Three important questions to ask before starting any project of personal development

Before you start a new project, it is a good idea to pause for a moment and ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Why am I doing this? It is easy to get lost in a lot of activity without being sufficiently clear about the purpose of your journey. Have you considered other ways of achieving the same goal? For example, many people work extremely hard and burn themselves out in the hope that at some uncertain point in the future they are going to travel, practice their hobbies, and enjoy life. However, there are ways to enjoy life in the here and now that do not require much money and come without the risk of burnout. Moreover, travelling and practicing hobbies might also be better done now rather than later, since in the future you might no longer be able or interested in doing so.
2. Who says that it is worthwhile pursuing? Is it really you who wants to undertake this project? Or is it a mere result of peer pressure / other people telling you what you should do? If your goal is in line with what everybody else is doing, you should at least be slightly suspicious :-)
3. What will I do once the goal is reached? It is a common phenomenon that people become discontent shortly after they reach a goal. They have to face reality and can no longer hang onto the idea that everything is going to be better once their goal is reached. So how are you going to handle this situation? For example, Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, found it very hard to adjust to normal life after returning to earth. Moreover, achieving goals often has decreasing marginal returns, i.e. you need to achieve higher and higher goals in order to keep achieving the same level of contentment. Additionally, once a goal is reached many people find that they get over the initial excitement pretty quickly, and face the pressure to keep working very hard just to maintain what they achieved.

For your next or current project, how are you going to answer these three questions?

Based on: Niazi-Shahabi (2014), Ich bleib so s... wie ich bin - Lockerlassen und mehr vom Leben haben, p.221-224

A very important life lessons to be learnt from the movie "About Time" (2013)

"About Time" is a beautiful movie about time travel and how to make the most out of life. A great key to happiness is the following:

"Live every day as if you had traveled back in time just to enjoy this very day!" :-)

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Reviews of the "About Time" (2013) movie can be found e.g. here: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/about_time/

How can we become more persuasive?

The ability to persuade others (via speaking or writing) is absolutely key to success in life. The good news is that we can all work to improve our persuasion skills. These skills are not rocket science and many might call them 'common sense'. However, the truth is that most people are not good at applying them in practice. So, what can we do?

The Greek philosopher Aristotle provided a great framework to categorize persuasion skills into three main areas:
(1) Logos: the rational logic content of your message
(2) Ethos: your credibility as the messenger
(3) Pathos: the feelings and attitude of your audience

For each of these areas, we can take practical steps to improve. Regularly practicing these steps will make us more persuasive. Here are a few examples:
Logos

• Ask: "What are the 1-3 key points that I would like my audience to remember?". Focus your message on these key points.
• What analogies and metaphors can I use to illustrate my points? Will these suit my audience?
• Draw two overlapping circles. In the first, write the topics you alone are interested in. In the second, write the exclusive interests of your audience. In the overlapping area, note topics that are interesting to both yourself and the audience. In your persuasive message, focus on talking about these common interests.
• Repeat your main points several times.
• Where possible, be specific without adding irrelevant information.
• Where possible, make comparison with facts that your audience already knows.

Ethos

• Practice to really listen to people. Sounds easy, but is one of the hardest things to do in life :-)
• Always answer the implicit question: "Why should my audience listen to me?"
• Use humor where appropriate, i.e. it suits your personality type and the respective audience.
• Think of things that you can afford to give away as a gift (material or immaterial). People usually feel like returning the favor.

Pathos

• Spend extensive time to know your audience. Who exactly is your audience? What is their background? What are they most interested in?
• Give examples of other people and organizations that are already doing what you are proposing.
• Actively engage your audience, e.g. by asking questions or practical exercises.

So, what are you going to do to regularly work on your persuasion skills? What is your time plan to achieve these goals?