November, 2009

This is a hypothetical bet. I perfectly know that there’s no method to test if there is a free will or not. But let’s ignore that fact for a moment.

Do you think there’s a free will? If you had to bet on your opinion, how would your bet look like?

If I was asked to make a bet, I would definitely bet on the existence of a free will, although I can’t be sure whether it exists.

But why is that? Am I some crazy gambler or am I just stupid? Well I’m not sure about those two points but I got some good reasons to bet on the existence of a free will.
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I am a perfectionist myself. And every once in a while, I wish I wasn’t.

But why is that? Why exactly? What are the disadvantages of being a perfectionist? Of trying to be perfect?

That’s what I want to answer in this article. (Of course, there are benefits as well but that’s just not what this article is about.)

Let’s just jump to the negative effects of perfectionism:
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The right attitude is an important factor for any process. Still it’s often ignored and its influence is generally highly underestimated.

I’ll tell you a little example. If you think you suck in life (and therefore have a negative attitude) your success will be very limited. I don’t want to go into great detail here, but basically, having a negative attitude leads to a vicious circle: You think you fail, therefore you fail. This failing increases your negative attitude, making it even more likely for you to fail in the future.

Fortunately, this vicious circle works very similar with a positive attitude. Well, the circle ain’t really vicious in that case but the principles remain the same: Having a positive attitude directly increases your success. This success reinforces your positive attitude. (Read Why a Positive Attitude Leads to Success for a detailed explanation on why a positive attitude leads to success.)

But not only does your attitude influence your success. Getting knowledge and understanding is dependent on your attitude as well for the same reasons.

So what exactly is the right attitude for learning, reading or thinking?
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He was young. No teenager, but under 30 years of age.

He was handsome. No sports fanatic but sometimes he put his ass to the gym and worked out to stay in shape.

He was no stupid guy. No Einstein, but smarter than the average person.

And he was living with a lovely family. A little sister, a caring mother, an intelligent father and likeable grandparents. He loved them all.

But there were other persons he liked as well. He had about half a dozen close friends. He loved them all.

But he was not free. And he felt it. He hated it. His feelings limited him.
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If you don’t know what autosuggestion actually means, I recommend you to read my article The Basics Of Effective Autosuggestion first.

Autosuggestion can do the work of an alarm clock, making it possible for you to wake up at will.

As I first heard about this, I found this kind of hard to believe. But I decided to give it a try and guess what? It really worked! My inner alarm clock woke me up.

As I’m a sceptic, I tried to do it once more to ensure that this wasn’t pure coincidence. Guess what happened this time? It worked again! Of course, the method wasn’t working perfectly yet – there was a uncertainty of about 20 minutes – but I was completely new to autosuggestion at that point.

I think you might want to be able to perform the same trick, so I wrote this little article.
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“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” (Zig Ziglar)

Why is it that some people seem to be successful in every way while others fail doing the most basic things? What separates successful people from the unsuccessful?

Of course, there are some different factors, but I truly believe that a positive attitude works wonders with regard to your overall success. And I got some good reasons to believe that:
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Don’t let your brain become bored and get accustomed to mental loafing. Tease your brain! Practice thinking and increase your intelligence! I’ll show you some different ways to do just that.

I won’t go into great detail here, this article is rather meant to provide a kind of overview, so you’ll probably need to read some additional resources to be able to actually apply the methods.

You might feel a little exhausted after trying some of those techniques, but that’s just fine. You wouldn’t expect feeling extremely vigorous at the end of a marathon either, would you?

But the intensity of the individual brain teasers is very different. Some methods will only be a light stimulation while others will significantly increase your intelligence if you use them over a certain period of time. Try out for yourself what works best for you.
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