What’s Your Size? February 10, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Goals, Society, Personal Growth, Purpose, Beliefs, Responsibility, Work, Abilities , add a commentIf you’re on the path of personal growth just as I am, then you have to stop every now and then and ask yourself what your current size is. While you could evaluate and rate your holistic level of growth as one neat figure on a scale from 1 to 10, you have to break it down into distinct areas of your whole self to see where you’re excelling and where you’re lagging behind. The reason you should do this is because your total size as a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical being is not the average of your distinct areas of growth - it is severely crippled and slowed down by the parts of you that are at their worst shape.
How you decide to categorize your own development depends on what you value about yourself, so you don’t have to use the same measures I’m defining my own growth with. But in order to inform you a bit what you could include in your list, I’ll show you which 12 points I’m focusing on, how I’m doing in my subjective opinion and what my goals are for 2007. These will give you some form of an idea of what kind of objectives and affirmations you can set out for yourself as well.
I think Steve Pavlina said it best when asked why he pursues personal growth:
“I was born really short, but after working on my growth for many years, I successfully reached a height of six feet.”
Mental, 7
This is the capacity to understand and apply patterns, cognition, language, numbers, causality and different forms of intelligence. It also includes your ability to take on new knowledge and learn new skills. This is the tool set of your mind where you need to increase your mastery at using the right tools for the right job. It should also constantly innovate and find new challenges to pursue once previous problems and worries have been overcome and labeled as personal victories. It may be considered as the most important asset you have since it has the power to influence how well you’re measuring and improving all the other personal growth areas of your life.
My goals for 2007 are to increase my entrepreneurial creativity, to innovate new systems for making money and to join Mensa.
Physical, 5
Your body is a complex system of systems and we may never know what the most optimal way to treat it is. But it’s still a fact that the way you treat it will have its impact on how long the body you reside in can function. You can’t survive life, but how far you can prolong it and how well your body treats you is defined by how much you value it in return. This question comprises of how you exercise, what you eat and if you maintain habits that damage it. This is my secondary focus for the year.
My goals for 2007 are to beat 3,000 meters on Cooper’s test, be a systematic and optimal polyphasic sleeper and to test being a vegetarian for at least a month.
Emotional, 9
Being a very emotional person or a very unemotional person doesn’t make much of a difference if you want to improve yourself - both come with their pros and cons. Being very unattached means that you are weak on both the positive as well as the negative emotions. In this case, the goal is to reach inner balance with yourself about how the universe treats you. On the other hand, if your emotions are very prevalent, attempt to ensure that the negative ones don’t cause yourself and others harm.
This has always been one of my strong areas, so my goal is simply to improve my level of equanimity even further.
Spiritual, 4
Spirituality is commonly thought of as the least important part of a person’s growth plan and I’ve been one of them. It wasn’t until very recently that I discovered this aspect about myself to begin with. I want to show faith in us people as mere mortals being only a part of a greater whole and am therefore inclined to try methods like meditation, lucid dreaming, astral projection and psychic development to seek proof in what lies beyond what our five senses can tap into. This is my primary focus for the year.
My goal is to acknowledge my intuition and find myself orientating more strongly toward subjective reality, the law of attraction, non-duality and other dimensions.
Relationships, 8
How you treat your friends, co-workers and strangers and how they in return treat you goes pretty much without explanation. It doesn’t matter that much how actively you pursue to spend time on this if what you spend time talking about doesn’t contribute to much good. Remember that you are what you like, not what likes you back, and that your relationships project back on to you how much you value the company of others.
My goal for 2007 is to better inspire others to talk about themselves and feel comfortable talking about deep issues that require attention.
Financial, 6
This subject can be highly emotional to some people and even something not to be spoken about according to others. Financial education to begin with, needs to be addressed far better so that everyone understands that they have the option of heading toward abundance. The results a person sees in this category is simply found in their own understanding, perspective, importance, measurement and value of money.
