Having a good mindset, a positive attitude, and using the power of positive thinking can help you achieve all of your goals. In this post, you’ll learn how to have a strong positive mind, the benefits of positive thinking, and how you can use affirmations for positive thinking.

I have an exercise for you to do tomorrow morning when you wake up.

Before you moan and groan about exercise, I’m not talking about some sort of physical exercise.

Instead, a mental exercise.

When you wake up tomorrow morning, say to yourself, “I’m a positive person.” 3 times.

“I’m a positive person.”

“I’m a positive person.”

and once more:

“I’m a positive person.”

Then go about your day the usual way you would.

Mindset is everything. Having a strong mental game is as important as having skills or talents. Positive thinking has been proven to lead to more success than negative thinking.

While this probably sounds good in all, let’s dive a little deeper here into the power of positive thinking.

In this post, I’m going to share with you the benefits of positive thinking, talk about affirmations, talk about how thinking positive thoughts has changed my life, and share with you how you can have a strong, positive mind.

The Benefits of Positive Thinking

There are many benefits of positive thinking.

Some of the benefits of positive thinking includes:

• Increased life span
• Better coping skills in timing of hardships
• Better psychological and physical well-being
• Increased willpower when looking to achieve our goals

Positive thinking and having a good mindset and outlook on life can be very beneficial for trying to create a life you want and deserve.

Our minds are incredibly powerful and can quite literally create its own reality.

The power of positive thinking can manifest itself in living the life that you want to live.

Telling yourself you are a positive person will result in you becoming a more positive person.

You are what you say you are.

Saying, “I’m a negative person who can never accomplish anything” is a reinforcing trap. Saying this sort of thing will result in you being a negative person who will never accomplish anything.

Likewise, telling yourself, “I’m a positive person who can accomplish anything” will lead to accomplishments beyond your wildest dreams.

The human mind has a way of creating it’s own view of the world and through this view, that is the world.

One way in which you can create a good mindset for yourself is with affirmations. In the next section, I’m going to share with you how you can use affirmations and give you some examples of affirmations for positive thinking.

What are Affirmations and How You Can Use Affirmations in Your Life

Let’s start simple. What are affirmations?

An affirmation is a statement of truth.

Affirmations strengthen us because we can “trick” our brains into thinking what we want in this world.

An affirmation is as simple as the following statement, “I’m a nice person.”

An affirmation also could be more involved, such as, “I’m a person who is looking to become better in my relationships and I’m focusing on asking better questions.”

Typically, the statement you choose will be something you want to change in your life.

If you want to become a nicer person, tricking your brain by saying, “I’m a nice person”, will result in you becoming nicer!

By using affirmations, we can trick our powerful brains into becoming who we want to become.

“Every time you choose the easy thing, instead of the right thing, you are shaping your identity, becoming the type of person who does what is easy, rather than what is right.”

How to Write an Effective Affirmation

Writing effective affirmations, for yourself, is easy.

First, turn inward and think for yourself for a minute.

What do you want to change in your life? Who do you want to be? What are you struggling with?

Right now in my life, I’m struggling a little bit with focus and balance.

Taking this struggle, I can flip it around into an affirmation which will bring my brain to focus on what’s important.

Here’s my affirmation for the day:

“I’m able to focus for long periods of time and get my work done.”

Notice a few things:

• I started my affirmation with “I”
  • Taking control of your life is critical to becoming better.
• I wrote in the present tense
  • Right now, I’m focused – not, I’m going to focus (if I’m going to, I never will)
• The affirmation was positive
  • Positive thinking is incredibly powerful and will lead you to where you want to go.

Using the three bullet points above as a loose framework will help you write affirmations for yourself.

Examples of Affirmations for Positive Thinking

Back at the end of 2016, I got really into affirmations. Recently, I was digging through my drawer of old notebooks and found some of my affirmations. Below are some of those affirmations.

12/11/16 “I am charming, easy going, and can get along with many types of people. I”m capable of brightening the lives of other people with my great smile and big heart. I will ask good, penetrating, and thoughtful questions at work and at home to gain a better perspective on life. At the end of each day, I will reflect on the questions I asked people to better understand my interactions and to increase my ability to connect with others.”

12/12/16 “I am persistent, diligent, and detail oriented in my work. I want to climb the ladder at work. By doing the work I have done, I believe I can get there. More responsibility brings more money and options, and I want more money and options. To get there, I need to ask good, penetrating and thoughtful questions. I will do what is right, not what is easy, and will achieve this goal.”

12/16/16 “I am the owner of what happens in my life. I want to meet and hang out with amazing, beautiful women. It’s time to align my goals with my actions. I want a beautiful family. By being charming, easy-going, and kind, I will accomplish this.

12/17/16 “I am patient, I am kind, I am aware.”

12/18/16 “I am reliable, I am friendly, I am determined to succeed”

12/21/16 “I am capable of coming up with creative ideas”

12/27/16 “I’m an investor. I’m building financial wealth. Is today the day I find an opportunity to make a deal?” (I was reading The Millionaire Real Estate Investor)

After spending a month doing these affirmations, I was feeling much better about my situation, but still had a lot of work to do. I was looking to find a girlfriend, and later did in 2017. A hope of mine was for a raise at my corporate job. 16 months later, I had received 2 promotions. Finally, I wanted to create a blog and business, and since have.

These affirmations allowed me to tap into my powerful brain and manifest my wants and goals. Now, it’s your turn.

Tap Into Your Powerful Brain and Influence Your Life With Affirmations

Becoming a better person, and someone who is more successful in what they do, will take time, but it can be accomplished.

Here’s the thing: you have a powerful brain.

By thinking critically about what you want, asking good, penetrating, and thoughtful questions at yourself, and getting answers will result in some action items to implement.

With these action items comes a call to become better as a person and a shift in your mindset.

With affirmations, you can influence your life and become who you want to be.

Now, let’s talk about how you can develop a strong mindset for yourself.

The Power of a Good Mindset and How Mindset is Everything

Having a good mindset and a strong will to want to work towards your goal is something great to strive for.

Having the grit to want to keep going is something rare and can set you apart from the rest of the herd.

Success in this world comes from action and consistency.

Consistent efforts added up over time WILL lead to amazing success and results.

Many people, myself included, deal with a lack of consistency.

Think about exercising. Maybe you exercise 3 times one week and only 1 the next. Maybe the week after 0 times and the week after that 2 times. The results you want probably won’t come from this routine.

With mindset, this inconsistency can be avoided.

Saying “I’m a person who is consistent and does not procrastinate.” will affect your actions.

It’s a tough world out there, but with our words and powerful mind, we can accomplish a lot.

While things may not have gone to plan in the past, that’s okay.

Having a strong mindset is accepting the past for what it is and moving on to bigger and better things.

How Thinking Positive Has Changed My Life

When I was younger playing sports, I didn’t have a strong mental game. I’d let things get into my head and couldn’t let them go.

My dad always harped on me to try to not let those emotions get the best of me. I had to look inwards and seek out the answers. I had to tap into my powerful mind to control the emotions of anger and sadness and funnel them towards performance.

It took a number of years, but over time, I was able to control my emotions and understand that bad things happen. Good things also happen. If I could stay level headed – not get too high or too low – I’d see more success.

Change is really hard.

In physics, the first law of motion, put simply, is an object at rest will stay at rest.

To start moving, energy and force must act on that object; otherwise, it will stay at rest.

Change is beautiful.

Have you ever started to work on something new and felt worse about yourself? I can’t think of a time where I actively pursued growth and didn’t become better.

Over time, I got better. It was beautiful, fulfilling and fun.

Change is okay.

Resisting change is a recipe for sadness.

If something is not going well, you have the ability to change and you are free to do what you can to make the situation better.

How to Have a Strong, Positive Mind

Make no mistake, taking control of your life and becoming success is tough.

Developing a strong and positive mind will not happen overnight, but you will be able to go it over time.

Improving over time will be tough, but is possible with getting into the right mindset and understanding the right thoughts will get you to your goals.

Without community and helping others, the personal growth and change is empty.

There are three concepts I want to talk about with regards to change in this article:

• the herd mentality
• how you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with
• the fact that you have the ability to change your situation

Let’s dive more into each of these.

Think Critically, Don’t Accept the Herd

One of the things which is absolutely CRITICAL for success in life is critical thinking and determining what is important in life.

Something I’ve been seeing a ton lately in the media and blogging space is the comment:

“the stock market always goes up! keep dollar cost averaging!”

Many of these people are the EXACT same people who were bashing the run up of cryptocurrencies.

