Self Improvement is an Addictive Habit

If there were self-improvers anonymous meetings I would be a permanent attendee for I am addicted to personal development. Now that I have started down this path I find that I cannot help but push myself to achieve more and improve more. One of my main hobbies has become the act of continually seeking to improve my life and the lives of those around me. I have noticed that other serial self-improvers "suffer" the same consequences, perpetually improving their lives and achieving more and more success as they do so. Through this observation, and my own experience, I have made a simple conclusion: self improvement is an addictive habit.

Self Improvement is an addictive habit

Addictions are generally bad things. The word itself has a strong negative connotation and the usage generally implies a lack of control and self-awareness. But not all addictions are bad.

Positive things with positive outcomes can also be addictive. Productivity, achievement and success all trigger a "natural high", a mental state of supreme happiness, awareness, and confidence. Self improvement just happens to ticks all these boxes.

The result of self improvement is a positive increase in all the above areas and so much more. It creates a positive aura, one that attracts more positivity and success, and it stimulates our mind and body and encourages us to start operating at a higher level. This is what makes it so addictive.

A friend of mine actually inspired this article when we were talking about home improvement. Here is his direct quote, and proof that once you start improving something, your mind begins to open up to see other opportunities:

Installing a new wardrobe was a bad idea...I now want to do all the other stuff on my To Do list. I'd kind of forgotten about all the things, but now we've started I'm remembering them all and when I walk around the house now all I see is things that need improving.

The beauty of self improvement is that it is never ending. There is always something else that can be learned and adapted to our lives. There are always new experiences, new people, and new challenges presented in our lives, and this is the only dangerous aspect of being addicted to self improvement - it easy to forget that there is no specific end goal in mind and that the simple act of self improvement is what provides happiness. This is summed up perfectly in the oft-quoted line by Souza:

Happiness is the journey, not the destination.

So for those just starting down the self improvement path, be mindful that it is the actual deed of self improvement that provides us with the happiness - the feeling of adding to our skills and knowledge, of making ourselves a better person, and of achieving more success. Do not get too hung up on thinking about the future and where you are going, but rather on living (and improving) in the present moment.

Or You Could Stagnate...

The alternative to this wonderful addiction called self improvement is that of stagnating. By stagnating I mean making the decision (conscious or not) to stay exactly as you are right now.

If you are not willing to challenge yourself, to grow, and to improve then what are you doing? Are you saying there is nothing in your life that needs changing? Are you saying that you couldn't be happier?

If you can truly answer yes to those questions (and I highly doubt that you can) then I have one more question: is there nothing more that you can do in your life that could help improve the life of others?

Even if you had everything you ever wanted, if you really were living your perfect life, I believe that you could still find even more happiness simply by helping others. And isn't the ability to sacrifice and be charitable, just one of the results of self improvement? See what I did there?

There is never a valid reason to stagnate in your life but, sadly, I see this as the default stance more and more people are taking. They are "giving up" and just accepting a life of mediocrity, anger, and unhappiness instead of trying to make a change. It doesn't take much. All you need to do is actually make a start.

Start Improving Today

I know that self improvement is an addictive habit because I am experiencing it first hand, but for those first-timers, and those who are trying to break out of their habit of stagnation, it can feel almost impossible to start. But don't worry, it's not impossible. You just need to start small.

Try being grateful for one thing, or giving a fresh compliment to someone, every day. Try some positive affirmations before you leave the home or just focus on observing your own thought patterns and living in the moment. It doesn't matter what you do, just as long as you do something!

Once you start down the path of improvement it will become near impossible to stop. The first time you work on self improvement is like the first snowflake that causes the avalanche - pretty soon the desire to improve is raging and the amount of improvement you seek is like a torrent of snow tumbling down a mountain.

But unlike the snow avalanche, this metaphorical one is not destructive. It is actually quite the opposite. Imagine an avalanche that only removed rubbish, beautified the landscape, and made the mountain an even more amazing place than it already was. That is what the avalanche of self improvement does in your life - it is a constant force that pushes away the negativity and stimulates the development of positivity. All it needs is that one snowflake to start it off...

Go forth and seek out self improvement. Your happiness depends on it.