My goals for 2007 are to reach an income of $500/month from blogging, add a few more streams of income, get closer to financial independence and actively manifest the million dollar intention.
Beliefs & Values, 9
Although being a part of the mental you, this category takes control of the direction you’re heading in when considering what you put your mind to. What you believe and know is possible and what you value about yourself and others undeniably guide you on what you spend your time on, who you spend your time with and where you spend your time. This category gives you the framework of what is possible for a human being to accomplish in the first place and what you want to see more of.
I’m a firm believer in that humans are giants trapped in the exterior of a small organic system and we have yet plenty to witness on what we can accomplish to everyone’s benefit. I have faith in myself being able to accomplish most of the goals outlined in this article before the year ends.
Work, 5
Overcoming laziness, enjoying physical and mental labor and doing it without any stress or other ailments describes this area of growth. Men were born with the ability to work out great solutions in improving the standard of living and everyone ought to love being part of building the cities, constructions and companies that we see today and beyond this day. Walking around these complex structures that we have created often makes me wonder how for every single detail there is a person who takes care of it so that the whole systems don’t come to a halt. This is my tertiary focus for the year.
My goal for 2007 is to put more effort in fulfilling my part of a working society and finding enjoyment in physical labor.
Goals & Motivation, 8
At first you have to set goals and then motivate yourself to see them come to fruition. Without clearly defined objectives we dwell aimlessly and without control over our destiny. This is where you take the framework of your beliefs and values to see what’s possible and then think through and write down what you want to accomplish for the coming day, week, month, quarter, year, five years and lifetime. You also see to it that you keep track of your progress and prep yourself to keep up and shape your progress.
My goal for 2007 is to better keep track of what my goals are, motivate myself to stay true to them and report the accomplishments to myself.
Family, 7
I’m still a member of the family in the younger generation and don’t have a family of my own, so to speak. This category is also quite self explanatory and if you so wish, you can combine it together with your relationships. The key element to remember is that you can’t choose who your family comprises of so it’s a challenge to keep up good relations with all your relatives to build a great sense of mutual belonging.
My goal for 2007 is to improve my ability to nurture and strengthen all the contacts within my kindred.
Self-worth, 8
How much you value yourself, assert yourself and autosuggest is also a barrier for what you think you can and what you think you’re worthy of being, doing and having. It is also very important to note that this aspect about yourself determines what the words of others mean and how they impact your behaviour - if at all. My view is that it’s most important that you prove to yourself what you’re capable of, let others guide you constructively and remember that by improving yourself, you improve the reality around you.
My goal for 2007 is to enhance my prosperity mind-set and work on my own good fortune in order to free time to aid others through my own examples of what is possible to achieve.
Contribution, 7
This is the question of what kind of an impact you’re making to your environment, the legacy you leave behind and the law of karma. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you believe in reincarnation or not, you still have to decide what to do with the time that is left for you to make a difference. Not believing in any form of afterlife also doesn’t serve as an excuse not to improve society to the best of your ability. I think it’s quite the opposite as it makes it even more urgent to deal with.
My goal for 2007 is to work on my blog to improve my written communication and join toastmasters to enhance my verbal communication.
When looking at the average of these 12 areas, it equates to 6.92, which is what one could consider a comfortable result. However, it feels to me like I’m on 5, a very average result, which is something I wont tolerate any longer, and something that is more a 5 than a 7 because of the areas of my growth that are doing poorly. So I want to get back to the introduction where I said that you have to put the most of your effort on the areas of your growth that are doing the worst.
It reminds me of the analogy of a buffalo herd that is running from danger. Biological evolution makes it so that the buffalo that have the worst genes or are in worst shape are the ones lagging behind and therefore the ones that get shot or attacked.
Because of this, when the weakest ones get eliminated, the speed and mobility of the herd that is left improves. This is why the current performance of the whole flock isn’t dependent on the average speed of the buffalo, but more so dependent on the speed of the weakest individuals. It also means that biologically the best genes survive once the worst ones gradually drop out.
