Why Real Learning Requires An OPEN Mind

Nearly every day, each of us have opportunities for additional training regarding some issue that we might want, or need to address. Have you ever wondered why so many individuals take so many courses and training programs, and often seem immediately enthusiastic, yet why so few of them actually use the techniques taught on a regular basis? In the vast majority of cases, we hinder our own opportunities for true learning because we refuse to adapt or consider alternatives, or we refuse to actually discipline ourselves to follow the steps and/ or methodologies that we have been taught. It is often our refusal to proceed with an OPEN mind that becomes our greatest deterrent to our own personal growth and/ or improvement. The significance of remaining OPEN to true learning requires some commitment to what that requires. Some of these components are evident obviously from a mnemonic perspective: Do we wish to discover opportunities and to be able to be prepared for them?; Will we find additional energy which is driven by our enthusiastic approach to learning and discover?; and, Do new and different ways of doing things help us enhance our opportunities and understanding?

1. Improvement in anything we do is driven by having the willingness and ability to be driven by opportunities. This requires first realizing that we need to expose ourselves to numerous alternatives, and to develop the ability to disseminate ideas and discover and evaluate their value and usefulness. Only when we are willing to open our minds up to learning more do we gain as much as we can from any sort of training.

2. The better trained we are, and the better we understand what we are taught, the more prepared we are to take timely action and to improve our personal performance. We can only prepare when we learn how to evaluate and plan, and that requires an open - minded appetite for useful knowledge and information.

3. Far too often, individuals seem to go through even extensive training programs in a less than full - hearted, or enthusiastic manner. Training by itself rarely serves any useful purpose unless we enthusiastically approach becoming better through gaining valuable knowledge, and then transforming it to viable and useful action and purpose.

4. Life is never a static condition. Since it is constantly evolving, each of us need to commit to continuously seek new approaches to best adapt to these changes. It is our attitude and willingness to escape our comfort zone and broaden our viewpoint that often determines how much, or little, we gain from any sort of training.

When we proceed seeking more knowledge and understanding, refusing to accept or simply maintain the status quo, we enhance our potential. Only those willing to remain open to all the potential opportunities maximize their own ability to truly learn effectively and in a meaningful manner.

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Just had to let you know about this event in case you did not already know, and until the 31st May you can buy one ticket and get one free.  Hope to see you there!

Self Help Techniques For Self Development

There was once an old farmer in America's deep South, Who Struggled everyday to make ends meet. When The Oil Companies started to drill for oil in the communities surrounding his land, He was approached but refused them permission to drill. He didnt want his neighbours and fellow farmers to consider him desperate and willing to give up his core business for a chance for a quick return. However,the oil companies kept asking him and, eventually, after a particularly bad harvest, He Agreed. The Test driiling gave some good results, so they bore a hole and set up a well.Which was known as Spindle Top.

Apparently When you strike Oil, It blows the top off 'the derrick'. When Spindle Top Struck oil It destroyed 'The Derrick'. At that time is was the biggest Oil Find in American History. The Farmer became A Multimillionaire.

Here's the message. The Farmer was already a multimillionaire. He had been walking across millions of dollars of assets every single day of his life. His father had been wlking across millions of dollars of assets everyday. The diffrence came about when the farmer was persuaded to take action.

So the question is Do You Have A Spindle Top? What success story lies beneath you just waiting to be drilled and taken to market? What Are you missing because you cannot get out of bed early enough or drag yourself away from the Tv? If You Think 'If i knew i had a 'Spindle Top' I Would Find all the motivation i needed to get to work, You'd be correct and you'd flourish right up to the first challenge; And then what would happen. People who are motivated get things done, they find a way and they create energy.

One of the primary reasons people lack motivation is they believe they dont have the energy. Now Notice i said 'believe' they don't have the energy. Your Body and mind is amazing it stores energy. So even when you think your tired there is still loads of energy reserved. The Key is that when you think you cant change that is the moment you need to change? Say I Must, then physically move, give your fingers a wiggle, feet a shake, stand up and move around. Your mind and thoughts work in exactly the same way.Because the real key to motivation is to find a big enough reason 'WHY'Just think for one secound and see if you can think of the top three things that really motivate you in life.

