Video Time: Creating Music

I found this last night.

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 7

One of the alternative sources for what's going on around town. Click here to go there.

Financial Security

When a parent gives a child rules to follow, they feel more secure.

What rules are you following to feel more secure about your finances?

Try these five tips from DLM and you will be off to a good start.

Five Minute Finance Fixes

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 11:25 AM PST

Maybe you’re putting off doing anything about your finances because you think you don’t have time. Perhaps you don’t know how much you’re spending every month (except you know it’s too much), and you can never put your hands on those important financial documents when you need them. Maybe you wish there were some quick and simple solutions to your financial problems.

Good news – there are! These simple financial fixes will only take you five minutes. They could set you on the path to recovering control of your finances and getting on top of things. You can do these in the time it takes to boil the kettle. Pick one each day this week, and you’ll soon be firmly back in control of your money.

• Start a Spending Log
  A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to keep a spending log. It only takes five minutes to start one off. Just follow the instructions in that post, and resolve to spend five minutes filling it in every day. It really won’t take much of your time – and I promise it’ll be a big eye opener.
  
  Once you know how much you’re spending, you’re in a far better position to take control.
  


• Take Out Cash for the Week
  Most people find that they spend less when paying in cash: it’s easy for money on a piece of plastic to seem unreal. And if you only take $30 in notes to the store, you can only spend $30 – no matter how tempted you are by that new DVD.
  
  You might not need to use cash for everything you buy, but having a set weekly amount for “groceries” can help you resist impulse purchases, and doing likewise for “entertainment” will curb your spending.
  


• Find a Box File
  If you loath filing, your financial documents are probably in a mess. You might have pay slips scattered around the house, vital letters shoved into magazine racks, bank statements piled up on your desk… Admit it, if you needed to find something, you’d have to waste several hours searching for it.
  
  Although we’d all have a perfect, ordered filing system in an ideal world, this is a five minute fix. Get yourself a box file (or just a large cardboard box will do) and stick a label on the front saying “Finances”. From now on, every document that comes in (bills, payslips, bank statements, tax information) goes in that box. You’ll still need to dig through it a bit, but at least everything will be in one place.
  


• Cut Up Your Credit Card
  I’m putting this first because it will make the biggest difference to your life: cut up your credit card. Buying on credit – spending money you don’t have – puts you in debt. Even if you always pay off the balance on time, there’s going to come a month when your check goes astray in the mail or you’ll splash out on something you can’t really afford, and then scrape by on the minimum payments – racking up more and more debt.
  
  If you’ve got a credit card, cut it in half today. Save up for the things you want instead.
  


• Register for Online Banking
  Quick: what’s your bank balance? Do you know? Can you even make a decent guess? If you’re anything like most people, you probably don’t have much clue. It’s a pain to have to trek to the bank or an ATM every time you want to check your balance – so don’t. Register for online banking today and you can check exactly how much money you have, whenever you want.
  
  With my bank, I just popped my card into the ATM and selected “Register for online banking” – as simple as that. You can also use online banking to set up direct debits, make bank transfers, move money between accounts and much more – it’ll save you a lot of time and gives you the peace of mind of being able to easily see which checks have cleared and which payments have gone out.

Pick one of the above – or something similarly easy and quick – to do today. And if you have a five minute finance tip, share it with us in the comments!

Written on 12/21/2008 by Ali Hale. Ali runs Alpha Student, a blog packed with academic, financial and practical tips to help students get the most out of their time at university.

Photo Credit: *L*u*z*a*

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 6

A little self-promotion. I write this one which is updated once or twice a week. Click here to go there.

Take Action Now

Last fall our church had a series of bible studies that my wife and I attended. Among the lasting messages that stands out to me is that instead of waiting for direction, start moving and doors will either open or close.

At work, I call it trying to steer a parked car, when I'm trying to help someone and they don't do the work.