There are a lot of things on my mind which are outside of the scope of this post (namely, inflation, how energy – not money – drives the economy, and debt fueled corporate buybacks) and I don’t want to fear monger either.

With this said, when you are on the side of the majority, sometimes it’s good to do a little research and reassess your position. Confirmation bias is at play here as well (another concept I won’t get into in this post but worth mentioning).

Naturally, humans form tribes, migrate in groups, and perform cooperative work. It’s in our DNA to follow the group for safety and sustainability reasons.

Because of the herd mentality, we can sometimes get trapped in thoughts which control and restrict us.

In terms of change, those following the herd will not change for fear of losing their status in a tribe.

If your tribe isn’t progressing as you’d like to be progressing, maybe it’s time to make a change.

You are the Average of the 5 People You Spend the Most Time With

Something that I’ve struggled with in my life is making friends.

After I grew up a little and found a great group of friends in high school, and then in college, I found myself falling into ruts and not getting to where I wanted to be in life.

Building extreme wealth is one of my goals in life, and many of my friends did not share this same goal; they were happy with getting by comfortably, but not willing to push the envelope.

Over the past few years, I’ve started to shift my friend circle to include more entrepreneur types, people who are interested in pursuing different extremes, and people who are on the way to financial freedom.

Not only has this motivated me to become better, it’s exposed me to new ideas, new views, and my worldview has changed for the better.

Many of my friends didn’t understand my choices or decisions. “Come on, let’s play some Xbox tonight! Stop reading!”

You may have noticed this as well, but there are certain people who don’t want to see you succeed or who are haters.

People who live like this have a scarcity mindset – living in abundance is foreign to them, but not to us.

You can win and I can win – and when we both grow, we are capable of so much more.

You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with in all areas of life: physical fitness, career, emotional intelligence, street smarts, wealth, etc.

I’ll never forget where I came from, but I’ve realized that to achieve my goals, I needed to make a change. Now, I have to value my time, I’ve changed my habits, and I’m raising my average by hanging out with people more successful than me.

There’s an unstoppable force living inside of you

Change for the sake of change is not what I’m recommending. Change for the sake of change, if rooted in rash decision making and not thinking for yourself, will not lead to success.

The human brain is incredibly powerful.

You have a potential inside of you which is unstoppable. Through simple daily disciplines, through critical thinking, and through tweaking habits in your life for the better, you will be successful.

YOU have the power to change your situation.

Make no mistake: CHANGE is really hard.

Like a rock rolling down a hill, the first push is really hard to do and the rock only moves a few inches. The next push, a few more inches. Another push and a few feet. After a few more pushes, the rock is rolling down the hill with little effort on your part.

Change is beautiful. Motion is beautiful. The rock is rolling down the hill without much effort and isn’t stopping.

My main recommendation for you in this post is to understand change is okay. It’s okay to do things a little different than others; it’s okay to think differently than others as well.

Change is difficult, change is beautiful, and change is okay.

Thinking critically for yourself and seeking a better life will be fulfilling.

The Slight Edge, a fantastic personal development book written by Jeff Olson, is all about how you can improve in life and reach your goals. The Slight Edge is all about doing a little bit each day and finding success through simple actions.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.

Humans are creatures of habit. Every day, we make simple decisions: what to eat, should we exercise, should I call my parents, should I read my book, etc.

With these decisions, there a few questions that come with them:

• Are the decisions you are making helping your life?
  • Or are they detrimental to your life?
• Are they bringing you closer to your goals?
  • Or are you still a long time away from achieving those goals?

The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson, walks us through a strategy to achieve success in anything we want in life.

What do you want to achieve in your life? Well, first, you have to start. You have to be consistent. A positive attitude helps keep you going, and with consistent actions over time, you can achieve your goals and create the life you want to create.

The rest of this post includes a summary of The Slight Edge, takeaways from The Slight Edge, and a reading recommendation for you.

Your philosophy creates your attitudes, which create your actions, which create your results, which create your life.

Book Summary of The Slight Edge

The Slight Edge is a mindset and a way of living a life of success.

Having a slight edge in your life is your ticket to success and a life that you want.

With the Slight Edge, you can accomplish anything and everything you can dream of doing.

The best part of all of this is that The Slight Edge is actually a pretty simple concept.

What is the Slight Edge?

So, what is the Slight Edge?

Essentially, the slight edge is your philosophy of life.

The slight edge is your driving force; your philosophy creates your attitudes, which creates your actions, which creates your results, which create your life. You should live your philosophy each day.

By performing tasks which will are located on the path to your goals, you can achieve anything.

The following is a graphic of the Slight Edge:

The Slight Edge is a mindset and philosophy that is all about doing the little things. By be disciplined in the details, all of the bigger picture things and actions will be taken care of over time.

What are some examples of The Slight Edge?

One of the best examples of The Slight Edge comes from personal finance. The power of compounding and compound interest is such a great example of the Slight Edge.

You can see this from the following example and question:

Would you rather receive $1 million dollars today, or would you rather take a penny, but double it every day for a month?

The first day, you have 2 cents, the second day, you have 4 cents, the third day, you have 8 cents… two weeks in, you have $81.92. Well, guess what? At the end of the month, you end up with over $10 million dollars. You only started off with a penny, what happened?

That’s the power of time and the slight edge.

Yes, you started off with a small amount, and for a long time, you didn’t have much, but 30 days later, boom, $10 million bucks – much more than $1 million!!!

Another example of The Slight Edge is with working out. At first, you are weak, but over time, if you are consistent, you will get into shape, build your dream body and become strong.

It won’t happen overnight, but you will find success.

“Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb

Powerful Quotes from The Slight Edge

Below are a number of powerful quotes from The Slight Edge.

These The Slight Edge quotes are all about self improvement and how you can become better as a person by applying the principles and concepts of The Slight Edge.

• What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people are those who understand that the little choices they make matter and because of that they choose to do things that seem to make no difference at all in the act of doing them, and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in.
• The secret of time is simply this: time is the force that magnifies those little, almost imperceptible, seemingly insignificant things you do every day into something titanic and unstoppable.
• In a world filled with instant coffee, instant breakfast, instant credit, instant shopping, instant information, and 24/7 news, we have come dangerously close to losing touch with reality and believing we have access to instant life. But life is not a clickable link.
• Successful people form habits that feed their success, instead of habits that feed their failure.
• Growth creates abundance, and that abundance in turn creates responsibility. The more success we have, the more greatness we step into and the more abundance we experience, the more responsibility we have to the world around us.
• Success doesn’t come out of nowhere. It can’t be conjured up out of thin air, brought to you by the genie from Aladdin’s lamp simply because you rubbed it and thought good thoughts. Success does come from a small beginning, often a beginning so tiny that it seems invisible and most people miss it. But there has to be a beginning.
• All true success is built from a foundation of study plus street smarts.
• “Knowledge without practice is useless and practice without knowledge is dangerous.” – Confucius
• You truly are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, in all aspects of your life.
  • Show me where you fish and I’ll show you what you catch.
• Every decision you make is a slight edge decision.

Each of these Slight Edge quotes are fantastic and I use them in my life when I need motivation.

Takeaways from The Slight Edge

With all books you read, it’s important to have takeaways and action steps to apply in your life.

If you don’t apply what you’ve read, then what’s the point of reading a self help book?

For me, The Slight Edge taught me that I need to treat everyday with purpose and to live intentionally.

One of my favorite quotes from The Slight Edge is the following:

What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people are those who understand that the little choices they make matter and because of that they choose to do things that seem to make no difference at all in the act of doing them, and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in.

Every day, I try to apply The Slight Edge and do a little bit to get closer to my goals.

Each day, even if it’s just doing a little bit of work for fifteen minutes, going on a walk, or trying to learn something new, I know that as long as I do just a little bit, I can push myself along to on the path to success.

With this slight edge philosophy and slight edge mindset, I know that with my efforts, I can achieve anything I want in my life.

I can create a life which is the life I want.

The Slight Edge book has been life changing for me, and I hope it will be life changing for you as well.

The Mastermind Within Recommends The Slight Edge

The Slight Edge is a fantastic book and a great addition to my library. I plan to read it many times over in the coming years. It was a motivating, easy, and refreshing read.

For you, I definitely recommend The Slight Edge and think it would be a great addition to your library. Reading The Slight Edge will help you cultivate a winning mindset and a mindset towards taking action.

It’s all about taking small and simple disciplines and turning these into wild success. Focusing on the daily actions you can control will allow you to achieve your goals and dreams.

Start today and watch yourself grow into what you want.