Become Successful In Body, Mind, Spirit, and Skill By Using Personal Development

Have you heard of Personal Development Programs? Are you interested in taking the path to personal growth and success?

What is personal development? Quite simply, it is a focus on the self and the development of your mind, skills, body and spirit.

Personal development cleans out the dusty corners of procrastination and stagnation and replaces them with clean, well-organized plans for the future.

You can hire a Personal Coach to help you straighten out your priorities and focus on your strengths. You can hire a Personal Trainer to help you develop your body.

When you set a goal for personal development, you usually focus on a number of areas:

Time Management vs. Procrastination 
Learning to control your time by setting a schedule and listing action items to accomplish. Setting a schedule and sticking to it so you don’t keep putting things off.

Organization and Productivity 
Organizing your house and your life so that you can find things. Get rid of things you don’t need and never use. Get productive by delegating things YOU don’t need to do yourself, and by prioritizing the things you have to do, so that the important things get done first.

Goals and Milestones 
Establish WRITTEN goals and assign dates to the goals. If they are long-term goals, establish milestones along the way so that you can achieve smaller goals and work toward the long-term final goal.

Values and Ethics
Write down your personal values. What is it that you hold dear? What matters the most to you in life and what values and ethical standards do you want to preserve? Add to these as you think of more things you want to capture on paper.

Good Health and Fitness
Work on your diet, exercise and lifestyle to preserve good health. This good health preserves mental clarity and physical vibrancy so that you can achieve your other goals.

Spirituality and Relationships
Focus on your family, friends, and co-workers and envision how you want your relationships to grow and thrive. Consider your spiritual side and delve into meditation or study philosophy or Eastern religions as a way to expand into deeper thought and consider the meaning of your life and your journey.

A Personal Coach will help you structure your personal development program and guide you through the steps to achieve your goals.

But, you can certainly do this on your own. There are self-study programs and books and articles on the subject. Armed with nothing more than a list of the personal areas you want to address, you can make your own lists, and begin to record your thoughts about personal priorities and defining your own success.

Read about all the what is a personal development material right here

Developing enthusiasm - inspiration

Improving self-awareness

Enhancing lifestyle or the caliber of life

Improving ones own employability

Identifying and getting ones potential

Financial advancement

Developing strengths or perhaps talents

Personal and qualified mastery - Finding out techniques or ways of gain

Control from one's life

Entrepreneurial

Improving self-knowledge

Developing personal development plans

Increasing consciousness or defining with one's chosen existence

Integrating social i . d with self-identification

Increasing attention or defining from one's priorities

Developing intent

Increasing awareness as well as defining of one's beliefs

Developing purpose

Love

Increasing focus or defining with one's ethics

Strategies not to mention realizing dreams, dreams, career and way of life priorities

Developing private discipline

Personal production goal/ material attainment

Developing professional capability

Developing talents

Developing strength

Goal setting

Developing personal competencies

Becoming more caring

How to know from experience

Time organization

Developing mature cultural relationships

Establishing id

Improving the good of lifestyle (in this kind of areas as overall health, wealth, culture,

family, buddies and communities)

Learning techniques or techniques to expand awareness

Developing knowledge

Achieving autonomy in addition to interdependence

Self mastery

Managing emotions

Learning techniques or solutions to achieve wisdom

Communication skills

Personal production philosophically practice

Personal development may also be applied to these disciplines, either used metaphorically or philosophically

Yoga

Meditation

Qi gong

Juggling

Martial arts

The altruistic components of personal development

Some of a lot more altruistic elements associated with personal development possess Parallels with a portion of the world's spiritual traditions. A good example would be, The Eightfold Way of Buddhism which look at the development of skills like: 

Right View

Right Objective

Right Speech

Right Behavior

Right Livelihood

Right Efforts

Right Mindfulness

Right Content level

Check out all the Parallels

Right View it is a likened to, available mindedness, beliefs, continual learning from techniques or ways of expand awareness, thoughtfulness. 

