you turn right at the bend, the opportunity cost is the opportunity of walking left.

If I decide to buy lunch at work, I may pop into McDonalds to pick up a cheap, convenient meal for $6. My other choices may have been a more expensive meal, chips and lollies from the vending machine, or a nutritious but time-consuming $3 home-cooked meal. Let’s assume of the remaining choices, I prefer the home-cooked meal: that’s what I’ve given up in favor of the McMeal.

What have I given up? Well, in my list of priorities, the first thing I sacrified was nutrition value. I’m desperately trying to eat healthy on a budget, and McDonald’s is the easiest way to blow both – more expensive, and more unhealthy. The second thing I sacrificed was $3. That’s not much money, but if I think of it in terms of something more tangible – maybe a coffee with a friend, a nice time spent chatting in a cosy cafe – I realize that I did give up something else of value. Finally, I gave up the inconvenience of making a home-cooked meal, which is really the only reason I’d only ever eat at McDonalds (I make a meaner burger at home ). So it really might be worthwhile to give up a cheaper, healthier home-cooked meal in favour of McDonalds if I’m going through a particularly busy time and can’t make time to cook.

That was an easy choice. A more difficult one may be, you want to buy your partner an expensive, romantic dinner. It would be a sumptuous meal and an experience that you’d both remember, and would cost $70 for two people. The next best option for spending that money would be to save towards a holiday. You could, of course, save the money for retirement, but I’m assuming you also want to live a little, strengthen your relationship and create some memories. It’s a tough choice, because both the dinner and the holiday are things you want. How you decide to ultimately spend that money is really up to your priorities. However, the important thing is identifying what you’re giving up. If you pick the dinner, you’ll have to wait a little longer before going on holiday. If you pick the holiday, that’s a special evening you’ve sacrificed.

I think that’s what the importance of opportunity costs really boils down to: acknowledging that they’re there. That you’ve given up something to get something. That your new car represents a new furniture set you didn’t buy. Accepting that opportunity costs exist means admitting that you can’t have it all, and that you’re being realistic about the fact that you need to make choices.

Costs, Part 2 – Sunk Costs is coming soon!

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1. Self Improvement – Why Bother?

These are the steps that I took to follow my dream, although I didn’t so much “take” the first few steps as get a sudden push!

