Review of design & content, plus feedback plea

Enjoy reading All Things Bright? Then you might be interested in my plans for it this coming new year, especially as you have the power to change things here, just by leaving me feedback.

On 11 December, I asked for your help with considering changes for All Things Bright, what kind of design & content you'd like here and what you think of teasers (i.e. excerpts of entries).

I made the mistake of not publicising the entry, so I've not had many responses. I'm now rectifying that mistake by letting more people know about this entry and asking for feedback.

So, please let me know what you think of the proposed changes in the comments. I invite you to add your own suggestions too, because I listen.

Ian replied to the previous request for feedback and I've implemented the changes he suggested. Since then I've had some emails with further feedback, specifically regarding the images to text ratio here (i.e. why so few images?), so I'll be focusing on that for the next month.

Action list

Executing & following up on ideas from 2006

Advertising: On 13th August, I stated that I'd remove AdSense if it didn't pick up by the end of the year. So that's what I'm doing. When All Things Bright is more established, I may put it back, but currently it's not worth it. I'll review in three months, at the end of March.

Much more important to get the word out about All Things Bright than it is to try monetizing it with something like AdSense. (I have some better ideas for monetizing, mainly affiliate recommendations, but you'll see as next year unfolds).

Marketing: I'll be focusing more on marketing next year, for All Things Bright and other projects. In addition, I'll be generally extending and deepening my knowledge of marketing.

Goals for 2007

Specific goals for All Things Bright, to fulfil my dreams of greatness & growth (via increased popularity), with details of how you can help if you are willing and able to do so.

Me: Extending the Community

• Become part of a suitable, reputable blogging network, which is of personal value and interest to me.
  How? Join Mind Petals: Young Entrepreneur Network
  If you know of others, please do send suggestions to me(at)inspirewithhope.com. Thanks.
• Reply to my comments much more promptly.
  I'll be working out a schedule to allow a specific time slot for replying to all the wonderful comments my lovely readers take time to leave me.
• Read other blogs and leave comments on them; because "good bloggers are a part of the community of blogs".
  See Marketing Profs: Daily Fix (and also The Viral Garden) for more discussion.

You: Come, join me!

Readers, here's how to support All Things Bright, should you so desire

• One, tell me what you love, dis/like, loathe about All Things Bright. Send me comments & emails, feedback very welcome. In turn, I always listen and I'm going to be even more responsive.
• Two, tell others about All Things Bright, so they can enjoy it too. Thanks. :)

So, what do you think?

My New Year's goals, dreams & aspirations

Lessons from life or, Things I've learnt this year

Fear is a motivating factor in many of my actions, or rather, in many of my reasons & excuses not to act.

Action points

• Continue self-awareness of when I'm feeling fear and why.
• Change goals and actions in the face of rational fears to address valid reasons for not acting.
• Act in the face of irrational fears to diminish fear and accomplish my goals. [link: see Shyness post].

Dreams: Over-arching aims & big goals for next year

Debt-free by December 2007 (excluding student loan)

Because financial independence is something I dream about and it's the one thing that would make the most positive difference to my life.

Difficulties

• Clothes: I love shopping, especially with all those sales! I acknowledge that sale shopping is about the positive feelings in finding bargains and 'winning' against shops (especially over-priced ones). However, I don't want to spend all my money on clothing, there is much more to life! So, spend in the sales, fine, but no spending on clothes at all for the first 30 days of January.
• Eating out: Represents more to me than just food; it's socialising, spending time with friends, meeting new people, trying something new, having something familiar… I don't want to stop eating out, so I think the aim is to discover interesting and reasonably-priced places and return. For example, I liked the Mongolian Barbeque restaurant, so I should definitely go back there. In addition, there's a vegetarian restaurant I love, Food For Thought, which I've been reluctant to write about because it's already so popular that it's often over-crowded (victim of its own success) and my review would be positive, possibly making it more so!