Right Intention this is usually a likened to characterizing of one's values or the trouble to develop mutually beneficial relationships for that general and more good. 

Right Intentions form an affordable development standpoint this can be viewed as increasing your awareness of your actions not to mention adjusting them to your greater good. 

Right Spiel, from a your own development view this is able to be Communication techniques. Communications skills may include your internal dialogue that is to say positive speech. 

Right Behavior, this can certain you're seen as exercising awareness, personal integrity, working out wisdom. 

Right Living, this would have a very relation to life as I'm enhancing one's lifestyle, career, and getting work done in an ethical type of employment etc. 

Right Efforts, this would get along with discipline commitment

determination tenaciousness. 

Right Mindfulness, can be quite a likened to thoughtfulness concern... 

... And finally

Right Focus, can be some sort of likened to understanding, focus, exercising willpower of thoughts. 

So where do you really start? And what did it take? 

Define an part of life you wish to work on... 

1 produce a vision

2 create a plan

3 motion your plan

Commit to make sure you daily actions aimed towards change

Find a method or programme towards facilitate your progress, in some cases this might mean reading your related material, novels, websites blogs, around other cases the my mean signing up the related teams or taking training systems etc.

NLP in Action - How To Create Super Motivation (Part Two)

At some point, don't we all wish we had more motivation?

More motivation to quit a bad habit, more motivation to get started on an important project that will bring us more success in our life, or even more motivation to clean out the garage so our spouse will be happy.

We all have a list of things we want to do or things we wish we would stop doing, but we just can't find the motivation to do so. Well the good news, as many researchers in the field of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) have made clear, is that such motivation can be created. And it can be created in a matter of a half hour or less.

The key is to create new links or pathways between certain behaviors and things we find either pleasurable or thins we find painful or uncomfortable. That's it, at the root of our motivations are the two triggers of pleasure and pain.

In the first article in this series, I put it like this: 

Every change we create in our behavior results from changing how we associate that behavior to either pleasure or pain. Our mind automatically creates these links, with or without our conscious awareness that an association exists.

Let's start with a simple example. Suppose you really enjoy skiing. You live for winter and that beautiful white powder. And when winter finally comes, you cannot wait to get on the slopes.

Using NLP conditioning, you can create a link between the pleasures you derive from skiing to any other activity you want to motivate yourself to do more of. Suppose you are also a college student and you are having difficulty motivating yourself to study. If you want to create a motivation to get yourself to study more, you can actually link studying with the same sensations you get when you are skiing.

In other words you can create an association between skiing and studying so that you find studying just as pleasurable as you do skiing.

In order to create this association, you must first break your target behavior (studying) into its individual components. These could be, finding a quiet place to study that is conducive to good learning. Gathering all your materials together so you will not have to leave. Actually sitting in the chair and opening your books, etc.

In the process of doing this, you may find that one particular component is what you put off doing. Perhaps it is just simply getting to the library to study. Throughout your day, you may engage in all kinds of other activities that prevent or delay your getting to the library (by the way, if all this sounds like I had experience in these kinds of avoidance behaviors, you would be right).

If you find a particular behavior is what you have been avoiding, you can focus your efforts on this one target activity. Continuing on with our example of getting yourself to the library and finding a quiet corner to study, create a strong visualization of yourself going to the library, finding a table and sitting down to study.

Create a visual image of yourself doing this very clearly. In the next article, we will discuss how to then create an association with the pleasure you derive from skiing to create that same pleasure with your studying.

How NLP Can Put You In A Confident State Anytime, Anyplace With Anyone (Part Two)

I have read Anthony Robbins' book, Unlimited Power so many times, it is almost tattered beyond recognition. I have bookmarks all through it, I have highlighted many, many sections, and I have lots of my own personal notes written in the margins.

Have I mentioned that I really, REALLY, like this book?

One story from Unlimited Power that I would like to pass on to you is about an airplane flight in which Tony found himself sitting next to Ken Blanchard, the co-author of The One Minute Manager.