In this case however, constantly eliminating the ones that are doing the worst inevitably leads to total extinction. Do not do this with your personal growth. What you need to do is take the weakest links about yourself and nurture them to the same levels as the rest of you are performing. In this way you greatly enhance the holistic capacity of reaching outstanding momentum and results in your life. It’s all about balance and improving your overall level of personal development. But don’t let yourself down if you don’t reach all goals. Even if you successfully accomplish only 25 %, it’s guaranteed to be a better result than what you’d have achieved not having any goals at all. For further clarification and perspective over this matter, read also my post on the topography of self growth.
Create a similar list about yourself, write down your goals and track your progress for the year of 2007. Make it your best one yet.
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Why You’re Obliged to Make Money from Your Blog February 7, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Purpose, Studies, Assets, Blogging , 71 commentsI bet this statement doesn’t resonate very well with some bloggers, but this is how I view it. If you’re not making any money from your blog, then you’re not being true to your own value. Before you bash me for being an evil capitalist, hear me out and you’ll come to understand why I want to see ads on your blog.
I’ve been holding a weekly carnival to help people get some exposure to their blogs and in the process I’ve had the privilege of reading plenty of excellent articles and finding promising blogs that I’ve enjoyed browsing through. However, some of them will undeniably be gone or idle by this time next year and the main reason is that they do it part time and generate very little income from their blog - if any.
These are the people that update their blogs at snail pace and publish a new post 2-4 times per week. If they had the common sense to do their best in realizing their blog’s true potential and make some money that they rightfully deserve, they would surely last longer and probably write 1-3 posts per day instead.
And that’s what I want to see above all else. If more bloggers realized how valuable ideas they’ve got, they would have a much greater chance to reach the positive spiral of working as a full time blogger - for everyone’s benefit. But since many decide not to untap their revenue stream, I again lose another good read because they give up. Or then the blogs don’t get updated enough because they’ve got a “real job” to deal with.
So to provide you with some details, I took a look at 50 blogs that are familiar to me and categorized their income potential into four groups.
To the right is the percentage breakdown of how well the bloggers are using ads on their websites. Only two showed that they had thoroughly thought about how and where to place their money magnets. They also understand to use more than one ad format (mostly banners and text ads) to add a more diverse mix to their blog. And most of all, the ads fit perfectly and are sure to reach nearly maximum potential.
The blogs that I considered doing a fairly good job were the rest that used more than one ad format, but had either placed them in cold spots, picked slightly off-topic ads or made them stand out too much. They are on the right track, but could use some additional tweaking or blending.
Bad results are definitely seeing those who decided to rely on only one ad format and who also placed very few ads, in poor locations or that fit very badly in the overall layout of the blog. For those 36 out of 50 blogs that use ads, 22 use only one ad format and 14 use more than one (of which the majority relies on two formats).
However, the blogs that I’m most sceptical about were the 14 that didn’t (yet) run any ads or other forms of income generating means. And some of them are downright excellent reads. There are of course a few valid points that counterattack this small study/observation.
Firstly, these are mostly upcoming blogs that only have a few months of experience under their belts, so a couple of the bloggers may still be in the phase of contemplating how to make their monetizing move. Secondly, as they still don’t have a great reader base, the really good advertising programs aren’t available because of the low traffic. But there are plenty of options to choose from even if nobody has heard of your blog yet. There will be a future entry specifically outlining how to choose, use and place ads later on in this blog. So stay updated.
If you’re concerned about losing readers by putting up ads then think again. There are plenty of visitors like me who hold an advertising blog that supports its blogger in much higher regard than a blog that gets updated twice a week because it doesn’t pay a single bill. Another good reason to put some ads on your blog is that you’ll get another indicator for yourself of how valuable you and your entries are to the world. I’m hard pressed to write a review of a blog if it doesn’t indicate that it takes this work seriously, because nobody likes dead links or obsolete posts on their blogs.
All work, even if it doesn’t feel like work, should be paid for. So would you please start making (more) money from your blog so that you free up time to write more entries?
(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
