My New Strategy

December 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Books © by shutterhacks

I have written a 264-page book about change and development. This book is in Danish and still unpublished even though it is ready for printing. I have done a major research in change and development where I keep focus on the good habits of a stable foundation. It would only be natural for me to continue this focus on this blog. That is why I am going to change the categories and find a narrow focus that can assist you in your personal development and life improvement.

The future of Intelligentsia will carry keywords like:

  • Habits
  • Change
  • Development
  • Stability
  • Foundation

My vision is to create a blog that will help you to find a good path in life. The means that I will use to get there are good habits and a stable foundation.

My educational background is in strategy and management supplemented by philosophy. Although I have great insight in other disciplines I am going to focus on a few keywords that I will approach from the angle of a strategist and manager, because that is what I am good at. Using philosophy I can develop strategies that you can benefit from and I can teach you how to manage these strategies to optimise your life.

The point of this post is that to get success you have to focus on what you are good at. Do not focus on everything that seems interesting because that will keep you floating around without a specific goal. I have started defining my goal and figuring out what you can expect from my writings in the future.

  • I am good at making strategies!
  • I am a fantastic manager!
  • I have an excellent mind!

These are my resources that I will use on this blog; I will use strategy, management and philosophy to give you some of the best tools on the web to assist you in your personal development.

Filed Under: Focus Tagged With: , , , , ,

The 6 Most Important Routines in Your Life!

November 24, 2011 by 5 Comments

By Dawn

You need routines in your life, because without them you do not have a stable foundation. Routines are what stabilise your life and you need them to get success in life. Mind that routines change in time and one routine may be good today but useless tomorrow and if you stubbornly stick to a routine that is useless it will become damaging instead. Thus, always work on your routines; tune them and refine them; and when the time comes, change your routines.

Do not change all routines at the same time. You need a stable foundation while changing parts of your life. If you break up all of your foundation you will not have anywhere to stand and you will feel lost. Now, here are some of the most basic and important routines you need.

  1. Sleep: You need about 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Some people, including me, have a slightly different sleeping pattern and we prefer to sleep 6 to 6.5 hours at night and then 45-60 minutes nap in the middle of the day. If you do not get your sleep you will become discouraged, angry tempered, irritated and depressed. To accomplish something you need your sleep! If you want to experiment with other sleeping patterns then have a look at Steve Pavlina’s articles about sleep.
  2. Eat: Make sure you get a proper breakfast and make it your most important meal of the day. Next most important meal is lunch. Your food is your body’s fuel; if you do not feed your body then you will not work. Work on eating habits; eat a healthy and varied diet; keep eating times that comply with your body’s need for fuel.
  3. Exercise: You know what I mean! Get your b… of the chair and do some proper exercising! If you make excuses like – I do not have the time, then think about this: What would you rather do – spend 3 hours exercising every week or 24 hours every day being dead?
  4. Perspective. Set things into perspective and keep a cool head. You need to understand what you are doing and how to do it. If you loose perspective you will become stressed.
  5. Set goals. Every day when you get up you have to set goals for the day. Having a goal for today, tomorrow, next week, next year gives your life meaning.
  6. To-dos. Every day you should make a list of things you are going to do. To-dos are small lists of 5-6 items with tasks that are easy to do. In the evening you will be able to review all the things you have accomplished that day and you will feel success!
Filed Under: Foundation of living Tagged With: , , , , ,

Who Are You?

October 1, 2011 by 1 Comment

Do you know who you are? If you do not know who you are, how can you expect others to know? It is extremely important that you know yourself to get on a good path in life. You are the only one you can be certain that will be there for your entire life. You cannot escape yourself and if you do not fulfil your needs and get to know yourself, then you will end up unhappy and lonely. Not even you will listen to you and how sad is that?

If you go to a shop that says: “This is a shop that sells stuff”, would your first thought be to go and buy that thing you had been looking for? – No of course not! But let us say that you are a very curious person and decide go in. The door at the entrance binds and you push hard to make it budge. You manage to make an opening just big enough to squeeze yourself into the shop. You see a lot of undefined stuff blocking the doorway and you decide to climb over it to get into the shop.

Inside the shop you look around. There are know signs to inform what kind of stuff they sell and ‘they’ are not to see anywhere. The shop seems deserted and undefined. It does not communicate any value to you, unless caving is your favourite pastime. Eventually the undefined stuff that is clogging up the shop will bore you and you will leave. The shop does not present any value to you and it does not seem to want anything from you.

The shop can only exist if an exchange of value takes place. The same goes for you! Put yourself instead of the shop. Are you like this shop? Do people leave without exchanging value? If you want people to visit your shop and stay for a cup of coffee, then you have to do something to tell people what you offer. When people notice what you have to offer then they will come and give whatever they have to give in return.

You have to go and explore every aspect of yourself and communicate all your discoveries to the world and people will join you and make your life the best thing that ever happened. There are 7 billion people in the world and I can assure you that some of them are bound to notice you and they will certainly like what you have to offer.

Exploring takes time; you have all life; now go explore yourself!

Filed Under: Discover Yourself Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How To Optimise Actions

September 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

In my previous post I elaborated mapping from the MAKS model. We learned how to draw a map of a problem that will help to action. The second item on the MAKS model is more than taking action; it is a small cycle that repeats a couple of times and it consists of:

  1. Action
  2. Observe
  3. Adjust

If we stick to a cycle of mapping and action we will end up doing the same thing over and over again. The cycle turns into a habit and over time conditions will change and we continue our habit. But if the conditions change then the habit will not serve our purpose and it will end up obstructing development. To prevent this I suggest that we observe what we do and evaluate the outcome.

E.g. if I write an application for something and it is rejected, then I will not get closer to success by writing another one. I have to observe and evaluate the process and see if there is anything I can do better to optimise my application.

If we observe something we can change then we can optimise our actions by adjusting the path we chose, and then try again. Maybe we get success or maybe we fail again. If we cannot see anything we can do better, then it is time to take the next step in the MAKS model – knowledge.

Filed Under: Meaning of life, Mental Maps Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How To Map Your Situation

September 23, 2011 by 3 Comments

In my post about how to take action I presented the MAKS model to you. In this post I will elaborate the first item on the list: Mapping.

Follow these 6 simple steps to visualise your problem and solution. You can use mapping in any situation in life whether it is small or big matters. There is no right way to do it and do not try to be perfect. Mapping is a way to visualise your situation, it is not a piece of art for evaluation! I have made an example with numbers that correspond the items below. It took me about 15 minutes to make on the backside of an old time schedule I had in my bag and scanned it with my iPhone.

Mapping example

  1. Sketch your world and pin your location. After doing this many times you my have different locations on your map that symbolise e.g. job; family; school; sports etc.
  2. Zoom in and draw your location in the landscape (e.g. mountaintop; valley; water)
  3. What is your problem? – Be very concrete and narrow your problem down. If you are unhappy (abstract) then ask why you are unhappy? Put it down in one or two words.
  4. What do you want instead of this problem? Write that down too.
  5. How do you get there? Draw possible ways to get there and name them.
  6. Choose your path

In my next post I will show how to walk the path you chose; i.e. the second item in the MAKS model: Action, observe, adjust.

Filed Under: Meaning of life, Mental Maps Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,