Blanchard had recently had a session with one of the top golf instructors in the United States, and while his golf score had certainly improved, he confessed to Tony that he was having trouble keeping all the individual instructions (like how to stand, how to hold the club, how the upswing should feel, etc) in his mind at the same time.

Tony then launched into a discussion about the NLP term called "state." He asked Blanchard if he had ever hit a golf ball perfectly, and Blanchard said yes.

Then Tony asked if Blanchard had hit the golf ball perfectly on many occasions, and he was again told yes.

This meant, Tony explained, that Blanchard's brain already held all the individual steps to a perfect golf swing. All Blanchard had to do was re-produce the state he was in when he had hit the ball perfectly, and he could re-produce those perfect shots.

Now apply this to your need. Have you ever been in a state in which you were relaxed, totally confident and free from doubt? Of course you have, so now all you need is re-produce those internal and external actions that were present when you were previously in this state.

An example of this is when Tony was working with an Olympic swimmer who had been unable to swim at a time equal to his previous personal best. With Tony's help, the swimmer was able to re-produce all the cues that put him in that previous state (right down to playing a certain piece of music) and the swimmer was subsequently able to match his own previous best time.

Here's the point: If you are feeling un-confident going into a certain situation, think back to a time you previously were very confident and exhibited all the outward behaviors and mannerisms you want to exhibit now.

In your mind, re-create all the inner and outward actions you exhibited at that time, and you can put yourself back into that state and exhibit the same behaviors now. We will continue this concept in the next article and show how to look for those cues and how to re-create them, so you can change your state now.

NLP Modeling - How to Acquire Any Skill or Expertise (Part Two)

There are no limits to what you can do. Your key is power of modeling. Excellence can be duplicated. If other people can do something, all you need to do is model them with precision and you can do exactly the same thing, whether it's walking on fire, making a million dollars or developing a perfect relationship.

Anthony Robbins
Unlimited Power

This is powerful stuff. Anything anyone can do, you can learn to do just as well, and you can learn to do it faster than that person learned to do it, with the NLP (neuro-linguistic technique of "modeling."

Think this sounds far fetched? Well did you notice that Robbins included walking on fire along with making a million dollars and developing a perfect relationship? This is because at the graduation ceremony of each of his seminars, Tony has his students go through a fire walk, just like the Hindu gurus who still walk barefoot across a path of red hot coals without the slightest burns on their feet.

As he explains it in the first chapter of Unlimited Power:

The firewalk is an experience in personal power and a metaphor for possibilities, an opportunity for people to produce results they previously thought impossible.

It teaches people in the most visceral sense that they can change, they can grown they can stretch themselves, they can do things they never thought possible, that their greatest fears and limitations are self-imposed.

If you or I can be taught to walk on fire, and we discover in the process that 99% of the things we previously thought were impossible are merely self-imposed limitations and false beliefs (I haven't yet accomplished that last 1%, which includes things like leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, or running faster than a speeding bullet, but I'm still working on it), imagine what else we can do?

So what can we dare to imagine ourselves doing once we learn that anything anyone else can do, you and I can do as well? Would we dare to make a million dollars? Would we dare to ask the most attractive person we'd ever met out for a date? Would we go back to school? Would we quit a job we hate and start our own business? Would we quit the business world entirely and make our living in the creative and artistic areas we so love?

NLP modeling sets us free to do all these things and more. If we can merely find someone who is already doing what we desire to do, and learn to model that person's actions, both internal actions such as beliefs and thought process, and external actions such as physiology, we will produce the same exact results as that person.

NLP - 8 Techniques To Overcome The Beliefs That Limit Your Ability And Gain Excellence In Your Task

By the time you read this NLP article completely, you will be amazed as there will not be any belief that would restrict your ability anymore. The NLP says that the beliefs that we hold give us both strength and empowerment. So, it becomes important to have the belief that can enhance your ability rather than restricting it.