Readers: What daily habits do you have which have been beneficial to your success? Do you have any bad habits you want to get rid of? Have you experienced the compound effect in your life?

Erik

When you are stuck, knowing when to push, or when to take a break can be crucial for your long term success. Sometimes pushing through a setback can be a good strategy, while other times taking a break can be good. In this post, I’m going to give you some tips on how to deal with a setback.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working out multiple times a week. Through this time, I’ve been getting stronger and progressing very nicely, but I’ve had a setback.

Last night, I went to do some push-ups, and didn’t warm up enough.

After a set of ten push-ups, I felt a numbness in my chest right at the front of my armpit.

I didn’t know what had happened, but knew my chest workout was done.

After some research online, I determined I’d pulled my pectoralis major, and I should apply ice and rest for a few days to make sure it doesn’t develop into something worse.

Ugh.

Working out multiple times a week has been a huge part of my life this year, and to need to take a break from all things upper body (which is tough since I primarily rock climb) will be tough, but hopefully I can come back even stronger with rest.

Since I’m now resting for the next few days, I figured I’d write about what I’m going to do to rest, recover, and how I’m going to deal with this setback.

In this post, I’m going to discuss five tips for you to apply in your life if you are dealing with a setback.

5 Things to Do to Deal With a Setback

Setbacks are not fun, but with the right strategy and game plan, you can overcome your setback and get around that obstacle.

Below are 5 things you can do to deal with a setback and find success:

1. Breathe and Relax
2. Reflect on Your Current Situation
3. Focus Your Mind on Other Tasks
4. Understand Progress Takes Time and Setbacks are Inevitable
5. Distance Yourself from the Problem and Come Back at a Later Time

Let’s dive into each of these in more detail below.

Taking action and living intentionally will lead to success over time. By following the steps above, you can crush this setback and get back on the right path.

1. Breathe and Relax

First, take a deep breath and collect yourself.

LIFE IS NOT LINEAR!

Life is full of twists, turns, highs and lows.

I don’t know where I’m going to be tomorrow, and I need to adapt on a daily basis to what I’m given to do my best in the next moment.

Everyone experiences a setback once in a while, and the people who are MOST successful are the ones who can bounce back.

Starting off with getting over your setback, focus on your breathing.

Breathing allows you to slow down, get your bearings, and relax.

Your brain needs air to think and process information! Give your brain what it needs! 🙂

2. Reflect on Your Current Situation

Next, after breathing, reflect on your current situation.

A few questions you could ask yourself are:

• What was the cause of your setback?
• Could you have done anything different?
• Is there anything you can do in the future differently to bring about a better outcome?
• What’s the best next steps you can take to get back on the path to your goals?

For me, I know the cause of my injury: i didn’t warm up enough and pushed too hard too early in the workout. I could have warmed up more and not been so aggressive.

After I recover, I’ll be more careful with my warm ups, and for the next few days, I’m not going to do any upper body exercises.

For you, listening to your body and listening to those around you who know what they are talking about will be best for moving on in your life.

3. Focus Your Mind on Other Tasks

While it might seem like the best choice in the moment to keep pushing and grinding away at a task, sometimes focusing on some other task can be very beneficial.

Do you ever get your most inspiring thoughts in the shower or when doing other mundane tasks?

Sometimes my best ideas come to me when I’m vacuuming or brushing my teeth!

Focusing your mind on something else that is routine and doesn’t take that much brain power can lead to making a breakthrough and getting over the hump.

Your subconscious brain will keep working in the background, and when you come back to your problem, you’ll be ready to rock!

4. Understand Progress Takes Time and It’s Okay to Take Breaks

As I mentioned above, life is not linear.

However, taking it a step further, progress takes time and it’s okay to take breaks.

What I mean by this is your body and progress actualizes when you rest.

For example, when you workout, you are breaking down your muscles. When you rest, your muscles build back up and you become stronger.

When you are learning, you only get long term retention through repetition and allowing your brain to absorb information over time.

Taking a break and allowing yourself to recover sometimes is the best way to move forward.

5. Distance Yourself From the Problem and Come Back at a Later Time

Do you need a vacation?

As I mentioned in point number three, focusing on other tasks and giving yourself a break can be a great strategy when trying to get past a setback.

But one other thing to consider is literally distancing yourself from a problem and allowing yourself to the space to grow and recoup for another day.

A vacation might be best, but sometimes just going for a walk, going for some exercise, or going out with friends can help you distance yourself from the problem.

For me, this will be hard since my chest is part of me, but if I focus on doing leg exercises, reading, getting out in nature, and spending time with family, I can distance myself from my injury and get back on the path to success.

Get Past This Setback and Get on the Path to Success

Getting past a setback and getting back on the path to success might take a few days or weeks, but you can do it.

I’m upset with my injury right now, but I know if I rest for a few days, I can get back to full strength.

One benefit will be having more time to rest my entire body and give me more time to write, catch up on other tasks, and be with family.

There’s always pros and cons to every situation, and with any setback, being able to take a break, look at the bright side, and move on will be most beneficial.

Hopefully you can get past your setback and get back on the path to achieving your goals.

Readers: what tips do you have for when you need to take a break? How do you deal with setbacks? 

Thanks for reading,

Erik

Planning for your best year ever is important if you want to have your best year ever. First, by figuring out what you want, you can then make an action plan for a fantastic year.

With only a little bit more time until the start of the new year, it’s time to start planning for what you want in the next year.

What if I said you could have your best year ever next year?

Do you want to have a great year? What would having a great year look like? Is there anything in the way from making this happen?

Here’s a fact: you deserve the best and you have the potential to CREATE the best for yourself.

You are smart, powerful, and the creator of your life.

In this post, I’m going to present you with the steps you can take to plan for your the year of your dreams.

First, it’s important to figure out what you want, and then after, you can start setting goals and creating an action plan to making next year the best year ever.

Two Questions to Answer for Planning Your Best Year

First, without questions, there are no answers.

Planning for your best year can’t start without breaking it down into smaller questions which get at the core of who you are, how you enjoy your time, and what you like to do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

I believe there are two question sets which will get you started towards creating your dream year. The first part of the two sets of questions is:

When are you most happiest and what are you doing when you are experiencing this joy?

This is a simple question. When do you feel happiest? What activity or thing are you doing which brings the happiness?

For me, happiness comes from having new experiences and connecting with others to learn and help them grow.

Happiness also comes from doing things on my own terms and having the freedom to create what I want when I want.

What’s your answer? After you have it, you can move on to the next question.

The second part of this set of questions is:

How often are you able to do these activities, and what’s holding you back from experiencing them whenever you’d like?

If you are already doing what makes you happy all the time (from the first question), then the second question doesn’t really make sense.

In my opinion, your best year will be about pushing towards doing what makes you happiest and understanding that while today might not be where you want to be, over time you can get there.

Right now, I’m starting to plan for my next year. There’s so much I want to do, but mainly I want to travel, keep exercising, and improving my relationships.

For you, again, it starts with answering the two questions above, and having these thoughts in your head for when you go to create your goals and a plan.

Now that you have these thoughts in your head, below are 5 concrete steps for you to take control of next year and make a plan for success and happiness.

5 Steps for Planning Your Best Year

When beginning to think ahead about next year, we first need to start with questions and goals.

First, let’s identify what you want with your year.

We both only have one year and limited time. In my year, I want to be doing things I enjoy and that are bringing joy to the people around me.

After understanding your goals and dreams, then it’s time to come up with a game plan, and take bold action.

The 5 steps for making next year your best year are:

1. Identify Your Goals and Dreams
2. Create a Happiness Game Plan
3. Be Intentional and Take Action
4. Be Consistent with Your Actions
5. Plan to Reassess and Tweak Things Over the Next Year

Let’s dive into each of these steps individually now in more detail.

1. Identify Your Goals and Dreams

What are your goals? What makes you happiest? Where do you want to be in 1 year?

As we discussed in the last section, there is a lot that goes into answering these difficult questions.

However, with a picture of what you want, you can start to work towards your dream year and ideal situation.

Split your goals, thoughts, and dreams into multiple buckets:

• social
• financial
• spiritual
• physical
• emotional
• work
• fun

Some example questions for you may be:

• Do you want to get a promotion or change in responsibilities at work?
• Would you want more money in the bank?
• Would you be happy if your business made an extra $1,000 a month?
• Do you want to be able to take more vacations with your family?
• Are you looking to start a new hobby?
• What things stress you out?
• Do you want to lose 10 pounds?

After asking yourself these questions, KEEP GOING! Let your powerful brain do some more work!

After getting some answers to the questions which matter to your situation, now it’s time to work backwards.