In my email last week this came from the Art of Manliness Blog. If you need to kick it up a notch, read on:

The Art of Manliness

Becoming a Better Man in 2009

Posted: 31 Dec 2008 01:40 AM CST

Every year, I set goals or “resolutions” on how to be a better man. I succeed with some but fail in others. Many people become jaded with New Year’s resolutions because they often go un-achieved. Some people are just complacent with themselves. I read today that one individual wasn’t planning on setting New Year’s resolutions because, well, he likes the way he is and doesn’t want to change.

I like myself plenty, but I know there are areas where I can improve my life.

I’ve read plenty of self-improvement books on how to set goals. I’m sure you all have, too. They all pretty much say the same thing: Set specific goals, make sure your goals are measurable, set goals that stretch you, etc. That’s all fine, but setting goals is the easy part. How do we actually achieve them? Most books will tell us that we need to post our goals somewhere that we can see them all the time, repeat them everyday, or make some lame “vision board” so you can visualize your goal. Somehow that’s going to help us achieve our dreams.

I’ve been skipping the regurgitated fluff by self-help gurus and instead seeking advice on how to be a better man and achieve my goals from history’s greatest men. How did I get the advice of history’s great men? I read their biographies. Here’s what I’ve learned from them on how to succeed at your goals.

Establish a system. As a young man, Benjamin Franklin set the audacious goal of “achieving moral perfection.” Franklin set mini-goals to live one of 13 virtues as perfectly as he could each week. In order to achieve his goal of moral perfection, he established a system that helped him keep track of how he was doing in his progress to moral perfection. His system consisted of 13 small charts which contained a column for each day of the week and 13 rows marked with the first letter of his 13 virtues. Franklin evaluated himself at the end of each day. He placed a dot next to each virtue he had violated. The goal was to minimize the number of marks, thus indicating a “clean” life free of vice. With just a glance, Franklin could see how he was doing on his goals.

While Franklin never achieved moral perfection, he didn’t think the project was a waste because he was definitely a better man after he was done.

We can apply the same principle Franklin utilized by establishing a system to help us keep track of our progress. If your goal is to lose 40 lbs this year, create daily mini-goals like Franklin did with his virtues, and make a mark when you don’t achieve those daily goals. A mini-g0al for losing 40 pounds could be exercising every day or not eating junk food during the week. If you slip up on those goals, make a mark for that day. The goal is to have fewer and fewer marks.

Download this replica of Franklin’s chart and adapt it to your goal. You can also use a really handy and FREE online service called Joe’s Goals. It’s basically Franklin’s charts online.

Create a daily regimen and stick to it. How many of us get up each day not knowing what in the heck we’re going to do with our time? What usually happens? We get a few things done, but then we waste the rest of our time surfing the web or watching TV. Great men from history ALWAYS knew what they were going to do each day because they had a daily routine and stuck to it like clockwork. Throughout his life, Teddy Roosevelt maintained a rigid daily routine; a habit he picked up from his father. He set aside specific time each day for study, exercise, and work. Ben Franklin shared his daily schedule with us in his biography.

In a letter to his son, George Washington laid out a daily routine for the young man to follow every day of the week, giving the exact time he should spend with each activity. Washington ended his letter by saying:

Time disposed of in this manner, makes ample provision for exercise and every useful, or necessary recreation, and at the same time that the hours allotted for study, if really applied to it, instead of running up and down stairs, and wasted in conversation with any one who will talk with you, will enable you to make considerable progress in whatsoever line is marked out for you.

If we know what we’re going to do and at what time we’re going to do it, we’ll be less likely to waste time with trifles.

Create a daily regimen for yourself. Download this weekly calendar, sit down, and plan for the coming week. Block out time for all the activities you must accomplish during the week. This could also be done in Outlook or some other computer time management software, but I prefer paper and pencil. I always begin by blocking off time for the most important items. For me that’s scheduling time for exercise, time with my wife, and time for personal meditation. If you’re balancing several projects at work or school, block off specific time each day in which you’ll work on a different project. You might not finish the project in the allotted time, but that’s not the point. The goal is to just work on it instead of goofing off.

