WELCOME TO MY PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT BLOG!
Hi! If you're looking for top advice on how to better your personal development and make you life the way you've always wanted it to be, if you want to know how to get a vision and achieve it, how to live your dreams and believe in yourself, so that happiness and a meaningful life are yours to stay, then you've come to the right place! Read my top-notch blog articles and get inspired! Read about the work I am doing to help my high school students' dreams come true! I hope you find within these webpages the inspiration you need to take action and achieve the life you've always dreamed of and I wish you every success in the future!
If you want to learn about what Personal Development is, check out my YouTube video below -
MY SIX PRINCIPLES TO LIVING A DREAM LIFE
So you want to live your dream life! That's why you've been searching for answers online and why you have come to this blog - to discover the principles that govern success in life and bring you the life you have always desired!
I identify 6 main principles that I believe are necessary for living your dream life -
1/ Accept Your Life
2/ Choose Your Dream
3/ Improve Your Health
4/ Increase Your Wealth
5/ Better Your Relationships
6/ Aim for Eternity
I will be going into more detail regarding these principles in subsequent blog posts but briefly, these are the main issues -
FIRST PRINCIPLE: Accept Your Life
Although you may not realise it now (or even want to face it), the truth is, everything that has ever happened to you has some bearing on the dream life you want to lead. All experiences, both good and bad, that have happened in your life, should be included in your search for the life of your dreams. A dream life that is merely an escape from a painful existence is not a dream life at all, since it doesn't take into account the truth of who you are. Being able to integrate your more negative experiences leads to self-acceptance, which can then be leveraged into your plans to create a life that truly fulfills you and makes you happy.
SECOND PRINCIPLE: Choose Your Dream
Following on from the more accurate self-awareness of ourselves gained from the First Principle, we now are in a position to choose a dream and mode of existence which can then satisfy the person we now realise we are. Choosing a dream entails creating an exciting vision that inspires you and makes you want to get up in the morning each day, then focusing on achieving it by the adoption of SMART goals that bring you closer to your desired destination.
THIRD PRINCIPLE: Improve Your Health
No serious attempt to create a better future can ignore the importance of bodily health. No dream life can be forthcoming if you are unsatisfied with your appearance, are overweight or suffer from ill-health. A commitment to physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle will give you the energy you need to create your vision and the pride engendered by creating the body you've always wanted will be a major boost to your self-esteem and confidence, which are both factors that will dramatically increase your ability to achieve your life goals.
FOURTH PRINCIPLE: Increase Your Wealth
Although this seems like a no-brainer, since practically everyone dreams of living a life where money is no object, it is necessary to think outside the box and live the mindset of a millionaire if you want to seriously achieve the goal of wealth creation. Traditional attitudes of "work hard and everything will be O.K." must be discarded in favour of the concept of giving yourself and your talents to the world (rather than expecting the world to give you what you want). These ideas and others form the basis of material success and will bring you closer to the goal you seek.
FIFTH PRINCIPLE: Better Your Relationships
Our connections and relationships with others have a major effect on our personal happiness - there is little point in planning to be a millionaire and have a wonderful life when your relationships are in the gutter, you are on the brink of divorce or consistently fail to attract a romantic partner with whom you can share your dream life. Handling this area of your life will greatly increase your personal happiness and is a major piece of the puzzle to living a meaningful life,
SIXTH PRINCIPLE: Aim for Eternity
Having created your dream life, there is no point in having one without considering the ultimate meaning of life. Since death will rob us of all our efforts in the end, a focus on tailoring your dream to include Heaven and the hereafter will fine-tune the issues you focus on to include questions of ultimate meaning. Those of a less religious bent should focus on the concept of "legacy". What do you want to be remembered for? Who will benefit from your life after you are gone? What would you like to give back? Considering these issues will lead to the lasting joy that comes from a life well-lived and the peace of a good conscience at point of death.
These are the six main principles for living the dream life you've always wanted! Stay tuned for future posts that will go into these Principles in more detail! Have a great day!
EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON
I believe that my life has meaning. I didn't always believe that.