2. Create a Happiness Game Plan

You know your goals, now it’s time to come up with a game plan.

You have your dream. What do you have to do to MAKE it happen?

Let’s take the example of losing 10 pounds.

If you want to lose 10 pounds, it’s time for more questions. Let’s see how this line of thinking plays out:

• How is a person’s weight determined?
  • A person’s weight is determined through a number of factors, but changes come from daily habits and a simple equation: calories in minus calories out.
• If weight changes come from calories in minus calories out, then how do I decrease this amount for myself?
  • First, what does this equation look like for you today? What gets measured, gets managed!
• After measuring where you are at on a daily basis, are you in a calorie surplus or calorie deficit?
  • To lose weight, how can you decrease the surplus and increase this deficit in a healthy way? (exercise, diet, fasting, etc.)

After you’ve asked and answered these questions for yourself (and there are probably 3+ more levels to go if you want to go that deep), again KEEP GOING!

Let your powerful brain and body work towards your goals and dreams!

Writing down your thoughts, creating S.M.A.R.T. goals, and telling others about your plan are all great ways to set goals once you’ve came up with your plan.

After coming up with your game plan for success and happiness, it’s now time to take ACTION.

3. Be Intentional  and Take Action

It’s great to know what you have to do, but if you never take action, you will never achieve your goals and dreams.

Intentional living is all about taking action and working on bettering your year situation.

Sitting on the couch and watching Netflix is fun and relaxing, but it probably won’t lead to a very fulfilling year (unless watching Netflix 24/7 is part of your dream year…).

Taking action (for me) involves getting out and into the world.

Start today with your actions and live intentionally. You’ll be pleased as you start to see your dream year come to fruition.

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

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. Be Consistent With Your Actions

Humans overestimate what they can do in a day, but underestimate what they can do in a year.

Have you ever started on your goals only to stop? Did you end up reaching your goal?

Each day, if you can spend at least 10 minutes working towards your goals, you’ll be amazed at your progress.

At the end of one year, you will have spent 3650 minutes, or 60 hours. 

60 hours over a year? How much closer to your goals would you be after 60 hours?

That’s the power of consistency. Consistent actions over time WILL lead to massive success.

5. Reassessing and Tweaking Your Game Plan Over Time

From time to time, you will need to see if you are still on track.

I stay accountable to myself monthly. You can do a personal check-in weekly, monthly, or every few months. It’s up to you.

If you aren’t on track, make the necessary changes to your actions and daily habits to ensure you are working towards your goals.

It’s okay if you realize you aren’t on track; this doesn’t mean you failed.

All this setback means is you now have the opportunity to pick back up where you left off and keep getting better!

Just because you eat one unhealthy meal doesn’t mean your whole healthy eating plan is ruined. It just means you ate one unhealthy meal. You can always continue eating healthy for your next meal, and it will in fact be beneficial.

This outlook works for every part of your plan.

Being self aware on your path to the year you want and deserve will help tremendously.

Living an intentionally requires patience and understanding, and also will require some flexibility.

Having your best year obviously won’t happen in the first day, but the next 12 months, through tweaks and consistency, you’ll get there. 🙂

Starting Planning for Your Best Year Ever and Make it Happen

With this post, I’m excited to see what you come up with for your dream year.

Again, you deserve the best and with your plan, you can achieve and create the best for yourself.

In a year, you’ll thank yourself for taking action and living your life to the fullest.

Thanks for reading!

Readers: what do you want to make happen next year? What does your best year look like? What steps do you need to take to make your best year happen?

Erik

Reading personal development books are a fantastic way for you to learn what is necessary to grow as a person. This post has 11 personal development books you can read for personal growth.

Personal development is essential for your success as a human.

If you are looking to master your life and become a little bit better each and every day, reading books can be a great way to get starter.

While self improvement and learning how to become better can be tough, but it is possible.

By devoting time each and every day to your personal development, you will grow, and achieve success at the highest levels.

In this post, you’ll learn about 11 books which will be very beneficial for your personal improvement. These book recommendations for personal development will help you get started on your self improvement education!

Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.

11 Personal Development Books to Read for Growth

You want to become a person who will naturally succeed and find success. By reading, learning, and applying what you have learned, you can get on to:

• creating the life you want to live
• improving your self confidence
• and, reaching your goals.

In the following sections, I’ve listed 11 personal development books you can review and read for your own personal development.

The 11 books you can read for personal development are:

1. The 5 Love Languages
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People
3. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
4. The Miracle Morning
5. The Slight Edge
6. The Power of Positive Thinking
7. Getting Things Done
8. The Alchemist
9. Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
10. Emotional Intelligence
11. Think and Grow Rich

Below is a summary of each of these personal development books. By studying these books for personal development, you will see your level of personal success skyrocket.

Read these Awesome Personal Development Books for Personal Growth!

Personal development is extremely important for success in life.

The self improvement books above will supercharge your personal development skills and help you at work, in social situations, and at home.

Becoming more valuable as a person can only happen through dedicating time to becoming better.

With these books, you can make it happen.

Readers: what’s your favorite personal development book? Which one from above looks most interesting to you?

Erik

Overcoming self doubt is a common problem when trying to become successful in life. Self doubt can creep in to anyone’s thoughts, and luckily, there are some ways to overcome self doubt and unlock your full potential.

Lately, I’ve been dealing with some self doubt and anxiety in a few areas of my life.

One of those areas is becoming a better indoor rock climber and becoming stronger over time.

As I’ve started to progress as a rock climber, there have been numerous times where I get into sticky situations on the wall, and I doubt my ability to make it to the next hold.

I look up to the next hold, a mere two feet above me, and begin to feel uneasy about my current situation.

When I’m bouldering, this is understandable, as I can be over five to ten feet up in the air.

But the interesting thing is, when I push through my self doubt in those moments, I’m usually able to do the move I didn’t think I could do.

My body physically could make the move, even when my brain was telling me no.

This has been happening to me for the past few weeks, and now that I’m aware of this self doubt, I’ve been able to overcome and push through some of the existing barriers to become better.

In this post, I’m going to share with you some tips on how you can overcome self doubt, boost your self confidence, and unlock your full potential. 

By the end of this post, my hope is you will have some actionable steps in your life to overcome self doubt.

Overcoming Self Doubt and Anxiety Around Not Being Enough

Before going into the tips for overcoming self doubt, I want to revisit my experience with rock climbing.

A feeling I’ve had repeated over the past few weeks has been a feeling of discomfort when I get into tricky situations.

One such example was when I was climbing a 5.10- route, which kind of snaked up the wall, and had an overhang at the top.

At the top of the route, you have to stick your arms into a crack, create tension in your body, and lift both feet onto higher holds to get to the next good handhold.

The first few times I tried this, I wasn’t confident enough in my ability, and didn’t trust myself to be able to execute the move.

The last time I did this route, I made a less than full effort and fell off the wall (I was completely safe, but had to climb up a little bit to get back to the same spot).

Holding on, I told myself I had to give it 100% and trust my strength.

Even though it felt awkward, I gave it my all, and executed the move. It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it was, and I was ecstatic about my success.

Why couldn’t I have done this the first time? Why did I doubt myself? What could I have done to be more confident the first few times around?

These are questions I keep asking myself, and I think I’m finally getting closer to the answers.

Now, let’s talk about some tips for overcoming self doubt, increasing your self confidence, and unlocking your full potential.

7 Tips to Overcome Self Doubt and Boost Self Confidence

Unlocking your full potential and getting over self doubt is possible with the right set of steps and tips. Below are 7 things for you to consider when looking to increase your self confidence and get on the way to achieving your goals.

1. Become Self Aware of Your Abilities
2. Practice the Power of Positive Thinking
3. Talk to Others about Your Situation
4. Realize Setbacks and Barriers are Temporary Steps to Your Goals
5. Keep Working on Your Skills
6. Experiment With Different Approaches
7. Remember Consistent Actions Added Up Lead to Massive Success

Let’s now dive into each of these in more detail below.

1. Become Self Aware of Your Abilities

Self awareness is the first step towards becoming a success and reaching your goals.

By reading this article, and recognizing your self doubt and self confidence can be improved, I can tell you already have a good sense of self awareness.

Self awareness of when you are struggling is the first step to improvement.

Next, a self awareness around your current skills and abilities is also important.

Is your self doubt a function of:

• Needing more training?
• Not having the proper knowledge?
• Needing a more diverse set of experiences and perspectives?
• Having external pressures?
• Needing more time to work things out for yourself?

By answering these questions, you can figure out where you need to improve for reaching your goals.