Of course, you should always look over the next day’s schedule each night and make changes depending on changing circumstances. If you can establish a daily regimen for yourself like these great men, you’ll be well on your way to success.

Develop your willpower and discipline. The reason why most people fail to achieve their goals is because they lack the willpower or discipline to do so. But history’s greatest men had wills of iron that gave them the fortitude to achieve success even when things were against them. Alexander the Great displayed amazing resolution when he conquered the heavily fortressed island of Tyre. Ghandi showcased an iron clad will with his gruelingly long fasts in protest to the British government. History is full of men, who through pure willpower, were able to accomplish great things.

A man cannot develop an iron will overnight. It takes months, even years to create the discipline needed to take on great tasks. If you feel you lack the willpower to achieve your goals, there’s no need to fret. Willpower is like a muscle. It can grow and become stronger with use. Just as you would start with light weights when exercising your muscles, start with small exercises of discipline in order to develop your willpower. Instead of making a goal to exercise every day for the entire year, commit to exercising 6X a week for the next thirty days. If you have trouble wasting time surfing mindless websites, make it a goal to devote 45 minutes to concentrated work. After the 45 minutes, give yourself a 15 minute break and surf the web to your heart’s delight. Repeat. After awhile, you’ll be able to work an hour without surfing the web, then an hour and a half, then two.

Once you develop your willpower in small areas, move to bigger ones. With time, you will forge a will that will allow you to accomplish any goal or obstacle placed before you.

Quit navel gazing and get to work. When it comes to making life changes, my generation has replaced good old-fashioned work with navel gazing. Instead of just putting your shoulder to the wheel and getting going, too many men think that a period of great reflection and meditation needs to be the first step. We sit and think and mull over how we got off track, reproach ourselves for it, have a little pity party, and try to diagnose exactly where we went wrong. Clint Eastwood recently had an interview with Esquire magazine that produced these magnificent nuggets of wisdom on the subject:

-As Jerry Fielding used to say, “We’ve come this far, let’s not ruin it by thinking.”

-We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.

-I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.

-It keeps coming back to “We’ve come this far, let’s not ruin it by thinking.”

Eastwood carries his philosophy over into his filmmaking; he doesn’t do much rehearsal, he just expects the actors to bring their A-game, shoots the scene, and moves on. He doesn’t dwell on his insecurities or let self-doubt paralyze him into inaction. The problem with excessive navel-gazing is that many men never move beyond the pondering period to actually taking action. Life interrupts their thoughts, and they get distracted by other things. Then, 6 months later they realize they haven’t changed and go into another navel-gazing funk about the reasons why.

Quit over-analyzing and get to work. All of history’s great men have realized that hard work is the great “secret” of success. Thomas Edison would spend days in his laboratory working on a project. Frederick Douglas spent days on end crafting speeches and writing. Theodore Roosevelt lived the strenuous life by filling his time with hard mental and physical labor. These men didn’t sit around thinking about what they wanted to do, they just did it.

So instead of spending all your time trying to “find yourself,” simply decide the direction you want your life to move, set a course for yourself, and take actions every day that are align with your goals. That’s it.

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 5

They moved to a new place on the web last year. Click here to go there.

Video Time: The Fab 4 and then some

A few days ago, Kim Komando featured this video. Click here to read the story behind this song.

Getting Older is better than the Alternative

Had a birthday last month. Hopefully you get one too in the next 12 months! Here's some perspective from Harvey Mackay:

How to stay young as the years go by

Youth, it has been said, is wasted on the young. That would be a travesty if it were true. Fortunately, youth is not only a time of life; it's also a state of mind. I stopped counting after my 39th birthday, but I still consider myself young. And I intend to stay that way!