However, stuff has happened to me and things have transpired that
have allowed me to glimpse a little something beyond what is normal
in life, to witness the ultimate purpose to why I am here and to
uncover my mission here in this world.
I must admit that, earlier in my life, I didn't have much of a clue.
Things didn't start out so great. My father's physical, verbal and
emotional abuse was not a good start. My personality disorder made
life difficult. I suffered from epilepsy, too. The teasing and
bullying at school didn't help either. The day I held the hand of the
girl I cared about while she made out with someone else didn't bode
well. Hating myself at 13 years old wasn't good. Being homeless for 2
nights at 30 years old wasn't great either. Being friendzoned by a
pornstar when I was working on a cruise ship didn't do much for my
self-esteem.
I've met other people who, if they had suffered what I have, would
have given up years ago. I've met people who are all too willing to
throw in the towel and say, :”What's the use? Life sucks.”
However, I say they weren't paying attention to the details. They
didn't have an “attitude of gratitude”. My father didn't kill me.
My epilepsy stopped. I did have 2 friends in primary school. I am the
only one in the love triangle who didn't get fired. At 13 I started
making plans for my life. When I was on the streets, my girlfriend
still loved me. Having had experience of “bad girls”, I now love
women intensely.
Most of all, I always had a dream. Plus, most of them time, I have
had at least one plan in place to achieve it. Always keep moving
forward. I'm positive. I'm a good guy. I have to be. With all these
bad things happening, the only alternative to being a good guy was to join the dreary crowd
eking out a living, trudging to work. I didn't want to join them. It
felt scary. It also looked unbelievably miserable. Secretly, I was
frightened. Frightened of being thought of as a bad person,
frightened to face the intolerance of others, frightened that this
was all life had to offer. I wanted to be different and I wanted to
feel special. So I had a dream.
I was studying media at college with quite a cool crowd of teenagers
and twenty-something mature students. The eldest was 34. I enjoyed my
time with them but occasionally, I would feel like something wasn't
quite right. There was the odd off-colour remark or pointed and snide
comments. Media and journalist types – always trying to look cool,
yet rather cynical about the world. Can't be too gullible when you're
a news reporter, huh?
I was at an all-night party at the house of one of them when Mike
came up to me while I was sitting quietly in the back garden having a
beer. We talked some chit-chat for a few minutes. Now Mike was a cool
dude, quite chill and laid-back and spent most of the time trying to
seduce the girls in the class. I mentioned how I sometimes felt not
entirely “in with the crowd” and that I didn't think I was too
popular. He replied, “Do you want to know why everybody hates you,
Oliver?”
I looked at his face carefully to check for signs of rejection. I was
surprised to find there weren't any. So, with some hesitation, I
said, “Well, OK, go on, tell me.”
“It's because you've still got it.”
“Still got what?” I asked.
“The light, man,” he explained. “You've still got the light in
your eyes. You've still got a dream. You still hope. The others,”
he continued, looking over his shoulders at the rest of the crowd
behind him, “they've already lost it. They know they've lost it.
When they see you, they still see hope in your eyes. It reminds them
of what they lost. They don't like being reminded, so they resent you
for it. That's why they hate you for it. They had a dream once but for whatever reason, something happened and they
felt they had to drop it. You've still got it. Always keep it, man.
Don't worry about these guys. Just keep as you are. Always keep the
light, man. Never lose it.” Then he wandered off. I have always
remembered his words to this day and they make me feel better when I
feel judged or criticized by others.
Some people, when their childhood dreams don't come true, replace it
with a smaller one. Totally unnecessary – why not just get another
one the same size?
Later, I met some “bad” people. I didn't copy their behaviour. I
didn't do what they did. I stayed a good guy; but we hung out. There
was the homeless dude in Freeport, Bahamas, the South African man who
ran naked through the streets of London at 10pm, there was the time I
drank frozen margaritas with a former Colombian bounty hunter, there
was the pornstar I mentioned, there was the bisexual woman who had
sex with 3 men in one night just because she felt sad, there was the
hot Brazilian babe who invited me to samba with her under the stars,
there was the guy who smoked weed, there was the time I tried a
cigarette (I didn't like it), there was the love triangle. Why did
God give me these experiences? Seemingly random, I just put it down
to “stuff happens”, you know?