Goals: Action points

• Save: Nurture passion for student frugality & saving
  As a full-time student, I have good reason for being poor and for not splashing out. When will I next have excuse to be stingy?!
• Change attitude to money
  On one level I know that money is not all-important, that wealth is something one creates, that money has merely exchange value etc. I need to gather these thoughts in to a single coherent, all-encompassing & empowering belief about money, something that inspires me to save and not spend.
• Change attitude to shopping
  Buying clothes for myself means I have less money for eating out and therefore for spending money on myself and others (spending money on others because they thereby get the benefit of my company). So, eating out is more desirable all-round.
• Focus on more important things
  Like my MA, my business (Ethical Beads), friends, good living (i.e. above all things meaningful living, but also happiness for others: giving/ethical/benevolent, happiness for me: pleasant/enjoyable/healthy – in doing all these at once, I achieve the ultimate end of life).

Studying & my MA Ethics & Philosophy of Religion

Difficulties

• Procrastinating. Out of fear? Fear of failure? Laziness?
• It's hard!
• Essay-writing, blah

Goals: Action points

• Change attitude to writing essays, on some level I want to write essays… bring that out more.
• Just get on with it! Start earlier too.
• More self-awareness (reading & reflecting) to identify and face my fears.

Entrepreneurship & professional blogging

Difficulties

• Making time
• Facing my fears of failure & success

Goals: Action points

• Work on All Things Bright & Ethical Beads. For details, see my forthcoming entry on Sunday, New Year's Eve. Update: Review of design & content, 31 Jan

Philosophy of sleep, relaxation & chilling

My working & sleeping today

First day of the Next sale (it's online too, at next.co.uk, open 6am – 1am). So, today, I worked for over ten hours, in the ladies' shoes department. Ten!

Such a contrast with the quiet family Christmas a couple of days before, without which who knows if I could have survived today!

When I got home I was exhausted, naturally. I was hungry too. So I snacked quickly then went to bed, even though I really wanted to sit down and have dinner with my mum.

Woke up about an hour ago and felt so much more human again; it's amazing. I realised, wow, it really does make a massive difference to get enough sleep!

The philosophy behind my experience

Chris Hamilton (one of my lecturers) has an insightful chapter 'The Need for Sleep' (in his book Living Philosophy, which you can buy from Amazon.co.uk & from Amazon.com). I was going to summarise it, but upon re-reading it I've realised it's so rich that skimming it would do it no justice. Chris explores literature as well as our experiences of sleep and thoughts about it to discuss the meaning of sleep.

So, from now on, or at least for the next 30 days, I'm doing a new experiment: 8 hours of sleep daily for the next 30 days. I'm very lucky because I can fall asleep almost instantly, so all I need to do is go to bed eight hours before I want to get up. Easy!

More thoughts & feelings about chilling

Thinking about it, many of my friends extol the benefits of relaxing frequently, especially Ibiji & Immy, who seem to imbue their lives with these kind of thoughts about chilling.

Ian & Robert often remind me to relax instead of cramming so much in to my life, and they're right: Failing to relax leads to stress, which ultimately leads to inefficiency as well as ill health, so cramming is counter-productive.

Help sleeping and relaxing more

Some excellent books that may help you if you'd like to sleep and relax more too.

• Living Philosophy: Reflections on Life, Meaning & Morality, by Chris Hamilton
• How to be Idle, by Tom Hodgkinson
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Merry Christmas to all

…and to all a good night!

I've had a jolly Christmas. Massive lunch, lots of comedy television and a night in front of the computer.

I'm sure I should write something about the evils of over-indulgence or something, but I'm too smiley. Hurrah for joy!

Resolutions vs Goals

Today I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions.

I'm not going to make any.

Rather, I'd prefer to view my life as something I can start afresh whenever I like. Instead of resolutions, I'll be setting goals.

My main goal is to be debt-free by December 2007 (excluding my student loan).

This is going to be an interesting one because I love shopping and, currently, saving is hardly amongst my favourite activities. However, financial independence is something I dream about and is the one thing that would make the most positive difference to my life.

So, here are some ideas I've got for achieving financial independence:

• Save more
• Spend less

Hmm, shockingly ground-breaking…(!)

I'll be able to do this, so long as I focus on the fact that I want to do this, rather than seeing it as an imposition on how I'd rather live my life. Yes, choices, not restrictions.

Another reason for making sure Ethical Beads is a runaway success.

Speedlinks: Money

I was planning to write an insightful article about money, financial management and such the like.

However, I'm feeling distinctly unqualified to do so, due to one of my banks 'robbing' me of £60 today. It's partly their fault (unreasonable charges, unclear policies, senseless bureaucracy) and partly mine (stupidly forgetting dates, spending too much, opening a savings account when I'm too poor to do so, being a stereotypical student).

