Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead ; follow him on twitter . Our inner world — emotional, mental space — helps determine our outer world, right? But the space we spend the majority of our time in also plays a huge role in our lives. It can influence our actions, our mood, and it can determine whether we remain stuck or achieve our dreams. I want to share with you a few strategies I’ve discovered to design your space to help your achieve your goals. I’ve been using this technique for quite some time to take advantage of my environment’s ability to help my achieve my dreams. The reason this is so effective is because when you design your space in a way that supports your dreams, you’re receiving perpetual subconscious reinforcement. So even if you design your space to reinforce a reality that does not yet exist for you, it is still effective because your environment is constantly introducing the possibility to your mind as a new reality. There are three basic categories for engineering your space to reinforce your dreams. Identity modifiers Style and energy Specific goal reinforcement Let’s start at the beginning… 1. General identity modifiers. If you want to change a part of your identity, changing your space will help introduce a new trait of behavior. Here are some examples: If you want to become a writer, reorganize your space to support your identity as a writer. Make sure there is a bookshelf near your workspace with classics novels and books on writing. Buy some nice pens or make word-processor the only icon on your desktop. Put quotes of famous writers around your workspace. Create a fictional cover for a book with your name as the author and have it framed and placed on your desk. If you want to simplify your life, remove all the clutter from your space. But don’t just remove the clutter; incorporate minimalist reinforcements in your space. This might mean getting a desk without a lot of drawers that forces you to keep it neat. Create a minimalist computer experience, a minimalist home and a minimalist workspace. The more you organize your space in a way that reinforces simplicity, the greater effect it will start to have on your inner space. If you want to become a musician, surround your space with musical instruments. Put up photos or album covers of your favorite artists. Make your space speak music. Design in it a way that if someone were to walk into your room, they would immediately think “this person is a musician.” These are just starting points. There are many other creative ways to implement this simple idea. While these examples are of specific traits, the techniques can be applied to any shift. 2. Influencing style and energy. The spaces we live in can be either creative and inspiring, or dull and suffocating. Imagine the picture of a cubicle colored in mind-numbing grays, fluorescent lighting, no plants, no photos, no personality. Not exactly electrifying, is it? Now imagine a workspace that is completely you. The desk is a beautiful, sturdy wood in your favorite color. The chair is well built and comfortable. You have photos of smiling family and friends framed on your desk. The lighting is warm and inviting. It feels much different, doesn’t it? Here are some ways you can improve the energy of your space. And in doing so, make it more inviting and likely to make you want to be there and in turn want to work there to achieve your goals. Take inventory. Take a second to close your eyes and allow your mind to be still and your body to relax. Now open your eyes and look at the room around you. How does it make you feel? Does it call you to your purpose? Does it excite you or does it bore you? Is it inviting or indifferent? Now think about way that you could change or improve your space to achieve the feeling you would most want it to impress. What could you change to make it more in harmony with who you are? Energize your space . It’s amazing the effects that a few simple changes can make in your space to increase the energy and vibration. A few easy and simple ways to do this are by bringing more plants into your space, putting fresh fruit on your table or your desk, and place photos of yourself and family or friends around where you work. What colors could you change to bring in more energy? Could the lighting be changed? Do you resonate with your space? Everyone has their own individual and unique style. Some people may feel more drawn to classical pieces, while others are drawn to a more modern style. Some prefer the thrashing chords of punk rock to work to, while others are moved by the dramatic art of opera. Your space should reflect on some level who you are as a person, what your tastes are, what your interests are, and what you care about. The more your environment speaks to you, the more of an inspiring effect it will have on you. Your imagination is your only limit. 3. Promoting specific intentions or goals. This is really where the rubber meets the road and we get down to reinforcing specific goals, rather than general space manipulation. Everyone says to write down your goals. That’s a good idea, but it’s much more effective when your goals are an element or a fixture of your surroundings. So the idea is simple, figure out what your most important intentions or goals are. Choose no more than five or six. Now place them somewhere in your space that will be constantly visible. Here are a few ways you can do this: Post it. Print them out in big type and put them on a cork board, directly in front of your field of vision where you most often work. Frame it. Print and frame your goals in a 5 x 7 inch frame. Put the frame on your nightstand or desk. Or both. Desktop it . Create an image in a simple image editor (try pixlr if you don’t have one) that’s roughly the resolution of your desktop. Now type out your intentions, save the image and select it as the background on your computer desktop. Use a digital photo frame (thanks to Steve Pavlina for this idea). Create a few images of your goals with plain text, or combine it with an inspiring image. Plug the images into your digital frame and you’re done. This has the added benefit of animation, which has a natural tendency to draw your eye to the image. I haven’t tried this, so I’m not sure how distracting it would be, but I can’t think of a better thing to be distracted by. Send yourself blank emails. When I want to remind myself to stay focused on something, I’ll send myself a blank email with the subject being whatever my reminder is. If I want to remind myself to focus on writing I’ll make the subject “You write for two hours a day this week.” This strategy has a drawback though, as its effectiveness is dependent on how often you check your email. And I don’t think obsessive email checking with the rationalization of being reminded of your goals is a good trade off, unless you make one of your reminders “Stop obsessively checking email.” Setup reminders. Use a software like Dream Wizard . Dream Wizard allows you to plug in your most important goals, add a picture and voice (if you want), and set it to remind you at certain intervals as a pop up on your computer. I think this could also be accomplished with Gcal or other application to send you email reminders. That would another option without having to pay for a piece of software to remind you. Using this method is a good strategy if the majority of your time during the day is spent on the computer. This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind .  For more unconventional ideas, grab a subscription to Illuminated Mind.