1. Realization
   One fine day I realized it’s possible to follow my dreams.
   This was a shock to me, since I’d become jaded over time, and had started to think that I would be going down a “traditional” life – trying the corporate world, possibly not being that successful since I wasn’t about to work 15hour days in Corporateland, and having a “typical” life.
   Then one day I understood that I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. I live a very frugal life, so I don’t have to earn very much. Even a part-time role would pay enough to cover my bills, and I could spend the rest of my time chasing whatever dream I had. Whatever dream I had.
2. Acceptance
   The next stage for me was accepting that I wasn’t really on track to the most fantastic life ever. Seeing a future in Corporateland didn’t excite me. Suddenly it was clear to me that my life wasn’t the awe-inspiring journey that it could be, and I should possibly think about changing its course.
3. Understanding
   Once I realized that I wanted to do something different, I had to understand what I wanted to do. Why did I want out of the suburban dream? What did my dream life look like? It wasn’t just the things I would ideally have, or how much money I would make, but what kind of things did I love to do?
4. Dreaming big
   When I was younger I had wanted to be a novelist. I also wanted to be an entrepreneur.I started dreaming wild dreams about what my ideal daily work would be like. From this, I started to narrow things down. What business did I want to be in? Did I still want to be a novelist or did I just want to write? What kind of things did I want to write? Did I have any other dreams? For instance, I’m very interested in business and marketing – did I maybe want to be a consultant, or write about business? I like design, so did I want some kind of design career, may as an interior designer? Or did I want to write about interior design? As you can see, there were so many possible combinations! At this stage I felt overwhelmed! I hadn’t done this kind of exercise since I was a child, and I suddenly realized that there was a whole world out there that I could possibly explore!
   Around about this point I decided to take a step back and be a bit more realisitic. Following your dreams is a bit like trying to have a relationship – you may like some potential career, but it may not like you. It may like people with a skill set completely different to yours.
   So I started trying to find “the one”. Again, like dating, there is no Mr Perfect – because there’s no-one out there who’s perfect. But there is a Mr Right, because there are people out there who are right for you. For possible careers that really appealed to me, I drew up lists of pros and cons.
   Just because a career is a dream for you, doesn’t mean that it’s without it’s drawbacks. Once more, I can’t leave the analogy of a partner – just because you love someone it doesn’t mean they don’t have their flaws. At this stage, I was taking a long hard look at the cons, and trying to decide which ones I could live with. Essentially, I was doing a cost-benefit analysis of different career options, and trying to weigh how much I would get out of a career and how much I would have to put in, and what different things meant to me. For instance, I chose blogging about personal development, money and happiness because although the hours are quite a lot and the pay is much lower than what I could make in other careers, the potential satisfaction of a job well done is much higher.
5. Be determined
   I’m putting this in as an extra step, because I needed to take a deep breath and decide that I would take the plunge. In fact, I’ve needed to take a couple of such deep breaths every few days, whenever I come across a little voice that says I’m doing something crazy and I’ll fail miserably and become an icon of stupidity. You need to have the determination to face down that little potent voice.
6. Put in the effort
   This where most people fail.
   It’s simply not practical to chase a dream when your life is already full with a career, a relationship, friends, family and maybe some other hobbies. Changing or starting a new career takes a whole lot of effort. How can you carve out time for that effort? Would you be able to maybe reduce your work hours and withstand a temporary cut in pay, would your partner/family support your dream? This stage actually takes a lot of preparation, trying to figure out how to put in that effort, and making a realistic assessment of how much you need to put in. It’s all right to say that you just don’t have the time for this: if you realize it upfront, you’ll have saved yourself a lot of wasted effort, and can maybe look into some other way to integrate your dream into your life.If you’ve got your plans set up already (e.g. become an interior designer by enrolling in a part-time course and helping out a designer for free on the weekends), are you really going to be able to put in the required effort?
   If the answer to all those questions is yes, the only thing to do now is go ahead and stick it out.
7. Monetize
   This is the very last step, and it only comes about if you’ve taken all the other steps. It may be a long and winding road to get there, but it ultimately happens. Of course, even after monetizing, you may not be able to make too much money. For instance, with this blog, I don’t have grandiose money-generating schemes, but if I make enough to cover my bills, the satisfaction of creating a good blog will be enough.

Quite a few things become apparant to me when I look back over this exercise.

Firstly, this exercise in following your dreams is only worth doing if you’re not satisfied with how your life’s going at the moment. If you’re already living the dream, congratulations!

If you think your life could do with a bit of a shakeup, it’s worth noting that most people have quite a few things that they love doing. For instance, you may love yoga, knitting and reading. So right there, you have a couple of potential career avenues. Some people say that they don’t know what their passion is, but I think very few people have one single passion. Some people have become so busy and immersed with their current life that they can’t remember anything that they really love doing.
There are a number of steps that you can take to uncover things that you love (hopefully I’ll have a blog post coming out on this shortly). But usually, it’s a number of different things. In fact, your dream may seem completely boring to someone else – for instance, I love marketing and business strategy and was seriously considering becoming a small-business consultant.

Another question that pops up is, what does it mean to follow your dream? It may be more suitable for some people to have a corporate job and a hobby. Just because you love doing something doesn’t mean that you should try to make it your career. I love yoga, but I could never make it my career – I would rather practice it than teach it, and I don’t see myself putting in eight hours a day of effort into it.