Anyway, as incapable as I am of giving and following good advice, I can still recognise it when I see it. So I'm pointing you towards some excellent articles in the hope that they can help you too.

1. Financial Teaching Kids About Money, Forbes
   Stuff you should know but may not have learnt yet.
2. The Daddy Model of Wealth, Paul Graham
   Maybe immature opinions about money are colouring your attitude to welfare and money generally.
3. Why Giving Will Always Lead to Receiving; Even When It Comes to Money, Brian Kim
   One really positive model to help you re-think your attitudes to money, with practical guidance for your life.
4. Making Money Consciously, Steve Pavlina
   One realistic model to help you get more balanced ideas about money.
5. Five Fantastic Frugal Tips for Christmas, Get Rich Slowly
   How to survive what is a really expensive period for many people.

Good luck and let me know how you get on.

Five things about Kathleen: Passion

Yes, it's a meme.

I'm giving in to peer pressure here; willingly, I should add. Teli tagged me; I'm flattered.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these bits of my life (as well as the rest of my life too). :)

I've chosen the theme of Passion to add structure.

1. I need to move out of my parents' house to reach my full potential, but I'm scared and broke.
2. I'm excited (and scared) about Ethical Beads, it needs human rights and environmentalist researchers to work. Plus, time. Any takers?
3. I have an obsessive personality, whereby I get really passionate about specific people and projects, plus other things.
4. Currently that includes All Things Bright, my health, coffee, Yo Sushi, Giraffe and spodding (def: "the action of sitting at a computer on the Internet, and wasting time").
5. I oscillate between fear and lack of time as my chief reasons for procrastinating. But mainly it's because I'm spodding. (Bad K, no cookie).

If you'd like to know more, please do feel free to email me; I love answering questions.

If you're sick of the self-obsessiveness, never fear: Come back on Thursday for an insightful entry about money, finances and all the fiscal 'joys' of the season. In actuality, it's an article about more realistic subjects for this time of year, like how to handle it when you're broke.

Power of three: Goal-setting: Business (3 of 3)

This is the third, and final, installment of Power of three: Goal-setting: Business (3 of 3), in which I discuss studying & education. See my last two entries for the first two installments, Goal-setting: Health (1 of 3) & Goal-setting: Studying (2 of 3).

1. Mistakes & Failure: I will fail. Good. (Entire premise of my blog, Make More Mistakes, which I'm relaunching in January 2007).
2. Execute, don't deliberate. Make intuitive decisions. (Note: Intuitive does not mean impulsive).
3. Money: Focus on wealth.

1. Fail

You learn by doing.

Accepting and embracing failure is a brilliant idea because if you don't fear failure you're getting out of your way. The first step to creating a brilliant product is creating a product. So, Kathleen, stop procrastinating!

I already know that I'm only procrastinating out of fear and that the best way for me to conquer my fears of doing stuff is to do it anyway. (See also, James Brausch's excellent article about how many different problems are actually the same problem: fear)

One way of tackling this fear is to learn from other people's failures. Another is make more mistakes myself (and this is the entire reason for the existence of Make More Mistakes, my blog which re-launches in January 2007).

2. Execute

Intimately linked to #1. Fail.

Whatever you want you either create it for yourself or you exchange something you have with someone who's created what you want.

3. Money

Intimately linked to #2. Execute.

I need to change beliefs about, and my attitude to, money. I never seem to have enough, even when I acquire it unexpectedly. I've tried hoarding it and that hasn't worked.

As Steve Pavlina said, "Money has no inherent value of its own, but we assign it value through social agreement. If I give you $100, you can withdraw $100 of value from society. The only reason this works is that we agree by consensus that $100 has a certain value." Making money consciously, Steve Pavlina.

In future entries, I'll be exploring different approaches to money and wealth.

Finale

This concludes my series on goal-setting. I hope you've enjoyed it and found it useful. Don't forget to let me know what you think about my thoughts on: 1. Health, 2. Studying & 3. Business.

In closing, here's a link on the importance of setting goals: How Goals Make You More Productive, Trizoko

Thanks for reading!

Power of three: Goal-setting: Studying (2 of 3)

1. Organisation
2. Execution
3. Evaluation

This is the second installment of Power of three: Goal-setting: Studying (2 of 3), in which I discuss studying & education. See my last entry for the first installment, Goal-setting: Health (1 of 3).