Having a youthful outlook and attitude is possible at any age, just as being an old fogey can start at a very young age. As I said, I choose youth!

Want to stay young at heart? Here are some ideas to help you:

• Keep only cheerful, positive friends. You can pick your friends, and I like to choose those who are positive and people who challenge me. They make me feel good. They don't drag me down or make me angry at the world. Negative people see the difficulty in every opportunity, while positive people see the opportunity in every difficulty.
• Keep learning. I think Henry Ford put it best when he said, "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." I've always said that you should be in school all your life—never stop learning.
• Enjoy the simple things. Don't forget to take time to enjoy the things that you like to do—go for a walk or to the movies, read a good book, watch a favorite TV show, spend time with your family. You have to have a good balance in life.
• Laugh often. Starting your day with a good laugh, or at least a big smile, is as beneficial to your health as it is to your mood. Scientific studies at Northwestern University and Fordham University concluded that laughter benefits the heart, lungs, stomach and other organs. It relaxes tensions, changes attitude, and increases the body's natural painkillers. And it has no harmful side effects.
• Stay in shape. Exercise is good for your mind as well as your body. Studies show that healthy employees have decreased absenteeism, better performance and improved morale. I've always felt that a healthy workforce is a productive workforce. The human body is the only machine that wears out faster if it is not used.
• Cherish your health. There is nothing more important than your health. Stay in shape so you can improve your chance for good health. If you're healthy, do what you can to preserve it. It your health is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
• Be happy. You are responsible for your own happiness. We sometimes convince ourselves that life will be better after we get a better job, make more money, get married, have a baby, buy a bigger house and so on. Yet the accomplishment of any of those events may not make any difference at all. There is no magic secret to happiness. Happiness starts in your head.
• Don't stress out. You can't escape stress, but you can avoid creating unnecessary stress. You just need to find a stress reliever. Mine is sports—going to a sporting event, playing golf, swimming or jogging. If the stress just won't go away, then you have to make some changes in your life that might be more stressful in the short-term but healthier in the long run.
• Don't take guilt trips. Rather, take a trip to some location or maybe it's just the mall, but escape occasionally. I remember a story about the worry tree. At night an accountant would go home from work and place all his worries on a tree in his front yard. The next morning he would pick up those worries on his way to work, but surprisingly, they weren't as heavy the next day.
• Visualize yourself as youthful and with endless energy. I learned years ago that visualization is the most powerful means of attaining personal goals. Visionary people can achieve whatever they want by determining a plan to attain it and expecting positive results. It doesn't do the planning and it doesn't anticipate the obstacles. It gives you a real idea of what is possible, if only you want it bad enough. Vision is not so much what you think as how you think. If you can visualize it, you can make it happen.

Mackay's Moral: If you want to stay youthful, stay useful.

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 4

The Official site for our city. Click here to go there.

Video Time: Fun with Shadows

More fun from Conan:

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 3

An easy one today. Click here to go there.

What to do when you have no kids

My parents traveled a lot in their later years. My kids are doing it now. What do they have in common? No little rug-rats to take care of=freedom. From the DLM Blog:

5 Reasons To Travel When You're Young

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 02:54 PM PST

Traveling is unarguably one of the most gratifying experiences a person can have in their lifetime. Traveling awakens the soul, stirs the senses and paints the world in a new light. It may seem like a pastime for only a certain kind of person, but in all actuality, anyone and everyone can and should travel.

In my opinion, it's better to travel sooner than later in life for a few very key reasons:

1. Traveling can help you figure out what you want to do with your life: Exposing yourself to new places, people and cultures can awaken your sense of purpose. Learning about what's out there in the world can help you determine what feels like you - and what doesn't.
   
   It's also especially useful in helping people realize that there's no one way to live a lifetime. Every culture is different and so is every person within those cultures. If you wait till later in life, you run the risk of realizing your potential too late. Don't let opportunity pass you by; explore the world while you're young.
   