If there are legitimate barriers to your progress, then maybe you can remove self doubt by addressing these barriers.

If the barriers are in your head, then maybe it’s best to work on your mindset and boost your confidence through affirmations.

2. Practice the Power of Positive Thinking and Affirmations

Your brain is incredibly powerful. The thing about our thoughts is that they can quite literally create and shape your reality.

If you believe in yourself and believe in what you are doing, you can make it happen.

By using affirmations and positive thinking, you can manifest your wants and dreams into your life.

By saying “I can do it” and “I’m a confident person”, you will become someone who can do whatever you want in your life, and you will become confident.

Using positive thinking can help you on your way to becoming more confident in your abilities.

3. Talk to Others about Your Situation

While I believe everyone can find the answers to any question they have, sometimes getting a second (and honest) opinion from a friend or family member can help with self doubt.

Not everyone is an expert on everything, but many people have a wide set of experiences and perspectives on life, and can give you insight into what you could try to improve your situation.

4. Realize Setbacks and Barriers are Temporary Steps to Your Goals

Success and achievement does not happen from going from point A to point B.

When making plans, it is always nice to lay things out in a linear manner, but in reality, nothing is linear. As Murphy’s Law states, what can go wrong, will go wrong.

But, if you have the mindset that setbacks are temporary and necessary, then you can accept this failure and move on to the next task.

Right now, I’m dealing with some elbow tendinitis, and can’t always give it my all at the gym.

But, I recognize this and am allowing myself to rest and recover.

I know I’ll be back to 100% soon, and then I can continue to progress to my goals.

5. Keep Working on Your Skills

As Stephen Covey says in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, sharpening the saw is important before making a cut.

What he means by this is that through learning, experience, and growth, you can improve as a person to become more successful in what you are looking to accomplish.

If you are stuck in a rut, going back to the basics can give you confidence to proceed. Maybe taking a break and reassessing the next day is the best move.

Sometimes taking a step backward can lead to two steps forward with a new skill or perspective in hand.

6. Experiment with Different Approaches

Similar to the last section, experimentation and gaining new experiences can help with whatever task you are struggling with.

I love experimenting with different things at work when it comes to my programming and coding, and also I’ve looked to do this in other areas (diet, eating habits, exercise, and side hustles).

When you experiment, instead of taking some one else’s instruction, you make original connections in your brain for yourself.

Those first hand connections are so powerful and can help you make even more original connections in your brain for your next tasks.

7. Remember Consistent Actions Added Up WILL Lead to Massive Success

Success is simply the sum of simple daily disciplines and actions.

When starting off, it’s very tough to see any progress.

However, the power of compounding is incredibly powerful.

Think about pushing a massive rock – at first, you can barely push it. But, after pushing more and more, all of a sudden, the rock starts to move and turn over on itself.

As time goes on, you barely have to push.

That’s the power of compounding and consistency.

So many people fail to get to that breaking point, and instead give up.

You need to commit to consistency and action if you want to find success and master your life.

By committing to action and doing, you will be able to figure out what is best for your situation and get on to achieving your dreams.

Eliminate Self Doubt and Get on to Achieving Your Dreams Today!

Getting rid of self doubt and boosting your self confidence can seem like something which is impossible, but I can assure you that you can make it happen for yourself.

Improving a little bit on your mindset and habits each day can help you get towards getting that promotion at work, breaking through a fitness barrier, or helping you become more social.

Cultivating self confidence and having a strong, positive image of yourself in your head might not happen over night.

But, by working on boosting self confidence and removing self doubt from your focus, you can improve.

Thanks for reading!

Eggs are an easy to make and inexpensive food to eat to get a lot of protein and nutrients. Eggs are a superfood and might make sense to include in your diet. In this article, I’m going to share with you why I eat more than 30 eggs a week. 

I eat a lot of eggs every week.

Usually, I’ll go through 30 eggs a week, and it seems I’m always buying a new container at the store.

For me, throwing some butter, or olive oil, in a pan, cracking 5 eggs and scrambling them up is a great way to get my protein for a meal.

Eating eggs is very good for you and can help you reach your fitness and health goals.

Now, you don’t need to eat as many eggs as me, but if you don’t eat eggs at all, then hopefully this article will inspire you to give them a try!

In this article, I’m going to share with you why I eat over 30 eggs a week, and some reasons why eating lots of eggs can help you reach your goals.

Why I Eat Lots of Eggs Every Week

Let me tell you about myself: I like to keep things simple.

When it comes to my eating habits, I especially like to keep things simple.

For me, I wouldn’t quite say I’m a bodybuilder, but the thought behind my diet is inspired by bodybuilders.

In my diet, I look to:

• have around 100 grams of protein a day
• eat a high amount of healthy fats (nuts for example)
• and have a low to moderate amount of carbohydrates

Since I work out a number of days a week, I’m not too concerned with my calories. Also, if I overdo one day, then I clean it up the next day.

With this diet plan, I’m able to eat basically anything in moderation, but typically, I’ll have two or three high protein meals a day, and snack on nuts, fruits and vegetables between those bigger meals.

As someone who is also interested in being financially successful, I also look to eat inexpensively.

What is an inexpensive food which is high in protein and is packed with a ton of nutrients? Eggs.

I love eggs and have been eating lots of eggs for a number of years now.

Eggs are fast and easy to make, are relatively inexpensive, are high in protein, and are relatively lower in calories.

With all of these benefits, these fit right into my simple diet plan.

I eat 5 or 6 eggs a day (either for lunch or dinner because I practice intermittent fasting and don’t eat breakfast), and eat over 30 eggs a week.

But these are just some of the reasons why eggs are amazing, and in the next section, I’m going to dive into the 3 reasons why I believe eggs should be included in your diet.

3 Reasons Why I Eat Lots of Eggs

Eggs are a superfood and can be a great addition to any diet plan. Eggs have many benefits.

3 main reasons why I eat lots of eggs are:

1. Eggs have many health benefits and nutrients
2. Eggs are high in protein 
3. The cost of eggs is relatively inexpensive

Let’s dive into these benefits of eggs in more detail now in the following sections.

1. Eggs Have Many Health Benefits and Nutrients

It’s a fact that eggs have many health benefits and nutrients.

Eggs are incredibly nutritious, because, as you may know, a whole egg has everything needed to produce a baby chicken!

Eggs are a superfood, and with vitamins A, B, D, E, K and other minerals, they have a little bit of almost every nutrient you need to be healthy!

Also, eggs can have many weight loss benefits.

In a study in overweight adults, calorie-restricted diets that included either eggs or a bagel for breakfast were compared; the people who consumed eggs for breakfast lowered their body mass index by 61 percent, lost 65 percent more weight, and reported feeling more energetic than those who ate a bagel for breakfast.

That study has some incredible results, and this is just more evidence for the benefits of eggs.

2. Eggs are High in Protein

One of the main reasons I love eggs is how they are high in protein.

Depending on the size, a single egg will have between 5 and 7 grams of protein.

This protein is high quality and contains all the essential amino acids necessarily for muscle growth.

In addition to being high in protein, eggs have a few grams of healthy fat, and no carbs.

Eggs are usually around 75 calories, and with this, you have a high protein, high fat and low calorie food which is filling and nutrients – again a perfect food to include in your diet!

For me, if I have 6 eggs, this will mean I’ll have a dish with:

• around 450 calories
• 35 grams of protein
• 30 grams of fat
• and little to no carbs.

For my physical fitness and health goals, this dish is fantastic for pre- or post-workout.

I’m looking to get to my dream body, and eggs are a great help towards this goal.

3. Eggs are Relatively Inexpensive

As someone on the path to financial freedom, I’m conscious of what I’m spending my money on, and how much I save every month.

One last reason why I love eggs is how cheap they are. For me, when I shop at my local target, I’m able to get 18 eggs for less than $2.

When I make eggs, I typically scramble 5-6 eggs. From a cost perspective, 6 eggs is less than $0.75.

For roughly 30 grams of protein, this is the start of a pretty cheap and high protein meal!

During the week, I eat over 30 eggs, and since I’m able to buy these eggs at such a good price, my weekly expense for my egg purchases is usually around $5 a week.

If I was to go out, I’d spend a lot more money on food. With making eggs, I’m able to save a lot of money by eating in.

Eat More Eggs Today to Save Money and Improve Your Health!

I love eggs and I hope this article has inspired you to start including eggs in your diet.

Whether you are looking to get stronger, lose weight, or feel healthier, I believe eggs have a place in your diet.

You don’t need to have eggs every day, but having a few eggs a few times a week could make a big difference in your health.