1. Organisation: Overcoming fear

Not much to say on this one, except that I'm inclined to procrastinate out of fear.

I feel like a hypocrite suggesting to other people that they should conquer their fears, because I struggle so much with this advice myself. So I'll just point you in the direction of some who've said it better than I could.

I've been trying an experiment for the past month, which is to take on more than I'm comfortable with… The idea of doing things that are outside my comfort zone is also an anxiety-inducing exercise in facing my own demons. Coupled with my continuing search for “creative and career identity”, all these negative associations contribute, I think, to a failure to really live up to my potential. And what IS that potential? By overbooking myself, slowly, I am finding where my cracking points are… don't let undefined fear be your reason for saying “no”. Say yes instead.

Productivity through Discomfort, Dave Seah

Dude, you're procrastinating because you fear your imperfections… 1. Embrace your suckiness… use failures/imperfections as guideposts to construct the destination's route. When you embrace your suckiness, you drive yourself to do something — anything. 2. You don't need to do anything… When you replace the "I-have-to's" with the "I-choose-to's", you empower your mind to become fully assertive and open to kicking ass. Chillax.

2 Rules to Stop Procrastinating, Trizle

See also:

You can't let fear stand in your way to success. You can't become that timid person who wishes and prays for things to happen with your who isn't willing to take any action and make moves with your business.

Don't be Scared, It May Kill Ya

Fear is the great inhibitor. All of the excuses that you find for not doing work you love have solutions. You do not enact them because you are afraid: of showing up too big in the world; of failing; of appearing as an imposter; of living in poverty. There is nothing wrong with fear. Feel it, talk to it, examine it and walk with it. Then step out and let yourself show up, warts and all. It will liberate you.

The Work Manifesto, Pamela Slim

There is a price to pay for success and it is to be able to do things that ARE good but still may FEEL bad or may scare the crap out of you… Commit to throwing up your hand when you get the tug from inside and you're instantly a success.

Lessons From the Dragon's Den, Jon Symons

2. Execution: Do it now!

Philosophy conflicts, more details

Making unsubstantiated claims, or What I believe versus what I can explain rationally.

I can't remember who it was, but one brilliant philosopher felt he wasn't being true to himself in his capacity as a Philosophy lecturer because he felt compelled to say more than he knew. I worry about doing this myself. Of course, I know much less than he did, so I'm more likely to run across this problem.

I'm concerned about saying anything without providing evidence or good reasons for why I think what I do, which makes writing essays tough.

As I mentioned in my last post, studying is both helping and hindering my progress here: Helping because my reasoning skills improve as I exercise my brain, hindering because the more I think about things the more I sink in to confusion. Chris assures me that this is normal.

3. Evaluation

Actually, I can't decide whether all my self-analysis is a good thing or not. I might be over-analysing. *thinks for a bit* I think the main thing is to work through these in order. By the time I finish organising and executing I probably won't feel the need for evaluation. What do you reckon?

Looking forward

Come back on Sunday for the final installment of Power of three: Goal-setting: Business (3 of 3). I'll be developing some of my thoughts about Ethical Beads too, as well as sharing my business plan and recruiting people who care about human beings & the environment.

Power of three: Goal-setting: Health (1 of 3)

In a recent post, I discussed the things I've realised I want from my life. I'll recap:

1. I want my life to have meaning. I want the areas of my life to cohere in to a pattern with an overarching aim, vision or mission.
2. I'm in pursuit of happiness. Currently, a big chunk of this is my being in pursuit of healthiness (mentally, physically & spirituality).
3. Happiness is located in happiness for myself & happiness for others. Cue entrepreneurship (for me) and social enterprise (for others), united.

Now I just need to decide what I'm doing now to make that future happen.

Do you know what you want from your life? Or, Reflections on mine, Kathleen, 7 Dec 06

Cue this series in three parts. In Power of three: Goal-setting I explore three areas (health, studying & business) and go through some simple instructions for myself. By doing so, I make it easier to achieve my goals (meaning, happiness for myself & happiness for others) because I've broken them down in to easy-to-follow steps, which include things I like doing.

I hope these entries help you to achieve similar success with your goals too. Do write in (email or leave comments) and let me know how you get on.