If you choose to try to make money from something you love, there are a number of ways you could go about it. You could teach it, you could practice it, you could sell products about it. Another example to clarify this: I love interior design. So I could try to set a blog with home design tips, or I could set up a magazine about interior design, showcasing recent works. I could try to be a designer myself. Or I could set up a shop selling home design items.
Maybe you love golf. You could try to be a pro golfer, you could try being a golf coach at a country club, you write an educational newsletter or book about golf, you could sell golf supplies, or you could cover golf tournaments and blog about golf gossip.

As I mentioned in my previous post, you may find out that you can’t really create a career around one particular thing you love. It may just not be practical enough: the cons would outweigh any benefits. For instance, you may like airplanes, but it may not be practical for you to want to be a pilot because firstly, flying lessons are expensive, and secondly, being a pilot means a lot of travel and you don’t want to spend lots of time away from your young family.

A lot of people don’t initially make their dream their full-time career. It’s most likely to take a while to make money from a career move: there may be some time required for education, looking for work, or setting up a business. This is where the concept of a “day job” comes in. Basically, a day job is a stress-free job that pays the bills, that you can fit your other “dream” career around. Often, this is a bit of a dead end job. This is the route I’ve taken. Having worked in call centres for a bit, I’ve seen quite a few hopeful actors, models and musicians choose this path as well. After all, it’s nice to not have to worry about bills, but a “proper” job is often too draining to do anything else afterwards. Another option to make your dream a reality is to work hard at a stressful job, save up, and “retire” early to pursue your ideal career.

Whichever option you choose, and however you choose to go about it, I believe that it is possible to work at something you love. At least, I hope I don’t fall flat on my face and prove myself wrong.

Related posts:

1. Self Improvement – Why Bother?
2. How to Follow Your Passion

After reading on this a bit, I started wondering about how I could put this rule to good use in my own life. It turns out there are quite a few uses.
Since reading about this rule, I’ve started paying more attention to how my experiences are arranged as a whole, not just what I did. I’ve found that if I end something on a strong note, I feel more satisfied about how it went.

When I read about the peak end rule, I instantly thought about how a nice meal is usually arranged. We have a small appetizer, a nice main course, and round it off with a lovely dessert and maybe even coffee. The whole thing has a lovely glow of completeness about it, and a nice, smooth finish that leaves everyone happy. From my perspective as a sweet lover, this arrangement often borders on “leaving the best for last”, which is true for other good experiences.
Viewing the meal in terms of a “peak end” experience has also made me realize that a dessert is good not just because it’s sweet and tasty, but also because it rounds off the meal nicely, and creates a perfect, happy ending. Understanding this has made me more open to having a healthy dessert at the end of the meal, or maybe green tea or coffee. It’s the whole experience and the lovely ending that’s most important, not (for daily meals) the quality of the dessert.
At the other end of the spectrum, this rule helps me understand why I don’t like jumping up at the end of a meal to do the dishes, and would rather savor the meal.

Similarly, when I end my day at work I feel happier if I’ve had a good experience when leaving. I can’t really control how my work-day goes, but I can control how I leave. Since I’m in training, we tidy up the room, the trainer makes a lame joke, and we all leave in a good mood. I try to walk to the train station with one of the people I really like, or I call my partner just to say hi and let him know I’m out. On the ride home I try to meditate a bit, and read a few pages of a Pratchett novel. I can’t control the ups and downs of my 9-5, but ending it smoothly allows me to get home in a good, energetic mood, all ready to write up another blog post.

I’ve also been trying to apply this rule to my workouts. I don’t really like working out that much, and the experience mostly consists of me being out of breath. I now try to incorporate some serious yoga stretches at the end, which are challenging and leave me feeling relaxed and happy that I went through all that exercise.

Most of us have “peak end” routines that we apply daily without being conscious of it. We do a nightly tidy-up maybe, parents tuck their children into bed, a perfect first date ends (maybe) with a good night kiss.

In my opinion, the peak end experience has a lot to do with transitioning. I like the idea of having a definite transition from one area of the day to another, a nice close to the current task. Whether it’s a meal, or a project, it’s nice to know that something has definitely ended, and even nicer to end it on a pleasant note.

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