Later still, I got married, had a son and became a high school
teacher. My teens started out as very cute, innocent kids but then
they started experimenting with shisha, smoking, drinking, underage
sex, teen pregnancy, weed, viewing pornography, depression and “I
hate myself” issues. I suddenly found that my “random”
experiences were now useful to others – I could advise them better
than any other teacher and could now try to bring them out of the
difficulties in which they found themselves into a new life that was
better, a life where they don't feel judged by someone older than
them but rather talk to someone who has “been there”, survived
and come out the other side.
In retrospect, I now believe that nearly everything that has happened
to me has happened for a reason, which makes me believe that it can't
be just me. I believe that things happen for a reason in the lives of
everyone. However, there are some who are so focused on the here and
now that they don't allow themselves time to take a step back and
review the “big picture” to find out what these experiences mean.
Also, those without a religious belief may also find it harder to
believe life has a purpose, since believing that things happen for a
reason strongly suggest the existence of a master plan arranged by
Someone bigger, higher and more powerful than they are. Finally,
believing life has purpose assumes a basically positive view of human
existence, which is an attitude that, sadly, not everyone shares.
So Divine Providence is that tendency for created things to develop
to their fullest capacity by bending towards the greatest good, Who
is God. My life is testament to that and yours can be, too, if you
maintain a positive attitude, reflect on the meaning of individual
events and keep an eye on the “big picture” of your life. In
doing so, you can make all your dreams come true!
WHY SELF-LOVE IS SO IMPORTANT TO MEN
(This article was originally written for the Good Men Project and so focuses on men.)
Self-love is foundational to men and is essential for any authentic
connection to manliness and what it is to be male. From “being
comfortable in your own skin” to competency to self-confidence,
most of the aspects of being a man and being happy with that status
stem from an authentic self-love.
However, how do we get it? Although all babies are born without
hang-ups and with a certain inbuilt self-love, this can easily be
destroyed by parental abuse, neglect or indifference.
I think the first thing is a good relationship with our biological
fathers. Unfortunately, in my case, this didn't happen. While I was
blessed with three stepfathers, who all tried various means to “show
me the way”, nevertheless I was seriously damaged by my biological
father's abuse. In some sense, every little boy deeply desires to be
accepted and loved by the man who brought him into being, to be
thought of as worthy and acceptable by the first male role model of
his life. Failure to receive this led to my asking what must be wrong
with me if my basic needs were not met.
The next step to self-love is competency. I think it's important to a
man that he be “good at doing stuff”. Little boys spend huge
amounts of time with other boys, showing off their skills playing
sport and running around in the playground at school. This is
important because he can feel that he is equal to his peers and thus
accepted by them. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this at the time,
so I always felt “tested” by other boys in my class and, when I
failed to measure up to something I was only vaguely aware of being
measured by, I got teased and bullied.
The next is self-confidence. This consists of two parts – inherent
self-confidence and the confidence that comes from competence. In a way,
self-confidence is the result of feeling “comfortable in your own
skin” due to acceptance by one's father and feeling competent and
“good at stuff” with the kids at school. Unfortunately, many
teenagers, myself included, felt neither and so end up hating
themselves.
The solution I have found has worked for me and, while it may not
necessarily work for every man, I feel it is important to share it so
you can have at least some idea on how to go about getting self-love
if you feel you are lacking in this area.
The first and most fundamental was a relationship with God. This may
not appeal to those of you who profess no religious belief but it
must be said that the Christian faith has the perfect ideal in the
Person of God the Father. Indeed, it can be safely maintained that
God the Father represents such an ideal of fatherhood that it would
be impossible to even conceive of anyone greater in the role. More
importantly, though, is the way that this Father has taken care of me
and loved me in ways my earthly father did not. It's not enough to
forgive my earthly father; forgiveness hurts. A true forgiveness
means coming face-to-face with the pain he caused and choosing to
love him anyway. It hurts to face this pain, so we need God's love to
hold onto during this process, so we don't feel cheated or that we
lost out. If I have God's love, I can feel safe developing a
relationship with Him and achieve the feeling of comfort with myself
that I didn't get earlier in life.