Hope you enjoyed this article, and thank you for reading!

Are you looking to make more money and increase your income?

For most people there is only one solution – work more hours.

Working more hours means giving up more of your free time and throwing off your life balance.

When work takes priority over everything, all the other mow important aspects of life, such as family, friendships, and hobbies (and even general household upkeep) suffer.

In many ways, by working more hours, you could be missing out on everything you’re working so hard for.

Fortunately, upping your hours isn’t the only way to increase your income. There are multiple ways to increase your income without dedicating more hours to the grind.

By understanding passive income and how you can make money without working more, you can increase your income and improve your financial situation.

In this post, you’ll learn what is passive income, learn some ways you can make more money without working more, and get some money making resources and book recommendations for your personal growth.

What is Passive Income?

First, when thinking about making more money without working more, we need to understand the concept of passive income.

Passive income is income which requires little to no effort to earn and maintain.

Examples of passive income are:

• real estate
• dividends from stocks
• digital real estate
• income from a business investment

Passive income is great because you can make money without working more.

While it can be difficult to get passive income in place, once you have passive income, you can then get on the way to financial freedom.

5 Ways You Can Make More Money Without Working More

There are a number of ways you can make more money without working more.

In this post, I have 5 ways you can earn more without working more:

1. Ask for a raise
2. Find sources of passive income
3. Sell your clutter
4. Make money doing the things you love
5. Leverage time to find other opportunities

Let’s get into each of these ways to increase your income below:

1. Ask for a Raise

One way to earn more income is to simply ask for more.

• If you work for an employer, this could mean asking for a pay raise.
• If you’re self-employed, this could mean charging more for your services or products.

Many of us believe we deserve a pay raise, but do nothing about it.

If you think you’re getting paid less than you’re worth, you should tell your employer.

Wages may be fixed in some bigger companies, making it difficult to get a raise without also getting a promotion (which means taking on more responsibility), but in smaller and more independent companies, a wage can almost always be negotiated.

Obviously, you need to prove that you’re working above and beyond –  if you’ve been slacking recently you may have to work a little harder to earn that pay raise.

2. Find Sources of Passive Income

Another way to earn more without working more is to find sources of passive income. This often involves an initial investment, but after, you’ll make a return over time without having to put in much work.

Investing in property can be a good source of passive income.

The most common way to do this is to rent out a property to tenants. By charging more rent that’s more than your monthly mortgage payment, you can start making a profit right away.

Of course, you do need to be able to afford the down payment for a property first, and owning a home or rental is a lot of work. You’ll be responsible for repairs, up-keep, and keeping your tenants happy.

Another way to make passive income is by investing, most commonly in stocks and bonds.

Stocks and bonds provide passive income in the form of dividends (payouts paid to shareholders, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly) and value increases. Whenever the company pays a dividend, you get money directly deposited into your account.

Those wanting a more stable form of passive income without having to invest too much money in the market should consider putting money into a savings account, CD or bond.

These are all ways to make income passively, as it will naturally grow interest. CDs and government bonds provide some of the highest interest with the lowest risk.

The great thing about passive income is that you don’t have to do much once the initial work is over – you just sit back and watch the money come in.

The more sources of passive income you set up, the more you’ll earn – and you’ll barely have to lift a finger to earn it.

3. Sell Your Clutter

Another way to make more money without necessarily doing more is by selling your clutter.

This is another easy way to make money when you need a quick boost of income.

Many of us have unwanted possessions that are valuable – these could be unwanted gifts, old hobby equipment, inherited belongings, or items that we’re simply hanging onto out of sentimental value.

By selling these items, you can turn that junk into a decent sum of money.

There’s an almost unlimited amount of ways to sell your clutter.

You can start locally, by holding a garage sale or estate sale, or try selling them at an auction or consignment store. Even easier, you can sell your stuff online through sites like the Facebook Marketplace, or Ebay, or Declutter – even Amazon!

Why limit yourself to local customers when you can sell to people all over the country – even the world!

4. Make Money Doing Things You Love

Many of us have hobbies that we could monetize if we wanted to. A level of skill may be needed to turn a hobby into a profession, but quite often it’s not as much skill as you may think.

If you play a sport and you’re passionate about it, you could make money teaching this sport to other people, or maybe coaching in some way.

Say you play a musical instrument – you could try making money performing (this could be anything from a dive bar to a local venue), or you could become a tutor.

If you’re good at making things with your hands, like baking, or making jewelry, you can easily make money selling the things you create locally or on stores like Etsy.

You don’t have to turn these hobbies into fully-fledged businesses – it could just be a side hustle to make a few extra bucks here and there.

However, if you do decide to turn it into a business, it could be a way to make a decent income doing something you enjoy. While you may be dedicating lots of hours to it, when it’s something you enjoy, it may not always feel like a job.

After all, if you like doing something, is it really work?

5. Leverage Time to Find More Passive income Opportunities

The best investors and money makers are able to cut down their hours by simplifying tasks and what’s needed from them.

If you can set up systems which will give you more time, then you can focus your efforts on other money making endeavors.

This could mean:

• working from home, and saving time on your commute
• getting a property manager for your rental property
• hiring contractors for your passion projects

The point is, with less time needed for you to be working, the more time you will have to follow through on more passive income opportunities.

Now,  let’s talk about some resources for passive income you can study.

Books about Passive Income and Making Money

I believe you should always be learning a little bit each and every day on the way to achieving your goals.

Learning about passive income and ways to make more money without doing more work can be accomplished by reading books.

I’ve read a number of great books over the last few years.

The following three books (and their book reviews) are great for learning more about ways to make more passive income:

• The Millionaire Real Estate Investor Summary
• Click Millionaires Summary
• Retire Early with Real Estate Book Summary

Each of these three books I’ve listed above are great for getting into a passive income mindset and looking to be smarter with your time and money.

Make More Money Today with Less Work with Passive Income

What I want to communicate to you here is with these earning strategies, it’s not how hard you work that determines how much you earn, but how you work.  And the how makes all the difference.

Whether that’s asking for a raise, selling your junk or buying stocks, there are multiple ways you can earn some side income while doing very little work.

By implementing different income earning strategies, some of them passive, you can accomplish a lot without doing much at all.

Rock climbing is a great way to increasing your strength, flexibility and get in shape. I love rock climbing and want to share with you my thoughts after 6 months of rock climbing.

4 months ago, I started rock climbing consistently. Starting off, I was going to a local indoor rock climbing gym two times a week, and now have gotten a year long membership and go three times a week.

Now, I can confidently say I have never felt as strong as I am now, even though back in college I was lifting 4-5 times a week.

Starting off, rock climbing became something I did to supplement my other body weight exercises.

However, because it is so much fun, it seems I’ve started to use my body weight exercises to supplement my rock climbing!

Rock climbing has become a big part of my life and I’m excited to share with you some of my thoughts on my new hobby.

In this post, I’m going to share with you:

• why I’m loving rock climbing
• my fitness level after rock climbing for 4 months, and
• some thoughts on why I probably won’t ever get a membership at a regular gym again

Let’s get into the post!

What is Rock Climbing and How Do I Rock Climb?

First, let’s talk about what I mean when I’m rock climbing.

I go to a indoor climbing gym called Vertical Endeavors in the Twin Cities, and at this gym, there are areas for top rope and bouldering.

Top rope climbing is where you tie into a rope, and then climb up a wall. At the gym I go to, these walls are between 30 and 60 feet high.

Bouldering is where you don’t have any gear, and you climb different routes up to 15 feet.

On the walls, there are different colored routes, and each route is a different difficulty. While you can “rainbow” and climb on whatever color you want, over time, you want to stick to one color per route.

As climbing has become more popular, there are a bunch of gyms in every major suburban area.

Also, you can go outdoor rock climbing. There are thousands of routes all around the world which have been mapped out on the side of mountains, at different boulders, and hills.

I have yet to do this, but plan on going to a bouldering area in a nearby state park soon.

Now that you know what I mean when I say rock climbing, now I’m going to share with you my experience and why I love rock climbing.

Why I Love Rock Climbing

First, I’ve always loved being active, fit and strong. I love sports and am very competitive.

Once I got to college, since I wasn’t playing sports anymore, I started hitting the gym fairly consistently.

The thing about weights though is it is very much the same thing over and over and over again.

Lift this barbell in a certain way, and if you can do it for 10 reps, then maybe consider adding weight.

With lifting weights, it’s very much a straightforward process without much room for creativity and exploration.

While yes, you can get creative with your workout program, it’s still just a matter of up-down with different movements.