NLP classifies the limiting beliefs into three categories as follows:

• Desperation - Under this situation, the person thinks that he can never achieve his goal under any circumstances. He desperately tries to achieve his goal but fails because he works with half-heartedness.
• Defenselessness - Under this, the person thinks that he can achieve his goal, but he rely more on luck and fate.
• Worthlessness - Under this, the person think that he is unable to deserve to achieve the goal. He finds himself as incapable and not worth any thing.

To which category do you belong? NLP can surely help you to come out of the limiting belief. These are 8 NLP techniques that can help you overcome the belief that restricts your ability and gain excellence:

1. Hold the belief that gives you strength and empowerment: Research has shown that the people who think they are unhealthy and suffering from any disease die early than the persons who are actually suffering from any diseases. NLP states that your thinking affects your both mentally and physically. Hold the belief that bears a positive impact on you.
2. Ignore the beliefs that restrict your energy and confidence levels: When you tell your mind that you cannot do a particular thing or you are not capable of doing any thing, then you surely never do that thing. Such beliefs are restricting you to achieve any thing are called as the 'limiting beliefs' in NLP.
3. Limiting belief can be the consequence of any significant experience in your life - come out of that experience with NLP: NLP sates that most of the beliefs that we hold are because of any kind of significant experience that you must have been through in your life. Once a boy was so focused on his target to hit the ball with his bat that he hurt his brother who was coming towards him. His parents scolded him. Since then he made up his mind that if he will go after his target he will hurt someone. This belief affected him badly in this adult life. Hence, the boy must have tried to overcome that bad experience and improved on it rather than allowing that experience to come with him all through his life. NLP calls this as framing the bad experience for well.
4. Make yourself aware of the belief limits you: When you do not attempt to do any task or you fail in the task that you have done, the first thing that most of the people do is, they try to justify their failure rather than finding out the ways to improve them. This is most common attitude of people, proved by NLP. Instead of this, you must find out the reasons that are responsible for your failure.
   Ask your self the following questions:
   a. Why is the goal unattainable for me?
   b. Why skills do I lack in to attain this?
   c. Why do I think that I do not deserve to achieve this goal?
5. Work on your limiting beliefs: Once you uncover the beliefs that are restricting you, try to eliminate those beliefs that are not allowing you to achieve your goal. Work on limiting beliefs and try hard to make changes. NLP techniques mentioned below can help you to do that. The techniques of NLP tries to eliminate the gap between you and your restricting beliefs.
6. Do not allow that belief take power over you: NLP advises you to work on your odd beliefs and get it out of your life as soon as possible before they gain power and superiority over you. Once they gain power over you, you will start losing your one or the other power or ability.
7. Uncover the purpose of the belief: Ask yourself how does this belief affects or benefits you. Give your belief a thought and find out the answer. NLP techniques can help you uncover the true purpose of your belief in your life. If you hold the belief that all men are troublesome, think and mould your belief like 'some characterless men are troublesome while all are not the same.'
8. Proving a wrong belief as wrong: This is one of the most powerful NLP techniques, which help you eradicate the limiting beliefs in your life. You have to prove wrong the wrong beliefs. The only way of doing that is, when you think that you cannot do any thing just go for it. Attempt to achieve that thing. It is natural that you may be unsuccessful in the first attempt but once you do it your false belief that you cannot do it shatters away.
   Belief change exercise:
   a. Replace your negative belief with the positive one.
   b. Analyze your dream and the circumstances in which you generated that belief.
   c. Examine whether it bears a positive or negative impact on you.
   d. If it is negative one, try out the most possible ways that you can find to replace it with the positive one.

This is most easy, simple yet powerful NLP technique that you can implement today for your benefit. It can help you eliminate the limiting beliefs and gain excellence in your task.

How to Use NLP to Master NLP

With NLP being the technology of achievement, NLP trainees miss a trick when learning new NLP techniques; they don't use NLP to accelerate their learning. This short article will use several NLP techniques to help you master any NLP technique quickly, in just 4 easy steps.

Remember repetition is the key to success, to master NLP you need to practice, practice and practice which means practicing even when you have completed your NLP course. So many people pay for NLP training, only to never use it in their life, take what you have learnt and apply it to be more successful, it has worked for me and many of my business associates and coaching clients.