The second is to commit to learning skills and abilities that are
important to you and the life you want to lead. In fact, I think it
is sometimes better to do this later in life, since the stuff my
friends wanted me to learn, like how to kick a ball or play catch,
are of limited usefulness to me now I'm 44. Much better is to focus
on health, wealth and relationships. Hit the gym, lose 10 pounds, get
that sixpack! Take a soft skills course, get that promotion, start a
business! Learn how to attract women, how to give them orgasms and
develop a social circle! It has been shown repeatedly that by
focusing on health, wealth and relationships, one's life can be
dramatically improved and you will achieve the dream life you've
always wanted. You will also create a positive feedback cycle, where your
increased competence in these areas will improve your inherent
self-confidence and that inherent confidence will then make you
bolder in gaining even greater competence.
So these are the reasons why self-love is so important to men. I
don't think it is any less important for women. It's just different
for them. They also need to focus on health, wealth and relationships
to achieve their life goals. However, women have other women to fall
back on. They spent years in the playground forging friendships and
honing their social skills. There is a kind of “sisterhood” among
them and, while these things can also have drawbacks, I sense that a
woman's confidence has more to do with these things than a man's
confidence does. I doubt whether her confidence is less important
than a man's but it is found in different places. Whereas men are in
competition with each other, women find confidence in collaboration.
What seems without doubt is that self-love, for both sexes, brings
confidence in oneself and leads to the success and meaning in life to
which all of us aspire.
MOTHERS AND SONS
All my life I have loved women and especially my own mother, the
archetype of womanhood, whose constant reliability and availability
and presence in my life has not only led me to grow up with a healthy
attitude towards the opposite sex but also given me the ability to
trust that there are good people out there and there are pockets of
goodness in the world, despite all the dangers that one can face.
It all started with my birth, of course, although for her it started
nine months earlier. I was a difficult child – I had epilepsy and
cried constantly and very loudly. Abuse by my father led me to grow
up being teased and bullied by kids at school. I was forgetful and
was always losing things. I didn't study very well at school because
of the teasing and I was naive and easily led. I was shy and lived in
a dream world, which must have worried her a great deal.
However, despite all this, she was always there for me and it was
this quality above all else which made her the excellent mother she
is. Parents have to be there. There's no point having a dad who isn't
there. I might as well have not had one at all. As it was, I had four
– but men have a dreadful habit of just coming and going as they
please. They stay for a short time, then just wander off. They come,
they go, they just do whatever they want, aimlessly wandering the
face of the earth like lost sheep. At least, that's what it looked
like.
My mother wasn't like that. When I cried, she came; when my dad hit
me, she protected me; when I fell down, she picked me up; when I lost
my glasses, she bought new ones; she always put her children first;
there was always dinner on the table every night and we ate as a
family together (which was becoming rare even 30 years ago); when I
needed picking up from a party, she was always on time; most of all,
she never disappeared; she was always there. Even now that I am grown up, she still sends
birthday presents and Christmas presents – not just for me but for
the daughter-in-law and grandson she has never seen, since we live in
Vietnam and she's in England.
Her example made me trust in women. I can't understand these men who
get angry with women when women fail to pick up on their advances or
who think women have all the power or who are misogynistic or have a
“them and us” approach.
When I was teased and bullied at school, it was ALWAYS a boy who did
it. I never had any trouble from girls. Sure, they didn't save me
when I was being bullied but, then again, they were under no
obligation to do so. I think that if a boy is teasing me and I need
help, another boy should step forward. No boy usually did that. So I
blame them. I don't expect a girl to have to save me instead.