However, with rock climbing, there is a huge problem solving aspect to getting up a wall. This is why I love rock climbing, and think it’s so much fun.

I love rock climbing because:

• there’s a lot of problem solving that goes into being successfully
• it’s an awesome feeling to be able to get to the top of a wall successfully
• getting into and out of different body positions makes me feel very strong

Body positioning is such a huge part of becoming better at rock climbing.

When approaching a wall, you have to look and plan out your route. You can’t just try and climb everything like a ladder, and with this, there is a lot of thinking that must happen to put yourself in the best position to succeed.

Also, it’s so awesome to be able to get to the top of a wall and be way up in the air. Even though I’m slightly scared of heights, I still think it’s an incredible feeling.

Becoming Strong, Fit and Feeling Better than When Doing Weights

As I’m typing this right now, I can confidently say I feel better and feel stronger now than I did when I was throwing around a ton of iron and weight at the gym.

I might not be stronger, in terms of the weight I can throw around, but I feel stronger.

First, I believe it’s very important to be self-aware and listen to your body when you are getting in shape.

For this reason, as I’ve gotten back into shape this year and am at a great level of fitness now, I’m confident in my comments about how I feel better than I did before rock climbing.

I think there are a few reasons for why I’m feeling so strong:

• My grip strength is stupid.
  • From rock climbing, I can now hang on a bar from 1 arm for 5-10 seconds.
  • Also,when doing pull-ups, I rarely will stop because of grip, but instead because I can’t pull-up anymore.
• I don’t feel many aches and pains from my joints.
  • Since rock climbing is all body weight, I don’t have any joint pain (at least right now), that I used to experience with my knees and shoulders from squatting and bench pressing.
• Being able to hold my body in different positions requires a strong core
  • When I’m doing an overhanging boulder problem or need to make a slow move, I need to keep my core very tight or I will fall off the wall.

Overall though, it just feels awesome to be able to move my body in different ways with my own strength.

While these points have been made on how I’m feeling, I actually found out I am as strong I once was back in college.

Why I Don’t Think I’ll Get a Regular Gym Membership Again

This past summer, I was the manager of an intern at work. This intern was a total gym rat and power lifter.

About half way into the internship, he was completing a lifting program, and after each lifting program, he re-tests his maximum lifts.

He asked if I wanted to come lift with him and max with him.

At this point, I had been doing my body weight exercises (push-ups, planks, body weight squats, and pull-ups) and rock climbing for a handful of months, but hadn’t been in a regular gym in 15 months.

What the heck I thought, I’ll max with him.

Back in college, my maximum lifts were a 265 pound bench press, 340 pound back squat and 300 pound dead lift.

These max lifts were all hit when I was lifting 4-5 times a week.

Again, I hadn’t done a bench press, back squat or dead lift in 15 months, and I had no expectations when I went to the gym with my intern.

I was blown away by my results.

From doing intense push-up exercises only, I had built enough strength to perform a 225 pound bench press. From rock climbing, my grip and back was strong enough for a 295 pound dead lift.

What was crazy on the dead lift was it wasn’t my grip which was the problem, it was my legs and back which couldn’t push hard enough when I tried 315 pounds.

With these results, I realized I can be strong without lifting weights!

I can be strong by doing intense body weight exercises consistently, eating a healthy diet, and supplementing my diet with different workout supplements.

This is certainly a challenge to the mainstream thought of “you need to go to the gym to be strong”.

I’m definitely happy I’ve been able to figure out what makes sense for me and my body.

Over the next year, I want to keep improving and progressing as a rock climber, and hope to climb a 5.11+ route by next summer!

How Much Does Rock Climbing Cost?

On this blog, I like to talk a lot about money and finances.

The rock climbing membership I got is $55 a month. This is definitely more than the $35 a month I was paying at LA Fitness when I went there, but $55 a month is similar to a middle tier regular gym.

One cool thing about the rock climbing gyms that I go to is there are regular workout equipment for you to use if you want to do this.

With this regular workout equipment, I can use these weights if I want to (I don’t because I like body weight exercises so much).

With these options, I think it justifies the slightly higher price.

Also, I’m not afraid to spend money on my health and wellness, and so if it’s an extra $20 a month for better results and more fun, I definitely am happy to spend the money.

Does Rock Climbing Interest You?

I’ve loved getting into rock climbing and definitely recommend you try it out if you haven’t before.

If you have tried it out, maybe it makes sense to start supplementing you current exercises with it to get a better variety of exercises.

Becoming a well rounded individual and the master of your life should involve trying new things and seeing what makes sense for you.

What I love about rock climbing is it really does help you become a well rounded athlete – I’m strong, flexible and conditioned.

Last year, I tried yoga for a few months, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t quite my favorite thing to do.

Now that I’m rock climbing, I’m loving it, and I’m seeing how it’s benefiting my other activities, such as hiking, golfing, and basketball.

What do you think? Would you give rock climbing a try?

Readers: does rock climbing interest you? What are you doing to become strong and fit? Do you go to a regular gym, do yoga, or do other exercises?

Thanks for reading!

Becoming financially successful and winning with your money can be accomplished with the right game plan and actions. Luckily, you don’t need a finance degree to be good with money. In this post, you’ll learn the 15 steps you can take to improve your financial situation in your 20’s, and how to become financially smart in your 20’s.

Are you looking to get into a better financial situation? Do you want to be able to make financially smart decisions? Would you like to save more money and learn about personal finances? Are you in debt and want to get out of debt?

This might be obvious to you, but the financial decisions you make in your 20’s can either help or hurt your financial future.

Unfortunately, there are people who, either through bad luck or bad decisions, do not have their financial house in order in their 30’s,  40’s and 50’s, and cannot live the life they want to live.

I believe that through intentional living and smart decision making, anyone can be successful.

It’s possible that these same people could be in better financial situations if they made different choices.

The thing is with personal finance, these choices are usually not life changing. You would be surprised if I told you an extra $50 a month in savings (not a lot of money each month) could lead to thousands later in life!

Becoming better with your finances, finding financial success, and winning with your money in your 20’scan build a great foundation for your future self.

In this post, I’m going to share with you 15 steps, and a number of great resources for learning personal finance, to help you become more confident when handling your finances and money.

Let’s get into this personal finance basics post!

15 Steps to Winning With Your Money in Your 20’s

Below are the 15 steps to win with your money which I will cover in this post. By following these steps, you can create a great financial foundation for your life early in adulthood.

After creating a great financial foundation, you can then start thinking about financial freedom.

This post however is all about the steps to take to create an incredibly solid financial foundation.

The 15 steps to becoming financially successful are:

1. Start Thinking Positive Thoughts
2. Cultivate an Abundance Mindset
3. Decide to Live Intentionally
4. Start Tracking Your Income and Expenses
5. Learn More about Personal Finance
6. Cut Expenses to Save More Money
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Focus on Exploding Your Income
9. Understand Credit Scores
10. Build an Emergency Fund
11. Learn about Investing and Investment Accounts
12. Explore House Hacking
13. Start a Side Hustle
14. Become Self Aware of What You Enjoy in Life
15. Stay Consistent with Your Actions

Let’s dive into each of these steps for winning with money in greater detail.

1. Start Thinking Positive Thoughts

Our minds are incredibly powerful and can quite literally create its own reality.

Using positive thinking can manifest itself in building the financial situation you want.

Telling yourself you are good with money can lead to you becoming better with money.

You are what you say you are.

Saying, “I’m a negative person who is broke and will never be rich” is a reinforcing trap. Saying this sort of thing will result in you being a negative person who is broke and will never be rich.

Likewise, telling yourself, “I’m a positive person who can build wealth and improve my financial situation” will lead to improving your financial situation.

Using positive thinking can help guide you on your path to winning with money.

While mindset alone will not change your financial situation, by starting to think positive thoughts, you will start believing in yourself and change for the better.

2. Cultivate an Abundance Mindset

Think about this for a second: there is so much money in the world, and to become a little bit wealthier – you just need to get a little bit of it.

In the world, there are trillions and trillions of units of wealth (dollars, whatever your country’s currency is, etc).

0.0000001% of 1 Trillion Dollars is $10,000.

Think about that, of all the money in the world, you only need to get 0.0000001% of it to get to 5 figures in savings.

Can you do this?

Getting into an abundance mindset will let you believe in yourself, and also realize that you can win while others win.

Creating value and doing what’s right in the world can lead to riches – you don’t need to steal or cut others down to make more money.

3. Decide to Live Intentionally

Do you decide what will happen to you in your life, or do you let life decide what will happen to you?