The following 4 NLP techniques will help you access your best learning state, learning form what went wrong and by asking the future you to give you some positive advice.

1. Find Your Best Learning Strategy think about to a time that you were your best at learning, relive this experience as if you were there now, learning at your best. What is the first that happened when you were learning at your best? Did you visualise something? Did you hear something or did you feel something? What was the first thing that happened? What happened next, did you see, hear or feel something? Keep asking the what happened next question until you at the end of your learning strategy "nothing, I was at my best." You can now use your best learning strategy to learn NLP

2. There is no failure only feedback - make lots and lots of mistakes, keep trying techniques and get them wrong. After each mistake, ask what did I learn from this experience? How can this make me better at NLP? Use your answers to prefect your learning and delivery of NLP techniques.

3. Perceptible Positions imagine you could see someone who was really good at NLP techniques, observe what they are doing, how are they stood, what is their rate of breath, how do they move, stand, talk - become aware of everything that makes this person good at NLP. Next imagine you could step into their body, take on their posture, mannerisms and jesters. As you now feel like this person, take on their beliefs and values, see the world from their eyes and give yourself the self talk this person gives themselves. As you step out of their body take all this new learning and experiences with you to improve your NLP techniques

4. Imagine being on a timeline, as you view this timeline imagine that everything in your future is perfect, you master NLP and you use NLP to better your life - see your life ahead of you as you live your life to the full. Notice 4 images on your timeline set out every quarter throughout the twelve month period, on each image see yourself being your best, notice all the detail and how happy you are in each of these images. Walk through your timeline, through each of these 4 images until you're in the forth image. While in the last future image, step into this future you and see the world from the eyes of this older you, how do you feel, what do you see and hear? Look back down your timeline to the you know and give yourself some useful advice - what do you want to tell yourself? That's great, now come back down your timeline taking on this new learning until you step back into yourself in the now.

These 4 NLP techniques will help you master NLP, as you learn more NLP techniques use these same techniques to improve your NLP ability. NLP has many levels, to master all these different levels you need to practice and practice. If you have a goal you want to achieve use the NLP well formed outcome techniques which we will post on ezine very soon so keep your eyes out, but for now we would like to wish you the best of luck with Your Life, Your Career and Your Future.

Free NLP EBooks Or Buying NLP EBooks

Today more and more people are discovering NLP or neuro-linguistic programming and are experiencing first hand improvements to their day to day lives. The primary aim of this article is to look into just some of the many benefits achievable through understanding and applying neuro-linguistic programming. We'll cover some of the benefits you should look for when you buy NLP eBooks and NLP audio downloads or when you buy a physical book on this topic.

We will also look at the pros and cons of free NLP resources versus buying an NLP ebook, eBook or buying an NLP audio course.

Firstly we'll touch on a few of the many benefits of learning about this topic, whether that be from getting free NLP resources or from investing in NLP resources. We'll look at building a foundation of knowledge in NLP, whether a 'do it yourself' approach is ever advisable and how to save yourself a lot of time.

There are many benefits of learning NLP and applying it to your life. Here are just a few of the benefits you'll easily achieve with this art or science:

How to quit smoking.

Overcome phobias holding you back.

Overcome negative experiences holding you back.

Deal with criticism effectively from now on so it won't hurt anymore.

How to change your mindset and outlook on life and see the changes in your life.

Build rapport with anyone and master the art of persuasion.

Learn to communicate clearly, expressing exactly what you're trying to say.

Just imagine how great you'll feel when you've made just one of these changes. Of course free NLP resources are unlikely to enable you to achieve all these benefits. However, learning how to make these changes will most likely be possible when you buy NLP resources, like if you buy NLP eBooks or buy NLP audio course downloads.

Like any topic, the more you read, learn and put what you've learned into action the better as long as what you've read is from a reliable source.

Some free NLP resources like eBooks, reports and NLP mini-courses will provide a valuable 'taster' of what a paid NLP eBook teaches and these free resources may have some solutions for your life in their own right.

Generally speaking, the approach of trying to learn a subject like this through just using free resources will almost definitely be 'hit and miss' though.