When I was about 13, I began to view my mother's example as
representative. Even though I knew it probably wasn't true and that I
daresay there are plenty of naughty girls out there, even naughty
girls make me smile. The unconditional love that I had received from
my mother allowed me to feel reasonably OK if the odd girl here and
there didn't live up to my expectations. That odd girl seemed an
anomaly in a sea of generally OK human beings. On the other hand, if
a boy was unfriendly, then, thanks to the unfortunate examples I had
been shown in my life, his behaviour cut me to the core, made me
consider the world of men to be cold, cruel, spiteful and focused on
irrelevances like who won the last football match or who's best at
kicking a ball in a straight line. So I basically gave up on men and
focused my full attention on the other half who acted normally and
could hold down an intelligent conversation without being rude.
Subsequent experiences in my life have corroborated how great my
mother was and is. As a high school teacher, I tried to be friendly
with male and female teens equally. If I gave out an assignment for
them to do in class, all the girls would finish by the end of the
class but only half the boys. So I gave out the assignment 50-50 and it would come back 67-33
in favour of the girls. Similarly, if I held a conversation with a
boy in class, he would participate for about 2 minutes before
becoming distracted by the other boys and going off to do something
else. If I talked to a girl, I would get a solid 5-10 minute
conversation about something meaningful and learn something about her
in the process that I didn't know before. Some of it happened by
accident. I had to do speaking tests, where I got all the students in
a class to talk about the same topic for 2-3 minutes. I listened
carefully and gave their performances marks out of 10. At the end of
the test, I glanced down at my marksheet and saw all the girls had
8's and 9's, whereas all the boys had 6's and 7's. How did that
happen? I didn't plan it that way!
This tendency has been one of the most consistent features of my
life. If I ask an equal number of males and females to do something,
I get an enthusiastic response from the women but a half-hearted,
shabby response from the guys. Sometimes the 67-33 imbalance becomes
almost 75-25 at times. What's wrong with guys? I don't know what to
do about this problem.
There is also a negative side to my approach. As an individual, I
suffer from a lack of social skills and I am disorganized and
forgetful. As a teenager, my pre-existing experience led me to
conclude that the reason for this was because I had been born male. I
noticed that women and girls have generally much better social skills
than guys and were much more organized. So I felt like I had drawn
the short straw in being born male. I would watch girls talking in
groups in the playground and wished I could join in. In my late
teens, I even entertained an interest in lesbianism and wondered
whether, if I had been born female but had been treated the same way
as I had been, whether I would have been a lesbian by now. This
theory seemed confirmed when the first girl I ever kissed was a
lesbian and I found out her dad also gave her a hard time.
Now I am 44, I realize now that I was basically lonely. My dad's
abuse and the teasing and bullying I had received from boys had led
me to feel cut off from men. I didn't want to face the pain of being
completely isolated from the human race, so I've spent my whole life surrounded by women.
Now I must find some way of reconnecting with guys – but on MY
terms, not theirs.
So my mother is the greatest, since without her I would not have had
the absolute faith in women that I have had in my life, which has
been one of the greatest gifts I've ever had, since to not have
received it would have meant a complete isolation, a total
cutting-off from every other human being. That would have been an
eventuality far too painful to ever bear and would have caused the
most dreadful loneliness. Her reliability stopped that, and for that
I am eternally grateful.
HOW I'VE CHANGED AS I'VE GOT OLDER
When I was a teenager, responsibility was something to be avoided –
a clear and present danger to wild, all-night parties, hanging out
with friends and basic youth freedom – I couldn't tell my parents
EVERYTHING, could I? I needed to create “arenas of privacy” -
I'LL DECIDE who knows what about me, what information flows are going
in and out about my life, who's a best friend, acquaintance or
stranger; it was necessary to keep control! All embarrassment had to
be lived down; all coolness had to be played up to the max!
However, the crunch came when I laid in bed one night when I was 26
and thought about the tendency of London Underground passengers to
ignore passengers who fall down with a heart attack or get attacked
by robbers, continuing to read their copies of the London Evening
Standard and pretending nothing was happening. I was shocked and
realised that my life in the big city, so important to me, was
important to no one else. Nobody would miss me or even know I was
gone if I died right then. Terrible!
I began to think that it would be really nice if some other human
being could care about my life and dreams. At first, I thought I
needed to get a male friend but a few days later, I decided that some
of the issues I wanted to talk to him about were kind of personal –
about relationships, sex and all that. I wouldn't like a guy to know
that stuff. I also would really like it if that person could hang
around for a long time, possibly for the rest of my life. So,
finally, after more than quarter of a century, my IQ of about 126
came to the conclusion that I wanted a relationship with a woman –
a girlfriend!