Health

1. Physical
   • Water: The easiest, cheapest way to be healthy.
   • Dancing: I love dancing. In On Religion, the secret to happiness is dance. It's an excellent way to combat "blogfat – an aversion to doing anything physical that takes us away from crafting a new post." Pam.
   • Healthy-eating: Yo Sushi (review coming soon) and vegetarian cuisine, like Food For Thought seem like excellent ways to go, because yummy and healthy is the only way I ever maintain a healthy diet for any reasonable length of time. Experimenting in the kitchen is fun too.
2. Emotional
   • Love: It can be such a devastating heartache and yet still there are numerous poems in awe of love. Kant defined human beings as distinctly rational beings; why not as loving beings?
   • Kindness: I find it amazing when that truism 'a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet' really does ring true. The kindness of strangers is so unexpected. I'm in the company of a couple of Texans (they're from Austin, which is 'the hole in the Bible-belt', can I call them Austinians?!) who are so welcoming and lovely that I can't get over it. I'd love to make people feel that way around me.
   • Niceness: Being nice is one of those virtues that really is its own reward. It's closely linked to being charitable. It seems to me that being nice is about the warmness you feel in your heart when you're nice, not about boasting about it. (Reminds me of something in the Bible, New Testament, about how charity should be given in secret). With the exception of when public charity-giving raises awareness and encourages others to do it too.
3. Mental: This is going to be the toughest nut to crack, definitely. Notice how the steps get increasingly vague as they progress from physical to emotional to mental, mainly because my mental anguishes at the moment revolve around:
   • Philosophy conflicts: What I believe versus what I can explain rationally. Studying is both helping and hindering my progress here. (In my next entry on Studying, I'll discuss my philosophy conflicts in more depth).
   • Being good: Sometimes it's so hard. Sometimes it feels like being good only results in more pain and unhappiness for everyone involved. Sometimes being bad feels good.
   • Spirituality: Trying to explain how I feel about it seems like a mammoth, impossible task at the moment. It feels completely indefinable and uncategorisable.

Looking forward

Come back on Friday for the next installment of Power of three: Goal-setting: Studying (2 of 3). I'll be developing some of my thoughts on the 'Mental' side of things too.

Readers, I need your help!

New design for All Things Bright?

I'm considering changing the design for All Things Bright.

I love the current theme (especially the proliferation of pink!) and I've made some changes recently to make the design simpler and clearer.

Are the changes enough or would you like to see something new?

What do you like to read here?

What kind of content do you want from All Things Bright? What kind of topics do you expect? Should there be more about entrepreneurship? Less? What about ethics, philosophy, studying? Do you like my personal entries?

Please do let me know.

Teasers or full entries?

When you go to the homepage of All Things Bright, at the moment you see five full entries, then excerpts for the next five entries, then a linked list of the next ten entries.

This means that the homepage is really really long and may be intimidating.

Apparently, using excerpts linking to the full entries would improve my front page. But what do you think?

Not 'I need', instead 'I want' or, How to get things done, changing your perspective

My last entry was a super long one and I'm still mulling over the ideas I expressed there. So, just a little entry today.

Following extensive reading from a variety of sources I've realised that the only way to 'make' myself do some things is to change my perception of whatever needs to be done.

I need to really want to do it.

Sometimes it's easy, I just focus on the consequences and I'll realise that really I do want to do whatever it is. But for more challenging things that I'm resistant to doing because I fear failing or because I fear succeeding, it's much more difficult.

I think I need to think of creative ways of doing this. I want to get more creative with ways of doing this because I love being creative, I love achieving things and I love solving my problems, so that's not an issue.

Hmm, interesting. *Goes off to think some more*

Do you know what you want from your life? Or, Reflections on mine

I've been thinking about my life recently.

Some of these thoughts emerged in my entry How to be happy, or Why you're sad and how to fix it, which explores, "why I'm sad, how to be happy and my thoughts about what I want to do in my life, where I want to go and how I want to get there".

This entry takes a step back from happiness per se, to consider the second part of that discussion more closely; considering my ideas about my life in conjunction with what it might mean to live a fulfilled life.

I've included lots of links to Steve Pavlina in case you're interested in particular ideas I've mentioned and want to pursue them. I find Steve's writing to be really clear and helpful; I hope you do too.