Image: vichie81

Tommy Franklin: The Right Attitude to Life

Over the Christmas and New Year holiday period I spent a fair bit of my time in Sydney, hanging out with some family members. It was a fun, relaxing, and immensely enjoyable time and I came home feeling very happy and positive from the experience. That's what happens when you spend time with quality people. But I'm not writing about that today. This article is about a guy my brother told me to check out on youtube. A guy who has seen a lot bad stuff and had a lot of negativity in his life. A guy who was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, and was spiralling out of control until he nearly died when he was run down by a car. This article is about Tommy Franklin.

Tommy Franklin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFM4FhAJRYE

Tommy Franklin. The man who just pops in his iPod and busts out dance moves in public, grooving his way through the streets and making people smile. He doesn't care what others think about him - he just loves to dance and express himself. It makes him happy so he does it.

I recommended that everyone watches the Tommy Franklin Story (video below). You will be amazed. He is a calm, well spoken, lovely man who is just doing what makes him happy. He's not crazy - he's just likes to dance and smile and is not afraid to show it.

The Tommy Franklin Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPj9aVBdCmA

We could all take a leaf out of Tommy's book and start thinking less about how others see us and more about finding and doing what actually makes us happy.

Image courtesy of TommyFranklin.net

Spend Time With People That Energise You

In my recent wrap up of my first 3 months I noticed that my article about why we all need some alone time has been my most popular piece so far. I think this says a lot about the current organisation in our society and how there is such a strong pressure to stay connected to others that we end up craving more and more alone time. However, I believe that a big part of the problem is the quality and type of social interactions people are having, and it is with that in mind that I thought it was time to talk about the value of spending time with people that energise us. This may sound like the complete opposite stance to my earlier article about needing alone time, but the truth of the matter is that as humans we need both. We need time to be alone and focus on ourselves but we also need time with others, forming emotional and social connections and building our relationships. The problem we face is balancing these needs.

Social Media: The Anti-thesis of a Balanced Life

In terms of balancing your life, social media sucks. No that's not fair. It's not just social media that puts undue strain on us but technology advances in general. Emails, text messages, mobile phones, twiter, facebook, blah blah blah, the list goes on forever. With the plethora of these modern products available to us we have become a society that is always on but never truly connected.

With these technologies anyone can contact us at any time they wish. And they generally do. We spend countless hours in front of a screen (computer, phone or otherwise) interacting with people but not really connecting to them. The problem with this is two-fold.

First, it means we rarely get to experience that true alone time where we can devote to ourselves. With all these options we never disconnect and we lose our personal identities. The increase of availability we have through technologies means a decrease in time for ourselves. Which explains why more people are feeling like they need alone time.

The second problem is that these modern methods of communication are impersonal at best and any positive feeling we derive from them is so short-lived that they do not actually fulfill our human needs for social and emotional connection with others. All they do is give a short burst of quasi-connection with others that just leaves us wanting more. Which is why many people become addicted to social media.

You may have a thousand facebook friends, or a million twitter followers, but how many of these people would you invite to your house for dinner? My guess is not many. This is ultimately sad because face to face is where we form true friendships and actually fulfill our humans needs for social interaction.

Humans are meant to interact with other humans in person. Face to face. Mano a mano. That's why we have friends.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Now that I have had that little rant on the dangers of social media it is time for the most important part of interacting with others - choosing your friends wisely or, as I like to call it, spending time with people that energise you.

Do your friends give you a burst of energy? Do you feel happy to be in their company? After spending time with them do you go home thinking how wonderful they are? Can you be 100% yourself around your friends? If you are not answering yes to these questions then you need to have a long hard look at the type of people you call friends.

For a long time in my life I wanted everyone to be my friend. I was desperate for others to like me so I focused on pleasing everyone and the result was the opposite to what I intended - I connected with no-one. After all, no-one can truly connect with a people-pleaser because by their very definition they are not being true to themselves and humans are very adapt are picking up when someone is not acting congruent.

During this time I would see other people with wonderful friendships and I would be envious. I badly wanted to develop close connections with other people but by being a people-pleaser no-one wanted to develop those strong connections with me. Sure I always had some friends but they were never the guaranteed rock-solid friendships other people had. Looking back it is easy to see why. Building a relationship where one person is always pleasing the other will never be long lasting.