2. It promotes independence (and hones survival skills): Catching flights, keeping track of passports and navigating foreign-speaking cities, can force you to think on your feet and make decisions quickly. Being away from your comfort zone really pushes a person to think independently.
   


3. It eliminates resentment later in life: How often do you hear someone much older than you comment on how they should have done something when they were younger? No one wants to be sitting in a rocking chair at age 80, wishing that they had taken that trip when they had the chance. Don't let someone or something stop you from traveling. A chance to experience the world now is greater than any excuse you can come up with for not going. It's worth it and you'll be glad you have those memories later in life, trust me!
   


4. It makes you a more interesting person: Nothing sucks more than talking to a person who has absolutely nothing to say. Traveling can create amazing memories and it serves as a great conversation starter. You'd be surprised how many times travel comes up in conversation, whether it be at a party or at the office. Think of how great it would be if you can jump in next time and compare experiences. Whether you are talking about your recent safari in Africa or that time you swam with dolphins in the Caribbean, it makes you seem knowledgeable and worldly which, let's face it, is totally hot.


5. You work hard and deserve it: Life can be crazy these days. With the overload of gadgets, work hours and social networking demands, it's no wonder we haven't broken down as a nation, cracking from all the pressure. Today's youth works harder than ever to achieve more than ever, and there's no better way to reward ourselves and take time out than with a good old vacation.
   
   Remember, all that hard work is done in vain if there isn't an equal dose of play to go with it. You don't want to look back in 15 years and realize you wasted you're younger years doing nothing but work, right? So save that hard earned cash and go somewhere you've only dared to dream about- today. Turn fantasy into reality and give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it!

I'm sure that one of the main reasons that a young adult would refrain from traveling is lack of funds or overwhelming feelings of not knowing where to start. Traveling doesn't have to be expensive or overwhelming for you to have a great time. There are some affordable deals out there for just about every trip you can imagine; it's all about timing and planning.

Understand that airfare is always cheaper in certain months, as are hotel rates and nightlife packages. Travel agents can be really useful in helping you find the best deals and packages. Plus, they know exactly what hotels and attractions to send you to, depending on what your interests are. Also, don't discount your friends and relatives. You never know who has an Uncle with a timeshare or an extra apartment in Miami that their parents rent out during the year. The more you ask, the more you shall receive.

Make it a priority to do your homework and planning a vacation will ultimately be fun, exciting, and rewarding - an experience that you will certainly never forget.

Written on 12/18/2008 by Miss Alyss, a strategist for a direct marketing firm in Manhattan. She hopes to have her website up and running in 2009.

Photo Credit: René Ehrhardt

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 2

This is a homepage link site. Its for three local radio stations that you can listen to on your computer.

Here's how it works. Once you are at the home page, you'll see the logo's of three very distinct radio stations.

Click on one of them and you'll go to their home page. Want to try another style of music? Click on a different logo. Like what you hear? Support the advertisers and tell them where you heard about them. That's how you can support our local businesses!






Click here to go there.

2009 Preview and 2008 Wrap Up

The Really? Blog you are looking at is my non-work blog. It's my "personal" blog. At the end of 2008 I started doing a nightly video. Earlier in the year I featured a different local blog and found 100 before I ended that project.

So here's what's ahead in 2009.

Each morning I'll feature another Fort Wayne Website or Blog. There will be a few from the original list of 100, but a bunch of new ones, including non-blog websites.

And I'll add a second post each day too. Sometimes it will be a video. Sometimes it will be a reposting from another blog or website.