I was also suffering from anxiety. I struggled with this until, one
day, I picked up the King James Bible 1611 from a bookshop on the
Fulham Road. That was the start of my adventure in faith with God.
A few months later, I decided to return and purchase that Bible. I
tried to read it but it was heavy-going at first. I intended to read
it from cover to cover. I made great progress on Genesis and Exodus
but then dramatically slowed down on Leviticus. So I made a simple
commitment – I would just focus on trying to keep the Ten
Commandments – nothing else.
Most difficult was trying not to tell lies. I usually just told
“white lies” but choosing to shut up or else live up to my
promises was tough. However, I persevered.
After some months of this, I still had no idea where I was going but
I began to be able to look back at the path I had travelled and saw a
pattern emerging. There was a general trend to becoming a good
person, one that hadn't been there before. Further, I knew that I had
made no deliberate decision to carve out such a path. I decided to
logically extrapolate this trend into the future and felt that it
could lead to high levels of holiness and possibly Heaven if I kept
it up. So I continued!
I began to ask God for instructions. At first, it was difficult to
listen to my heart and figure out which message was the Holy Spirit
and which was just me wanting to do what I wanted. However, I began
to feel which one was correct. I then used the Ten Commandments and
the Beatitudes of Christ to guide my behaviour and anything I wasn't
sure about I submitted to the Holy Spirit. Using dichotomous key (“Do
you want me to do this or that?”) I envisioned doing the thing I
wanted to ask about. A light, happy feeling meant that it was the
Will of God for me. A heavy, ominous, dark feeling meant it was not.
I repeated this several times to make sure I got the same result.
Sure enough, following all the happy, light feelings resulted in
greater holiness and life improvement.
This led to the development of the supernatural virtue of Hope. Now I
could have a reasonable expectation of eternal life if I kept up this
practice. It occurred to me that I should submit all my future plans
to Him. This led to my leaving London and gaining a position on a
cruise ship sailing out of Port Canaveral, Florida. During my single
days, I kept up my practice. There were times when I felt concerned
about some of the stuff God was showing me. Some crewmembers smoked and drank. There
was a Social Hostess who previously worked as a pole dancer,
prostitute and pornstar. There was a bisexual woman who had sex with
3 men in one night. In my travels, I met pot-smokers, drug addicts,
former Colombian bounty hunters, tramps and down-and-outs, plus I was
homeless for 2 nights in Australia. However, I never did any of the
things the other people did. I was still a virgin and just turned up
to the parties I was invited to. I met gays and lesbians and all
kinds of people.
Later, I ended up in Vietnam, where I met my wife. We got married in
the Catholic Church and were virgins on our wedding day. We had a
baby boy the next year and I became a high school teacher for
Vietnamese teens.
I loved my job taking care of my students and felt very happy.
However, in 2012, some of them develop some antisocial behaviours.
They started smoking shisha, then tobacco. Then came alcohol
consumption, underage sex and teen pregnancy. There was the murder of
two students and some of my teens identified as gay, lesbian or
bisexual. Now one former Grade 12 student has chosen to become a
prostitute and uploads sexy videos to porn sites. I was surprised to
find that my previous experience in my 20's was ideal for taking care
of them and giving appropriate advice. Other teachers with less life
experience felt intimidated by some of the students' behaviour and
didn't want to get involved.
Now I am planning to set up an afterschool activity centre that
focuses on giving them the skills and attitudes to find success in
life and make their dreams come true.
It's a big responsibility but I'm not scared of that any more. I have
great faith that everything that has happened to me has purpose in
God's Plan. I feel delighted at how things have turned out and I feel
excited about the future.
So don't be afraid of getting older or facing responsibility.
Understand that everything that has happened to you can help others.
Have a strong belief that even the most negative things can create
character and give meaning and hope to other people who need it. Safe in this regard, we can
then move forward in confidence to face the future.
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