Firstly, I want my life to have meaning

I want the areas of my life to cohere in to a pattern with an overarching aim, vision or mission. I want my decisions to have a non-arbitrary basis. I don't want pursuing my desires to be a random mess of conflicting actions. See Living Congruently, Steve Pavlina.

Some ideas I've considered

Existentialism: Creating meaning for oneself

I was particularly enamoured with this when I was studying my undergraduate degree. Existentialism is something I will explore in future entries I'm sure. In the meantime, if you're interested, Wikipedia: Existentialism has some pointers and references for where to find out more.

Kant on free will

Immanuel Kant helped me a lot today, especially with Peter's exegesis. Read Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (book, currently £9.99 new, £5 used), because it's clear & convincing. Plus, it's something I'll explore in future entries, so if you read it now you'll be ready to discuss it when I write about it here. It's the only course book on my wishlist; aw, Peter would be so proud. :)

I now have a way of thinking about free will that neither sounds completely implausible to me (Compatibilism & Libertarianism), nor includes discomforting counter-intuitiveness (Determinism). Instead, it soothes me. (Yes, Kant, soothing!)

Secondly, I'm in pursuit of happiness

Currently, a big chunk of this is my being in pursuit of healthiness (mentally, physically & spirituality). I'm achieving this in a number of ways:

Re-evaluating my life, in particular my attitudes to studying, following less than phenomenal experiences writing the essays. (The Christmas break is coming at an excellent time, giving me some much needed time to sort myself out).

Dancing, I do love it. What really makes one happy is to dance! It's so true. Well, it's true for me, dancing certainly makes me feel great. I love watching dancing too. (In fact, if you ever see any good dancing on YouTube, please recommend it to me by tagging it with for:inspirewithhope at del.icio.us. Thanks! Oh, and do you know of any daytime dance classes in London? Let me know, cheers).

Being good. Or, rather, thinking about what it means to be good. Chris' classes have always had a profound effect on me. He's leading our Ethics seminars, therefore I'm thinking about morality.

'What is Goodness?' is connected with 'What is Reality?'

Steve's thought about subjective reality speak to me. So that, whilst I espouse a realist view (sorry, I can't think of a straightforward summary), I think, in a sense, I create (my) reality. Subjective reality is fascinating, something else I should write about!

In the meantime, definitely read Steve Pavlina on Subjective Reality, as that's what I'll be responding to: "Subjective reality is an integrated belief system where consciousness and awareness are primary. They are the container in which everything else exists. And I do mean EVERYTHING."

Yes, I realise those views (realism and subjective reality) are complete opposites, but it makes sense in my head!

Thirdly, happiness is located in happiness for myself & happiness for others

Cue entrepreneurship (for me) and social enterprise (for others), united. Brilliant. This is something I'm doing a lot of thinking about at the moment and it's going to occupy an increasingly large part of my life. Interested? See How Selfish Are You? Steve Pavlina.

Ooh, another soundbite from Steve; this one's really motivating:

Getting past a 7 [your comfort zone] is hard. It can take more effort to get past a 7 than it takes to reach a 7 in the first place. Some people would complain that it takes too long to get past a 7. But the truth is that the time is going to pass anyway. Even if it takes 5-10 years, you might as well get yourself to a higher level within that time, since the years are going to pass anyway…

You might get a bit scratched and bruised along the way. You might mess up your current relationship, your career, or your lifestyle. You won't be able to see very far in front of you because everything will be moving faster than you're used to. Sometimes you'll just have to take it one day at a time and guess at the best direction. You might even hit a wall now and then.

Bruises just come with the territory. But getting moving again is far better than remaining stuck. The wounds will heal, and I've always found an exciting new path to explore. It sure beats dying a slow death while waiting for the vultures to swoop down…

If you want to experience deep fulfillment, take lots and lots of action. Action can be physical, mental, social — even spiritual.

The only true security lies in action.

How to Get From a 7 to a 10, Steve Pavlina

So, what difference does all this thinking make? Looking to the future…

So, next steps?

I had a lot of brilliant ideas today about things I want to do in the future. Now I just need to decide what I'm doing now to make that future happen.

Over the Christmas holidays, I'll be studying and working on my main business idea. I'll be meeting up with my study buddies (uniting business & pleasure is an excellent way to be motivated) and, of course, doing some more thinking. Stay tuned to All Things Bright for more every-other-day updates and let me know what you think, because I love hearing from my readers.