However, that's not to say that you cannot discover some gems of free NLP facts along the way.

Of course you'll save yourself a lot of time and have far more potential for success when you invest in an NLP eBook or audio course which will have all the pieces tied together already.

Often you can buy NLP eBooks and audio courses together at a very reasonable price, especially given the potential benefits for your life.

To summarise, it is arguably a good idea to try and build up a good foundation of knowledge and understanding from free NLP eBooks and NLP resources in general, including articles.

It's worth saying though that to avoid 'hit and miss' results and to get results quicker, it's strongly advised to at least buy a proven neuro-linguistic programming course, whether that be a book or buying an eBook and audio course.

Of course if you buy an NLP eBook download and an NLP audio course it will be quicker and probably easier to understand and put into action than getting a physical book.

Whatever route you decide to take, it's well worth learning about NLP and applying it for the many benefits it can provide for your life.

10 Reasons to Challenge Yourself

You can challenge yourself to:

#1 Grow as an individual

It all starts with you. The below challenges will all help you grow as a person but there's even more than that. Engage in self-searching, learn who you are by writing, work on being more genuine, kind, honest, considerate, spontaneous, spiritual, etc.

#2 Attain awareness, knowledge and education

Not expanding your mind is a waste of life. A complacent, inactive mind is a sad thing. Make your mantra "I must seek awareness" and your universe will grow and grow. The more we know the more we realize how little we actually understand. It's inherently challenging and exciting! With the Internet, the all-time greatest library of knowledge is at your fingertips. Be curious and seek the truth about whatever interests you.

#3 Become healthier physically and mentally

Without health we have nothing. We can challenge ourselves to lose weight, eat better, exercise, get health care and educate ourselves on how to do so. A healthy body yields a healthy spirit.

#4 Build wealth

Money, money, money. We all want more but without challenging ourselves we are likely to not earn it. Money can't buy happiness but it can help us rest easier and enjoy life more! Set goals and challenge yourself to make more, save more and have more money, money, money.

#5 Become self sufficient

With the world economy struggling, more and more people depend on others to get by. Let's face it, it sucks to not be in control of your life. Challenge yourself to take the needed steps to put yourself in a position in which you can be the master of your own domain.

#6 Advance in your career

Are you satisfied with your career position? If you answered yes, then good for you! Unfortunately, most of us are not completely happy with our career and would like to make advancements within it. A conscious, well thought out set of goals can challenge us and help us improve our station in life.

#7 Become a better friend or partner

Conventional wisdom says friends, family and health are the most important things in life (I would add 'awareness'). Having good, real friends is mandatory for being happy, but are we being the best friend we can be? Do we listen enough? Do we reach out to our friends to show them we care? Being a good friend is real work and requires conscious, consistent effort. Challenging ourselves to become a better friend will unquestionably make your life (and your friends lives) more fulfilling.

#8 Seek inspiration and be more creative

All great artists eventually learn one golden rule: you must SEEK inspiration. If Vincent van Gogh waited around for inspiration to strike, we wouldn't have his incredible body of work to appreciate and he would have been even more unfulfilled. No matter what you do in life, you're in need of being creative and seeking inspiration is a never ending quest that requires real diligence. Challenging yourself to find ways to become inspired is a must.

#9 Gain new experiences and have more fun

The alarm clock goes off, we get up and go through our daily routines, then return home to finish off our day. Routines are effective but can bog us down into a mundane lifestyle. BORING! The truth is, it's easy to do the same old thing ~ it can even make us feel safe (a good thing). Why not challenge ourselves to try new things? By doing so we'll meet new people, learn new things, have more fun and grow as an individual. Heck, we may even be rewarded with new opportunities that may lead to a more fruitful career.

#10 Achieve happiness and peace

Happiness and peace are usually the end results of successful challenges, but they can be challenges all on their own. Why not challenge yourself to be more happy and find more peace? This will help you better understand exactly what it is you need to attain these two prized life goals.

Follow these 10 types of challenges regularly and you'll be on the path to a better quality of life.