If you were offered that ideal job right now, today — would you be able to accept it? Would you be able to handle the responsibilities? Would you have the necessary skills, the knowledge, the contacts, the insight to succeed?

Would you be able to say yes to the opportunity of a lifetime, if it came along today? Opportunity, to be realized, takes more than willingness. It takes preparation. When you’re prepared for opportunity, it comes to you in abundance.

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And there’s certainly nothing to be gained from a solution that merely masks or delays the problem without addressing the underlying cause. When there’s a problem in your life, get to work rooting out the core of that problem.

Facing a challenge requires effort, and yet that effort is necessary only for a relatively short time. Running from the challenge requires ever-increasing effort that has no end.

The sooner you start working through a problem, the more quickly you’ll have that problem behind you. The earlier you deal with the root cause of the problem, the more effective your efforts will be.

Truly eliminating the cause of the problem does indeed take more work than quickly fixing the symptoms. Yet once the difficult work is done to remove the problem, it’s gone for good.

Do the work to root out each problem at its core. And your efforts will bring lasting rewards.

What I mean by improving your awareness is that you realize on a conscious level some of the things you’ve been doing that are counter productive towards your over all life success. You also come to the full realization as to why you need to stop doing these things.

1. Doubting Yourself – If you think that you can’t achieve something then I have some good news for you, you’re probably right. Doubts and lack of self belief are the number one way to not only fail to achieve your goals, but to prevent yourself for even trying to go for them in the first place.

Ask yourself, is there anyone in this world that could achieve what I want to achieve? If so, then you definitely can as well.

2. Looking for Answers – I don’t mean this as a sort of umbrella phrase that covers every situation in the world, sometimes we need answers. On occasion we need to know why things happened and how we can change them, but a lot of the answers we look for won’t change anything even if we get them.

• “Why do some people have all the luck?”
• “Why was I born into this environment?”
• “Why am I not smart, pretty, cool, rich?”

These are all questions that deserve no time to be pondered. Don’t look for answers, just start creating results.

3. Procrastinating - This is something I struggled with for a long time, but regular readers of the site will know that I ‘cured’ this quite well. Basically, I make sure I know what I want in life, and any time I catch myself procrastinating or wishing I didn’t have to do a certain ask, I simply ask myself: “Do you really want this?”

Has there ever been a time when procrastinating actually served you well? Did those extra 20 minutes on Facebook or a call to your friend really help the situation? The ‘problem’ is still going to be there, so just deal with it now.

4. Blaming Someone Else – It’s far easier and more likely for us to blame someone else for our current situation rather than take responsibility ourselves. “I’m poor because John makes bad financial decisions” or “I’m unhappy because Sarah left me”.

You have to take full and total responsibility for yourself and all of your actions. Sure, there will be people who want to help you and people involved in what you do, but you are completely responsible for the outcome. If you keep looking to others as the reason for your ‘failures’ without picking up the pieces yourself, these ‘failures’ will continue to happen.

5. Judging Others – First of all, you have absolutely nothing to gain but everything to lose from judging someone. People that others would instantly judge as ‘uncool’ or ‘boring’ have turned out to be some of the most awesome people I’ve ever met in my life.

Secondly, I want to make it clear that I’m not just saying this because it is nice and should be included on a list like this; I fully believe it and try to implement it into my life as much as possible. If you are going to judge people, at least judge them by their actions, and not their appearance or their background.

6. Waiting to Live – I think most of you will relate to this point more than any. I should know, I’ve spent a good few years of my life waiting for things to happen before life will be perfect and I can start enjoying it. As soon as I get that big promotion, as soon as I’m making enough money, as soon as I’ve gained X amount of lbs and I’m ripped etc., these are all useless thoughts that I’ve had.

You know what, these things may come, and you may get to finish college or get to your dream weight. As soon as you get there though, you’ll realise you’ve just wasted and forgotten the whole journey it took to arrive at the spot. The time to enjoy life is right now, no matter what situation you are in or what you hope the future may hold.

7. Needing Reasons to Be Happy – I have a huge smile on my face as I’m writing this; in fact I’ve had one for the last few days. Should I tell you why? OK, well…there is absolutely no reason. What reason do you need to feel great, why not just feel great? It all starts with loving yourself and appreciating what you have in life at this moment.

I’m feeling like that on a very regular basis these days. We often feel we need things to ‘happen’ to give ourselves permission to be happy. Yet, when you think about it, how ridiculous is that? At any moment in time, you can have complete control over how you feel. Don’t look for reasons to feel good and smile, you’re alive, that should be enough.

8. Caring What People Think – I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t easy, and I don’t think it’s going to come instantly unless you have some drugs or alcohol available. I have no doubt that this step takes time, but you can begin to care less and less with practice.

“What people say about you is none of your business”

- Sean Stephenson

You should just really put life into perspective, and trust yourself and your own direction. This is the only opportunity we have, are we really going to spend our time worrying about what people think of us, something we can’t even change anyway?

I would love to hear your thoughts, what other things do you think we should stop doing right now?

“Time Takes Everything Away” ~ No matter how bad things may seem at the moment keep in mind that it is just for this moment. Time always has a way of healing, mending and making things better. For example just think back to a major problem that occupied your mind three years ago. At that point in time did it seem very daunting? How does that problem feel to you today now that three years have passed? When you face major challenges just always keep in mind that things will progressively get better and the problem of today will only consume you if you let it. Ensure you keep things in the proper perspective.

To set yourself free of those limiting beliefs, crowd them out with inspiration. The more inspired you are, the more easily you’ll dissolve the beliefs that hold you back.

Focus on a beautiful, wonderful, meaningful possibility. Feel how you must let go of your limiting beliefs in order to fully imagine and comprehend that possibility.

See that ultimately, the only thing that really holds you back is your belief that you cannot move forward. Once you’ve let that go, you free yourself to soar.

Anything is possible. And underneath all those illusions of limitation, you know it without a doubt.

Trade your limitations for inspirations. And fulfill the best that is within you.

If you’re not quite sure how you’ll proceed, go ahead and get started anyway. The way to work out the details is to jump into the work.

Each moment that flows quickly into your life will flow out again just as quickly. While you have it, you can transform that moment into a lasting accomplishment.

Make a little bit of progress, again and again. Soon, you will have created great value.

You can do it, because you are alive and aware and willing to get where you wish to go. Whatever your situation, whatever your circumstance, you can make something positive and valuable out of it.

Choose now to make progress, and allow a positive momentum to take hold. Feel the joy of being the immensely creative person you can surely be.

Video footage from Snatch. Audio clips from Muhammad Ali’s speech, Rocky, and Coach Carter. Still photography by Gabriel Stiritz and Lauren Herreid. Music from Transformers and Gladiator. Hanz Zimmer.

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