And now to wrap up the New Years Holiday, I've got a best of list from one of the blogs I have featured here before:

The Art of Manliness

The Best of Art of Manliness 2008

Posted: 01 Jan 2009 02:13 PM CST

It’s been an awesomely manly year here at The Art of Manliness. When we launched the site a year ago on January 4, 2008, we didn’t think the AoM community would get this big, this fast. In just a year, AoM has grown to almost 25K subscribers. The growth of the site has been driven by our fantastic readers. Thank you for being evangelists of manliness and thanks for the tips and feedback on stories. We also want to thank those who have taken the time to send us encouraging words via email. Kate and I are truly grateful for the support. Finally, we’d like to give a big thank you to all of our guest contributors who have provided quality articles for the site.

We’re also very excited about the Art of Manliness book which will be coming in Fall 2009. Kate and I have been working hard on it for many months and the manuscript is just about done.

Because it’s pretty much impossible to avoid the “Best of…..” lists this time of year, we figured there’s no sense in resisting the urge to create one of our own. For our new readers and as a review for our old readers, we present the Best of Art of Manliness 2008. We hope you’ve enjoyed AoM during 2008, and rest assured we’ll be working to make 2009 an even better and manlier year. Cheers!

January 2008

How To Shave Like Your Grandpa

Every Man Should Do This Exercise Routine Every Day

Lessons In Manliness From the Gladiator

Increase Your Manly Confidence Overnight

Stop Hanging Out With Women and Start Dating Them

February 2008

Talk Like Frank Sinatra

Make Yourself Stick With These First Impression Tips

How To Ask For (And Get) A Raise Like a Man

The 10 Worst Products For Men Ever Created

Write A Love Letter Like A Soldier

We also started a series looking at applying Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues. This was one of our most popular series. See the wrap up to read all the posts.

March 2008

The Mechanics of the Man Hug

Bringing Back the Hat

14 Ways To Affair Proof Your Marriage

Building The Perfect Dopp Kit

So You Want To Become a Man

April 2008

How To Break Down A Door

How To Snag a Souvenir Baseball

9 Ways To Start a Fire Without Matches

Every Man Should Carry a Pocket Knife

How to Leave the Perfect Voicemail

May 2008

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library

Rediscovering the Barbershop

How To Survive and Thrive In a Street Fight in 8 Simple Steps

How Do You Know When She’s the One?

Asking a Woman’s Father For Her Hand In Marriage

June 2008

Quit Coddling Your Kids

The All-Time Best (And Worst) TV Dads

How To Properly Rock A Pocket Square

The 15 Greatest Man Cries (Plus 5 Dishonorable Mentions)

The Gentleman’s Guide To Tipping

July 2008

The Ultimate Man’s Guide to Fireworks

Do More Than One Stinking Pull-Up

10 Outdated Men’s Fashions That Still Have The Charm

10 Steps to the Best Best Man Speech

Shine Your Shoes Like A Soldier

August 2008

The 35 Greatest Speeches in History

The Uncle Buzz Workout: How to Get in Shape Without the Gym

52 Workout Songs To Help You Get Bigger, Stronger, and Faster

10 Manly Feats of Strength

Be a Modern Knight: Protecting Your Lady in the 21st Century

September 2008

The Gentleman’s Guide to the Calling Card

Mayday! Mayday! How to Land a Plane in an Emergency

How To Jump Start a Car

The Bushido Code: The Eight Virtues of the Samurai

The 10 Manliest Sea Shanties

October 2008

Your Grandpa’s Babes

The Art of Manliness Free Man Cookbook

The Art of Thank You Note Writing

Become a Morse Code Expert

How to Pack a Bag When Traveling

November 2008

6 Lessons in Manliness from James Bond

20 Manliest Mustaches and Beards From Facial Hair History

How To Cook and Carve a Thanksgiving Turkey Like a Man

Growing a Manly Beard

Three Steps to Building Your Individual Style

December 2008

The Art of Manliness Manly Holiday Gift Guide

6 Holiday Style Tips For Men

How To End a Relationship Like a Man

25 of the Greatest Self-Made Men in American History

Every Man Needs Adventure

Finally, make sure to check out our archives for even more manly articles.