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Feng Shui On Steroids: Design Your Space to Achieve Your Goals

The wandering sage has finally returned from his travels. It is always good to visit distant places. It gives you a whole new perspective on things. People are basically the same wherever you go. They all have hopes and dreams as well as worries and fears. The problems arise when the worries and fears outweigh the hopes and dreams. It really feels like all of this financial pandemic crisis stuff causes a lot more stress and tension in people than is necessary. I don’t really get the sense that the mainstream media is helping at all. They seem to revel in sensationalizing all of it which only makes things worse. And while we may supposedly be in a recovery now all of the problems with population, limited resources, peak oil, climate change and economic meltdown are still escalating. Fortunately, with the arrival of spring (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) there is the feeling of rebirth and a new wellspring of energy that is bubbling up. We need to tap into this energy and make use f it. Too often it can feel like our problems are taking over our life. When we can feel a real connection to the Earth and the energy of the natural world those problems shrink down to a more manageable size. So, as with many of these posts, I’ll leave you with these simple words… Remember to Breathe

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return of the sage

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead ; follow him on twitter . Caring is supposed to be a good thing, yet, it can become unhealthy and have an adverse effect on our lives. When we care too much, we become obsessive and it often leads to dysfunction. There are definitely times where passion fuels our desire to act. Working towards change, being involved in a social movement, and contributing in a meaningful way to others are all examples of this. But it’s the not caring about things that don’t matter that allows you to focus your attention on these big, important things. It’s the lack of out-of-control caring that brings more levity into your life . Here are a few classic examples of caring gone too far: Caring too much about things that don’t matter. Caring too much about things being perfect and reach a point of diminishing returns. It can take four hours of studying to get a 95% on a test, but it may take fifteen hours of studying to get a 100%. Are those additional eleven hours really worth it? Caring too much about always being updated. We want to know what’s happening on facebook, twitter, email, and we lose our ability to focus. Adversely caring about what others think and don’t give enough credit to what we think. Caring too much about the future. We’re always thinking about what will happen next. I could go on and on about all the possibilities of toxic caring. It’s already plain to see that caring — something usually seen as a positive action — can be highly undesirable. I’ve seen so many people waste so much time caring about things that don’t really matter. They have dreams and they have big ideas , but they can’t get them off the ground because their attention and concern is in the wrong place. If your mind is too focused on what’s happening in the next five minutes, you’ll never make progress on the things that will impact your life five years from now. If you’re too focused on tidying up your desk, reorganizing your paper clips and making sure everything is filed immaculately, you’re just spinning your wheels. Things like this have a place, and organization is important. But when it’s taking up more time than your most important tasks, you might want to rethink things. The same thing applies not just with organization, but with caring too much about getting everything done. If you have a lot of little loose ends and small tasks that you need to close, you could easily get overwhelmed. And you might think that finishing those things is a bigger priority than working on your something amazing . But trust me, it’s not. There will be more little things to obsess over. There will be other things that you can find to do that will creep into your consciousness. These things are your enemies. I repeat: These minutiae must be not be allowed residence in your mind. They cannot take up the precious and sacred focus of your attention. This is where you need to learn the art of putting things off. Yeah, I know that might sound controversial, given how many of us have issues with procrastination. But, this is actually good news for you procrastinators! Now you can use this valuable skill to your advantage. Put off or procrastinate all the stuff that doesn’t matter. Do this for the survival of your dreams. If you don’t learn how to skillfully put off the trivial details of your to-do list, your dreams will suffer for it. If you don’t learn how to stop caring about all the stuff that won’t matter in ten minutes or ten years, your dreams will be left as nothing more than a phantom of your imagination. I will admit, this is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. While I haven’t fully learned the skilled art of putting off the inconsequential, I am making serious progress. I used to obsess about the little things, partly because I’m a recovering perfectionist. But it’s also largely due to the fact that I was afraid of facing my dreams. I was putting off the wrong stuff. I was putting off facing the reality of what I really wanted and coming to terms with whether or not it was truly possible. I was afraid of failure; but most of all, I was afraid of the unknown. Now I see that when I’m putting off the wrong stuff (my true desires), I need to take a closer at myself. I see it as a clue that I might be avoiding what I really want for some reason. Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s something else. But I know that getting too wrapped up in the details means that I need to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Take a step back, and breathe… When you realize that you’re spending time on a lot of insignificant things, take a look at what the deeper message might be. Maybe you’re afraid of taking the first step toward your dreams. See what happens when you put off or stop caring about… Checking your email every ten minutes. Having everything finished on your to do list. Having an immaculately clean house. Trying to please everyone. Seeking praise and popularity. [Your malady here.] See this article for a full list of things worth giving up . When you’re left with your real, authentic self, you will probably be a little uncomfortable, as I was. But it’s better to be face-to-face with this discomfort than letting this lawless caring get in the way of you living your dreams. So put things off, be flaky. Stop caring about the stuff that doesn’t matter … your dreams depend on it. — If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg . I’d appreciate it.

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Put Things Off and Stop Caring to Realize Your Dreams

What is it about us that insists on labeling ourselves and each other? We apply and wear all kinds of labels. Christian, Pagan, conservative, liberal, straight, gay, pro-life, pro-choice…you name it and we’ve got a label for it. We seem to have a need to distinguish ourselves from others not of our kind and to identify with those who are. Labels are a kind of shorthand for describing ourselves

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What’s In Your Cookie Jar? How Spiritual Labels Fail Us