Notes: Especially for new visitors

Chris, Peter & Rosa (photo, Flickr) are my tutors for the MA Ethics & Philosophy of Religion postgraduate degree I'm reading.
Steve Pavlina, Personal Development for Smart People, is one of my favourite self-publishing authors.

I love being a student because…

A family friend asked me once why I'd gone back to university to study and 'Aren't you sick of it?' Er, no. I love being a student. Why? Let me count the ways.

Because it's free. Obviously you have to pay for education. However, there are tonnes of free benefits, many of them intangible and unavailable elsewhere.

1. Free access to online journals and to my beautiful, amazing library:
   Including ones that are nothing to do with my course, like Sexualities. (I was Googling and found a fascinating article: Constructing Polyamorous Languages in a Culture of Compulsory Monogamy, by Ani Ritchie & Meg Barker) Free access if you have an Athens username & password.
2. Free time, lots of it, ostensibly:
   In fact, I've worked full time in the past (last year) and it's true: Comparatively, I have tonnes of free time. I need to remind myself of this. The key reason it feels like I don't have lots of free time is because I procrastinate, leading to creating unnecessary urgency in my life. Roll on Christmas holidays and I will be tackling these bad habits with a vengeance.
3. Free student discounts & promotional products:
   Currently, my favourite is Yo! Sushi's half-price student offer. Last week my university were giving away contraception, apparently (because it was AIDS Awareness Week).
4. Free advice and access to genius minds:
   My university includes such geniuses as Thomas Pink and Raimond Gaita, as well as my brilliant tutors and my course mates.
5. Free film screenings:
   Tomorrow, I'm going to see what looks like a rubbishy teen movie with a cliche twist, even the name is 'ironically' rubbishy teen movie cliche: Another Gay Movie.
6. Free discussions and the atmosphere:
   My classmates are amazing people. What's the likelihood I would have met them if we hadn't gone to university? Chances of us talking about philosophy of religion, if we had met, especially in a structured setting? Even lower.
7. Free choice of where I work:
   When I wrote this I was seated in Starbucks (4 Dec, 6.10pm), where I'd been sat for a couple of hours. It's brilliant, great opportunities to people watch and socially acceptable eavesdropping.

Intrapreneurship skills: Enabling a better class of entrepreneurship

The day before yesterday I wrote: My year of intrapreneurship: Enabling a better class of entrepreneurship. Following on from that post, I've been exploring the skills & habits I need to cultivate now to make me a better entrepreneur, plus why & how.

I hope you find this study insightful and useful. Do let me know your thoughts. Any skills I've missed?

Skills to cultivate:

1. Student frugality
2. Self-motivation
3. Inner strength

Student frugality

Why?

• I'll still be poor when I finish studying and start entrepreneurship full-time.
• I need to raise capital and the best way to save money is not to spend it in the first place.
• Money-management is an excellent life skill to have and will prevent me frittering away my millions when I make them.

How?

Hmm, good question. I tend to scrimp and then blow it all, usually in an emotionally-motivated shopping spree. So, cultivating better mental health would help enormously.

I'm subscribed to some excellent money blogs too, so I should definitely take their advice instead of just reading. See Get Rich Slowly & Art of Money for some tips.

Self-motivation

Why?

At the end of the day, you only have yourself and I only have myself. Sure, we both have lots of friends and colleagues who provide support and advice, but only you will put the wheels in motion.

Being a self-starter means you can conquer whatever obstacles stand in your way when things are tough. It means procrastination becomes a thing of the past. It means you turn in to Action Wo/Man.

How?

Sometimes I bully myself in to it. When that doesn't work, I try going over the reasons why whatever I need to do is a good idea and reminding myself that ultimately I'm choosing to do it.

Really, the only way to do it, is just to do it.

Inner strength

Why?

It's related to my earlier point about the necessity for better mental health. When you're a strong person, you become more resilient; it's much harder for other people and things to hold you back. See Don't Take It Personally! by Elayne Savage for more about resilience.

How?

I'm starting to see a link between mental health and physical health. I know that when I go walking or dancing I feel more alive and there are scientific studies floating around that support what people keep saying: Exercise is good for you and makes you feel better.

I could really do with some help on any and all of these. Please do let me know your suggestions: Just leave a comment or email me. Thanks!