Fort Wayne Site-of-the-Day 1

In order to form a more perfect union, we.... hold on someone else wrote that already.

Last year I attempted to find local blogs that were updated regularly. I struggled to find 100 before retiring the project.

This year, I'll start fresh and include blogs and websites, one each day for the entire year. I will include some from the original 100 that are still active and about 300 others that are connected to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Connected and connecting is the key. I've been back in Fort Wayne for over 10 years now and made the decision to stay here when I proposed to my wife 8 1/2 years ago. She sold me on my home town, (which was her adopted home town), and the many attractions and benefits to living here.

So, in no particular order, let's begin:

Click here to go there.

New Year, New Focus

One of the features I promised to deliver this year is a return of the Local Website Feature, 1 each night all year long. 365 total. Not just Blogs, but other sites with a Fort Wayne, Indiana connection.

However, right now, let's focus on resolutions. In 2009, each of us would be better if we can identify our needs vs. our wants. This is from the DLM Blog.

How To Separate 'Real' Wants From 'Should' Wants

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 10:12 AM PST

Many of us have taken up the habit of writing down our long-term goals, hoping we'll direct our unconscious minds to accomplish them and they'll manifest in the world. Unfortunately, as with New Year's resolutions, this technique often doesn't work as well as we'd like. Many of us are disappointed at the end of each year by the number of goals we didn't get around to checking off our list.

I've come to believe one of the reasons for this is that we often base our lists of goals on what we're convinced that we "should" want, rather than what we actually want. In other words, we're setting our goals based on what our parents, culture and other influences expect us to want, as opposed to our genuine desires.

For example, although you might really want to be a sculptor, you may have been taught that you "should" want a stable, respectable career in accounting. Although you may actually prefer being single, you may have been pressured by your family, friends and others into believing you "should" get married. These "shoulds," as they're sometimes called, don't really inspire us—we're only pursuing them to get others' approval and thus we don't find ourselves strongly motivated to achieve them.

One tricky aspect of our "shoulds" is that they're often difficult to tell apart from our authentic wants. We often learn what others expect us to want very early on, and those ideas become so deeply ingrained in us that we actually convince ourselves, on a conscious level, that we want them. For instance, I worked with one woman who, as a child, aspired to be a painter, but her parents told her she lacked artistic talent. For years, she felt unsafe telling people what she really wanted, or even acknowledging it to herself.

Our unconscious minds seem to know the difference between our real wants and "should wants," and can block our efforts to reach a goal we're not actually passionate about. But how can we become aware, on a conscious level, of what we deeply, truly desire? In coaching people on finding direction in their careers, I've found three approaches helpful, and I'll share them here.

• Notice How Your Goals Make You Feel
  One way to get a sense of what actually inspires us is to check in with how our bodies feel. If we're paying attention, we'll know which goals we're really interested in from the sensations that arise when we think about them. For example, when we hit upon something we genuinely desire, perhaps we'll feel a surge of strength in our arms, a spacious feeling in our heart, or something else. By contrast, if we're thinking about a goal that doesn't actually inspire us, perhaps we'll feel a numbness, a tension in our muscles somewhere, and so on.
  
  To do this exercise, take a few moments to think about the goals you'd like to achieve in your life, and write them down. (If you read a lot of personal development literature, you've probably done this before.) Now, go back to the top of the list and slowly scan your eyes down the page, reading each goal. As you do this, take deep breaths, and hold your awareness on the sensations coming up in your body. Notice how reading each goal feels inside. Ask yourself honestly: do you really feel inspired and empowered?
  
  Once you understand the sensations a goal brings up in you, write down what you experienced next to that goal. For instance, if you felt chills down your spine when you thought about your idea of writing a book, describe that feeling. After you've finished running down your list, create another list of the goals that actually felt exciting to contemplate. When you're working toward these goals, you're likely to be at your most passionate and productive.
  