Now I have a handful of really close friends in my life and they are all wonderful people. They are all the kind of people that I can spend hours with before realising the any time has past. They are the kind of people that energise me, excite me, challenge me, and like me for who I am. Every time Sophie and I spend time with these friends we end up raving about how great it was, how wonderful they are, and how we should hang out more with them.

This is not a gloat about how good my life is but a demonstration of what having good friends feels like. I am lucky to have some very good friends who share my interests and passions and my life is better for it. I describe what I feel around my friends to challenge you to think about your friends and how your relationships have been built in the past.

Do your friends energise you?

Image: photostock

Caffeine Withdrawal - Beat your addiction in 2 weeks

There are two distinct aspects of caffeine addiction that need to be addressed in order to break the addiction and overcome the withdrawal stage. Most people, however, only ever target one of the problem areas and are thus likely to fail. I will show you how to target both aspects and demonstrate the steps I took to go from drinking 3 coffees a day to being coffee-free in less than 2 weeks. The obvious problem that people target is the physiological addiction and related symptoms. This is where your body has adapted its natural functioning based on an expected regular caffeine intake. When you suddenly stop this, then the body reacts. Badly. This is what is called withdrawal. Symptoms vary for each person but for me, withdrawal consisted of strong headaches, grumpiness, and nearly falling asleep at my computer around 3pm. The good news for caffeine is that its withdrawal period is only around 2-3 weeks.

The second problem with caffeine addiction is the one that people overlook the most - habit. Habits are, by their very nature, hard to break. A habit is an acquired behavioural pattern that is performed subconsciously, and the more often it is performed, the more automatic the behaviour becomes. Professor of Social Psychology at Yale, John Bargh had this to say on forming habits:

"Features of an automatic behavior are all or some of: efficiency, lack of awareness, unintentionality, uncontrollability".

These are what we have to beat in order to break the habit.

If you are serious about controlling your caffeine intake then you need to address both the addiction and the habit to succeed. This is exactly what I did when I went from 3 coffees a day to none:

Step 1: Go "cold turkey" for as long as you can at the start

This is by far the hardest step but you need to push through the pain as long as you can to establish your baseline for the rest of the steps. You will experience the biggest withdrawal symptoms but I promise that the extra effort here will pay off later on. When you feel like you cannot go any more, reward yourself with some caffeine. I lasted 3 days. And then I had the biggest coffee I could find.

Step 2: Halve it!

Halve the time you lasted in Step 1 and wait this long until you have another drink. The reasoning for this is three-fold. Firstly we are mixing up the regularity of the caffeine intake, secondly we are reducing the severity of the withdrawal symptoms, and thirdly we are starting to break the habit.

Step 3: Introducing your new best friend: Decaf

Wait the same time again (half your cold turkey achievement from Step 1) before your next drink but this time make it a decaf. Set aside 10-15 minutes for this one and make sure you are mentally in the moment when drinking it. I really enjoy the taste of coffee so I found myself a very tasty decaf and sipped it slowly, savouring the flavour. Doing this is a reminder that we are consciously choosing the drink for enjoyment and not whatever pseudo-physiological reasons we have assigned to the drink (e.g. "I need a coffee to wake me up"). Do this step twice.

Step 4: Get back on the horse

Add an extra day to the wait time from Step 2 before rewarding yourself with a full-bloodied caffeine drink. Remember to focus on savouring the flavour and drink for enjoyment. Congratulations - you have now gone without caffeine nearly twice as long as your cold turkey achievement! Did you notice? I barely did - I had a slight headache towards the end but nowhere near as strong as Step 1.

Step 5: Push yourself again

Go caffeine free for double your time from Step 1. If you find yourself wavering before that time go back to Step 3.

That's it - begone devilish addiction! I went another 10 days before my next coffee and I had no withdrawal symptoms or habitual urges. If you find you are still struggling to maintain it just keep cycling between steps 3 and 5 adding more wait days between each time through.

Please consider your own situation before committing to using this method and if in doubt, contact your doctor first. Also, use some common sense - I nearly fell asleep sitting up during Step 1 so if you do something that could be even remotely dangerous when suffering sudden caffeine withdrawals (e.g. forklift driver, brain surgeon, game tester) then use your brain and plan your withdrawals to occur at a different time, like the weekend. Please do not endanger yourself or others. Otherwise be happy, be strong, and enjoy breaking your addiction!

Image: nuchylee