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead , follow him on twitter . We all get stuck in ruts from time to time. We get off track and lose sight of the life we meant to live . I know I’m probably not the only one who has wished that I could find a reset button for life. While we can’t exactly travel back in time ( flux capacitor or not), there’s certain ways we can “reboot” our lives. With the New Year right around the corner, it’s a perfect time to get a fresh start on an area of your life you’ve been meaning to overhaul. The New Year is an exciting time. It symbolized transformation and starting new. It’s a time when you can let go of the old, shed your past and begin again. The problem is a lot of the time we get super excited about these new goals, but we lose focus. A few months later December rolls around and we wondered what happened. Where did we go wrong? The most important thing we need to keep in mind is not necessarily being disciplined, but setting the right type of goals. If we’re just setting socially conditioned goals (like making more money or upgrading the things we own), we’ll likely lose interest, because our heart is not in it. So there first step is to set aspirations that come from your heart and what you value most. Then just take it one day at a time. Think small, act big . NOTE: Read the notice at the bottom of this post for info about The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge! Here are some suggestions for ways you can reboot your life: Health: 30 Days to Health . Use the month of January to start new eating habits. Maybe you want to become vegetarian, vegan or completely raw. Or maybe you just want to eliminate processed foods like; frozen food, chips, soft drinks, candy and essential junk foods. Go on the Master Cleanse : a 10 day mono-diet fast that will help you reboot your health and eating habits. I’ve personally done this 3 times. It helps you rejuvenate your body and your mind. When you’re not spending your energy on digestion, your body can use its energy to heal itself. It’s amazing when you’re fasting how much time you realize you spend thinking about eating and making food. Simplicity: Reassess your mess . Go through out all your junk and make 3 piles: toss/recycle, donate, and keep. Throw out or donate or sell anything you haven’t used in over a year. The same rule applies with your closet, garage and wardrobe. For a more detailed guide see here and here . Unwind your mind . We spend a lot of time trying to organize and create more functional living spaces. But we often neglect the most important space we live in: our mind. Take advantage of the New Year to reboot your mind. Drop disempowering beliefs, drop negativity. Cull and remove what’s not working for you. Stop caring so much, kill your (ego-driven) goals and give up . Here’s another great resource: How to Organize Mental Clutter . Relationships: Reconnect . Most of our ambitions for the New Years are centered around ourselves, but they don’t all have to be. Maybe you want to make your resolution to spend more time with your partner or your kids. Maybe you want to create a better relationship with your parents. Or perhaps you just want to dissolve a grudge you’ve been holding against someone.  Now is a good time to forgive and forget. Be more romantic . With all our goals surrounding our careers, productivity, and health, it’s easy to put romance on the back burner. Too easy, if you ask me. A few ways to jump start your ideas for rekindling romance might be: giving your lover love coupons , spending more quality time together and dating your partner more often. Even if it just means going out for coffee or watching a movie on the couch together. Here are some more great ideas to get you started . Finance: Reboot your bank account. During the holidays are spending can spiral out of control. It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to buy really cool gifts (well, except for this gift ) for everyone you love. So after the season ends, it’s a great time to reevaluate where your money is going. Here are a few ideas to get you started: create a debt snowball , create an emergency fund , or develop the habit of being frugal . Cash-in your passion. Here’s a great exercise to start off the new year: Take out a paper and draw a line down the middle. Mark the first side as column a, mark the other side column b. Look over your bank account for the past 30 days and write down all your non-essential purchases in column a. This includes things like unneeded spending on clothes, lattes, junk food, renting movies, entertainment, gadgets, CDs, etc. Don’t include things such as rent/mortgage, utility and phone bills. Now in column b write down all the things you’d like to have money for to pursue things you’re passionate about. This might be thing like dance lessons, tai chi or yoga classes, a pottery workshop, an industry conference, a mountain bike, you get the idea. Try to see what you can remove from column a to make more room for the things in column b. Fitness: Maintain the chain. There are so many fitness goals and programs you can get into. If you live anywhere like I do, the guys from 24 Hour Fitness are on the corner downtown recruiting people like gangbusters. With all these fitness routines and exercises you can find, it’s hard to see through the noise. A simplified resolution is to create an exercise chain and all you need is a calendar. Now for the month of January make a pact to exercise every day. Each day you exercise, you put an X through that day on calendar. Your job is to not break the chain. I’ve personally found this to be an awesome motivator because you can see all the progress you’ve made and it would hurt too much to break the chain. Tap the troupe . It’s easy to fall off the wagon when you’re going it alone. If you join a local fitness group, you’ll have others that will hold you accountable. Meetup.com is a really awesome place to find local meetups in your area. It’s super easy to join and most of the groups are free. Just sign up and search for fitness groups in your neck of the woods. Bonus tips: Automate your answer . A lot of the time we hold ourselves back because we don’t have enough information, or we don’t know where to start. Instead of letting “I don’t know” hold you back, put yourself on the auto-response “I’ll figure it out.” Imagine what you could do if you did this. You might be able to have the guts to start that business you’ve been dreaming about. You could write that novel you’ve been planning. Or could you take that trip around the world you’ve been dying for. Make your resolution to not let not knowing where to start keep your from taking action. Vaporize virtual living. In the age of email, twitter, social media, instant messaging, text messaging and screen to face, it’s hard not to get caught up in living virtually . While there’s nothing necessarily harmful or wrong with these things, it’s easy to forget the value of real live interaction. You know, actually talking to someone in person. Whatever method you choose to connect, a good New Years resolution might be to simply connect more. Not in quantity, but quality. What are your plans for the 09? Do you have any good tips for starting off the New Year right? This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind . To learn more about how to reclaim your life, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd . — NOTICE: Tomorrow we will announce THE POWER OF LESS NEW YEAR’S CHALLENGE! It’s a free 30-day challenge where you will form a new habit in just 10 minutes a day. The Challenge will help motivate you and keep you accountable, so you can start the New Year off right! — If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg . I’d appreciate it.

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How to Press the Reset Button On Your Life