  It's important, as you're doing this exercise, to keep your attention solely on the physical sensations you're experiencing. You may find your mind chiming in with reasons why you should or shouldn't be interested in a goal you've written—making rational arguments like "doing this would be financially sound," "people would call you irresponsible if you did that," and so on. When this happens, thank your mind for sharing, and gently return your awareness to your body. This isn't an intellectual exercise—it's a process of connecting with your wants on a "gut level."
  


• Observe How You Talk About Your Wants
  In my experience, the true test of how strongly we believe in our goals is how we find ourselves describing them to others. The words we use, our voice tonality, how we hold our bodies, and so on are clues to how we really feel about the objectives we say we're interested in.
  
  To do this exercise, find a person you trust to listen to what you want without judging or criticizing you—maybe a coach or therapist, a family member or a close friend. Bring your list of goals with you, and simply read the list out loud to them. Pay close attention to the words you use and how you move your body as you run down the list. If a goal you're describing is a "should want" rather than an authentic desire, you may find yourself doing one or more of the following:
  
  
  • Talking in a monotone. If your voice becomes emotionless or robotic as you're telling someone about your goal, it might not be genuinely inspiring to you. I have a friend, for example, who used to tell me, in a flat tone of voice, "all I want is a steady job and a girlfriend." When I finally pointed out how uninspired he sounded, he admitted that wasn't truly all he wanted.
  
  
  • Justifying or rationalizing. If you find yourself defending your goal as you describe it—perhaps insisting that what you're proposing is realistic, anticipating criticisms from the other person, and so on—you may have some doubts about whether the goal actually appeals to you.
  
  
  • Apologizing. If you find yourself giving disclaimers after you describe your goal, like "it's not a very big deal to me," or "for what it's worth," the goal might not be as interesting to you as it may have looked on paper.
  
  
  • Making yourself small. Perhaps you find yourself hunching or slouching as you talk about what you want, or having a strong desire to bolt out of the room. The anxiety you're feeling may stem from an awareness that you aren't expressing a deep-seated desire.
  
  
  • Speaking very quickly. If you describe your goal really quickly, to get the discomfort of talking about it over with as soon as possible, the goal might not be in keeping with your authentic wants.
  
  To be sure, there may be other reasons why you tend to do these behaviors. Your reluctance to talk about your goals might simply stem from shame about asking for what you want, a feeling that you're bragging by reciting your goals, or something else. But if you find yourself doing these things, at least take an honest look at whether the goal you're talking about genuinely inspires you.
  
  
• Notice How Others React To Your Goals
  Just as checking in with your body when you consider your goals is a useful indicator of how appealing those goals are to you, noticing how others feel and respond when you say what you want is also an effective way of measuring your passion. To do this exercise, read your list of goals to someone you feel safe with, but this time ask them what sensations came up in their bodies as you said what you wanted.
  
  When you have this conversation, make sure you ask the other person to simply and honestly describe the feelings they're noticing in the moment. For example, they might say "I noticed my jaw tensing as you told me you want to start a consulting firm," "my attention drifted off when you described the island paradise you want," and so on. Ask that they refrain, for the moment, from giving you a rational analysis of your goals—for instance, talking about the possible cost of what you're proposing, whether you have the skills to achieve your objective, and so forth.
  
  Human beings are empathic creatures—much more so than we usually give each other credit for. If we pay close attention, when another person expresses a heartfelt desire, we can feel the strength of their desire in our own bodies. When they say something that isn't true for them, by contrast, our bodies tighten up, instinctively rejecting their words. If you have trouble determining which of your goals truly express your desires, another person's reactions may be a helpful guide.
  

Written on 12/22/2008 by Chris Edgar. Chris is an author and success coach who helps people transition to careers aligned with their true callings, and find more fulfillment and productivity in their work. You can read more from Chris at Purpose Power Coaching.