Improving your financial situation involves intentional living and doing what you want with your time, money and efforts.

By setting goals, making a plan, and executing on that plan, you can build wealth, pay down debt and grow your savings.

To do this, you need to start living intentionally and practice proactive behavior.

Instead of letting life happen to you, you need to take action and lead a life of intention and action.

After making the decision to live with intention, a decision to care about your financial situation, then you can get onto learning about the basics of personal finances, come up with a financial plan, and start executing your plan.

4. Start Tracking Your Income and Expenses

One of my favorite quotes is “What gets measured, gets managed”, by Peter Drucker.

The idea behind this quote is especially important in the world of personal finance.

If you don’t know where you are with your finances, how are you going to get to where you want to go?

Tracking your income and expenses is easily the most important step for improving your financial situation. Just knowing how much you are saving (or spending) each month will allow you to prioritize what you can cut back on, or what you should change regarding your spending habits.

At a minimum, you should track your income, expenses, savings rate, and net worth.

Once you know each of these numbers, you can then start making changes in your spending habits to start saving more, paying down debt, investing more, etc.

Looking at your bank statements is one place to start, but there are also a number of great software packages (or Excel) which you can use to track your personal finances.

5. Learn More about Personal Finance

After you’ve started tracking your numbers, now it’s time to start learning more about personal finance.

When I think about personal finance, I think of the following topic areas:

• Making Money
• Paying Down Debt
• Saving Money
• Investing
• Mindset
• Budgeting

These personal finance topic areas have some overlap, but a lot of the content is unique and specific to a certain goal and situation.

Learning about personal finance basics can be done through reading personal finance books, personal finance blogs, or personal finance podcasts.

You’ll have to figure out which medium of learning is best for you, but I can assure you, there are hundreds of great resources out there for you to explore.

For me, when I started on my personal finance journey, I read a lot of personal finance blogs. I also love reading books, so read a lot of different personal finance and investing books.

You might like podcasts, and luckily there are a ton of podcasts to help you learn the basics of personal finance!

Over time, you’ll become comfortable with different personal finance terms and concepts, and get on to becoming a personal finance expert.

6. Cut Expenses to Save More Money

After starting to track your expenses and learning more about personal finance, now, it’s time to start building a solid financial foundation.

The best place to start, which will bring fast results for your financial situation, is to cut unnecessary expenses.

Even $100 a month can add up over time, and I’d be very surprised if you weren’t spending $100 on things you don’t necessarily need (I know I do even in months where I’m really good with my spending!).

The first place you should start is by examining the big three expenses: housing, transportation and food.

While it might not make sense to move, over time, you can consider downsizing or picking a slightly less nice apartment to save more money.

For transportation, buying a slightly used car vs. buying a new luxury car lead to massive savings over time.

For food, cooking your meals vs. going out can lead to great savings.

After examining these three expense categories, subscriptions and impulse purchases are next.

Over time, you can figure out which expenses are necessary, and which expenses are unnecessary. Through this process, you will then be able to save more money over time.

7. Get Out of Debt

Being in debt is incredibly restricting and expensive.

Whether you have credit card debt, student loan debt, a mortgage, an auto loan, or a personal loan, getting out of debt should be a priority over time.

Being in debt sucks and is not a freeing feeling.

Getting out of debt can happen faster by paying more than the minimum payment each month, and over time, you can employ some different pay down strategies, refinance, or consolidate your debts to further decrease your payments.

At the end of the day, being completely debt free is the goal, and this will help you on your path to winning with money and becoming financially successful.

8. Focus on Exploding Your Income

After you’ve gotten a handle on your expenses and debt, now, it’s time to focus on providing value in the world and exploding your income.

While you can get the fastest personal finance benefit from decreasing your expenses, there is unlimited upside when you look at the income side of the personal finance equation.

Growing your income can involve a number of things:

• Taking courses relevant to your work
• Changing jobs or industry
• Going back to school for a new degree
• Starting a side hustle
• Picking up a second shift or second job

At the end of the day though, you want to become more valuable in the industry you are interested in working in.

I work in the financial industry, and for me, to become successful in my role, I’ve had to:

• learn about different financial products and jargon
• get certain credentials and degrees
• work on my communication and big picture thinking
• and learn how to automate and make efficient processes with programming

This didn’t happen over night, but during the past 5 years, I’ve nearly doubled my salary by having this “look to add value” mindset.

You can do this too through your intentional actions and figuring how what makes sense in your current or prospective role.

9. Understand Credit Scores

While the goal is to have no debt and to never have to be in debt, there are some times in your life where financing a certain purchase (houses could make sense here).

Understanding how credit scores work, and how you can increase your credit score, is a piece of personal finance which is easy to learn and improve upon.

There are five main factors that determine your credit score:

• Payment History (35%)
• Utilization (30%)
• Length Of Credit History (15%)
• New Credit (10%)
• Types Of Credit Used (10%).

By focusing on improving each of these categories, you can improve your credit score.

With a better credit score, you can get lower interest rates and better financing options – saving money on your interest expense if you decide to take on new debts.

10. Build an Emergency Fund

Having funds set aside for emergencies is critical for being able to weather any unexpected expenses.

Saving up 3-6 months of expenses in a savings account, or having other liquid assets ready to go in times of need can be the difference between extreme stress and sleeping well at night.

Building an emergency fund is all about saving more money for an extended period of time until you are happy with your level of expenses saved up.

For me, I like having 6 months of expenses saved up, but you might like less or more. You’ll have to figure out what you are comfortable with for yourself!

11. Learn about Investing and Investment Accounts

While it is great to save money in traditional bank accounts, these days, banks are paying pennies in interest.

Learning about investing, and looking for other ways to grow you money over time, can help you build wealth after establishing your solid financial foundation.

There are a number of different assets and ways to invest and grow your money. Some of these asset classes include:

• Real estate
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Precious Metals
• Small Businesses
• Cryptocurrencies

By learning about the pros and cons of each of these asset classes, you can then make a decide on where to put your money to try to grow it for your financial future.

12. Explore House Hacking

In your 20s and 30s, house hacking is one of the best ways to build wealth fast and get into the real estate investing game.

For me, house hacking was my best financial move to date, and over a 4 year span, I was able to make $15,000 to live. 

That’s right I made money to live in my house – through buying a house and renting it out to friends, I was able to cover my mortgage and make some money on top of the mortgage.

As I mentioned above, in step 6, cutting housing expenses can have a huge impact on your financial situation, and with house hacking, you can cut your housing expenses in a huge way.

13. Start a Side Hustle

Starting a side hustle can be incredibly rewarding, and can also be lucrative.

While side hustling is not for everyone, for me, it has definitely been a great way to gain exposure to new topics of interest, learn new skills, and grow as a person.

Over time too, your side hustle might be able to become your full time hustle!

Starting a side hustle can be as easy as mowing your neighbor’s lawn, signing up to do bookkeeping for a local small business, creating graphics and marketing content with the help of tools such as the Pix AI Art Generator, or even refereeing a local sports league.

A side hustle could also be starting a business, a blog, or something with potential to scale!

Depending on what you want your life to look like, a side hustle might be for you, and if it is, then aligning your side hustle with your goals and dreams will lead to the best outcome.

14. Become Self Aware of What You Enjoy in Life

When you start diving into personal finance, learning the basics of personal finance, and becoming a personal finance geek, you will become obsessed with money.

Over time though, you might realize that life isn’t about money, and really, money doesn’t really matter unless you are able to use that money to live an enjoyable life.

The whole point of financial success and winning with money is so that you can live your dream life and do what you want with your time!

Becoming self-aware of what you like to do, understanding there should be a balance between work and play, and understanding money isn’t everything will lead to a successful life.

15. Stay Consistent with Your Actions

Doing the right action once, and never again will not lead to success in life.

Doing the right action over and over, and repeating this process for months and years, WILL lead to success.

Personal finance success isn’t hard, but the application of consistent actions can be tough to do.

Becoming successful financially can happen if you stick with it, keep learning over time, find balance in your budget and expenses, and look to grow your income over time.

Having this mindset of consistency and action, and having patience will lead to winning with your money and becoming a financial success.

Learn The Basics of Personal Finance and Start Winning With Money!

Hopefully this article provides you with a number of resources and ideas for getting on the right path for personal finance success.

What I’ve provided above are a lot of the basics of personal finance. My hope is you will go back now and click into some of the other articles to get more information on each of these topics.

While your financial situation will more likely not improve overnight, little by little, you can improve your financial situation and win with money.

If you have questions, please leave a comment below! Thanks for reading!