One Day on Earth‘s principles are to capture as many perspectives as possible from anyone that wants to participate, to empower the voices of ordinary people and reveal their individuality, to connect others through both differences and similarities. Don’t miss it.

Participants are free to support any cause they want in their videos. They simply have to choose to document a topic that raises awareness towards positive change in the world and upload it on the day of the event. If they are lucky, their thoughts and experiences will end up in the documentary later on.

So are you ready to take part in One Day on Earth?

So you want to be happy, don’t you? Browsing the internet and reading articles on other people’s happiness won’t do it. If you expect a piece of other people’s writing to boost your energy levels and your self-esteem, you’re on the wrong path. Here’s something interesting (but hopefully not new) for you – happiness requires action.

If you expect to be feeling the ultimate joy after reading this article, I’ll disappoint you. What I can do for you, though, is give you some simple tips for bringing order into your everyday life and neat ideas that can give you a smile. And that, my friend, is a start.

Are you ready? Have you already had enough motivational talks?

Let’s check out some smashing ways to be happier

1. Smile – it all begins from there. I don’t care if you’ll call a good friend whose company you enjoy, load up a hilarious video on YouTube or play your favorite song. Just do it.
2. Express your emotions – if something is troubling your mind, probably the best way to forget about it is to express yourself. Write an article and publish it in a directory, draw something on a piece of paper or some software, sing a track aloud. Let your negative feelings flow until the cup is empty.
3. Do something new – start a blog, take up some hobby or even start reading about a skill that you never intended to master. Sooner or later, you’ll get involved in the process, you’ll start putting efforts, getting results and enjoying your own success.
4. Hang out with happy people – happiness is often contageous. If you don’t have a talkative, positive and energetic person in your entourage, it’s about time you met one today.
5. Meet new friends - put on your best social persona, go out in the field and meet new people. Start up a conversation with anybody that looks like a nice person. It doesn’t really matter how long your talks last, as long as you feel the swell vibe in the air.
6. Eat a piece of delicious food – unless you’re a world-known cook, then just call a good buddy of yours and visit one of the best restaurants in your area. Enjoy the conversation, atmosphere and fantastic taste. Be happy in great moments, because it’s those little joyful moments that we remember most.
7. Buy something that will make your life better. It could be a self improvement or even a happiness book. Or maybe new headphones for your iPhone because your old ones don’t work. If the credit crunch hasn’t hit you so bad and you don’t have a dishwasher – go out and purchase one. From time to time, money can buy temporary happiness. So it’s a good thing this list doesn’t end with it.
8. Make your bed in the morning – it’s a great tip that I first heard from Gretchen Rubin. Most people just don’t take the three minutes to bring simple order into their homes. And most often, disorder brings chaos into your thoughts and emotions. It’s just the beginning of making your life more organized. Tidy up your living space, your work space or even your garden if you have one. The results can only make you happier.
9. Stay healthy – if your body’s a mess, don’t expect your mind to be different. Got a fever? Do everything you can to cure it. You’re overweight? Start doing exercise for beginners 15 minutes every night. Tooth hurts? Well, there’s a reason why a profession called dentist still exists.
10. Give a hug, get a hug. Did you know that a mere hug can reduce your heart rate and even cure panic attacks? Besides, it’s just so nice to show that you care for somebody or that you appreciate them. The more you give, the more you’ll get. So start today.

I trully hope that now you’re motivated to do at least one of the tips from this list to be happy.

This book sure sounds like it’s worth a read, doesn’t it?

It sure is. But only if you expect to lay your eyes on some fantastic motivational personal stories, without a how-to guide for replicating Richard Branson’s success. After all, a magician would never reveal his tricks to the public so easily.

What this book does is prove to you that nothing is impossible unless you think it is. It reveals the lessons that have helped Richard in his personal and business life and they sure sound convincing and useful coming from a man with such remarkable success.

Who is Richard Branson?

Judging by his books’ tone, he seems like a respectably humble person for somebody that has an estimated net worth of about $2,5 billion, who guest-starred in several television shows (playing himself, naturally) such as Friends and The Day Today, and who was knighted in 1998 for his services to entrepreneurship.

Unlike Donald Trump, he’s a lovable guy, perhaps because he doesn’t possess Trump’s colossal cockiness, neither does he repeat his name in every page of his books or  state “I can make you rich” all of the time. He just looks like one of those people who you and me can learn quite a lot from. And I don’t mean how to make money, but how to make a great deal of life.

Even though he had poor academic performance (due to dyslexia, not laziness), he somehow managed to succeed by setting hard-to-achieve goals and constantly testing how far he and his companies could go.

Why you should read his book

It’s an intriguing, fascinating, inspirational piece of writing.

Screw It, Let’s Do It can do two things for you. Motivate you to move that glued-to-the-computer body of yours and start to actually do something to improve your life, instead of complaining how boring it is or only dreaming of a better one. Or it could give you the mindset that nothing’s impossible unless you think it is.

In both cases, you will not have wasted your time reading.

Buy on Amazon.com →

The best part is that it’s completely free, unless you want it on your iPhone or iPod touch, which will cost you the staggering $2 per month. It’s definitely an application that every personal development enthusiast should consider using.

It’s perfect for people who travel, use more than one computer or who just need a minimalistic tool to organize their chores. If you’re a fan of applications that only have what you need and that can be accessed from anywhere, than you’ll stick to this free service just like I did.

Check out Remember The Milk.

Motivational speakers have the remarkable ability to make success sound like a piece of cake. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising the fact that they help people find the inner will, confidence and courage to take action. What I can’t accept, though, is them hiding quite an important fact about success from you that seems so obvious, yet so discouraging when you’re not prepared to face it.

Prepare to fail

“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward” Thomas Edison

Before inventing the lamp, a creation that I’m sure you’re quite familiar with in your everyday lives, Thomas Edison failed many, many, many times. But he was so determined to realize his idea that he didn’t quit until he found success. Thanks to him candle usage at home has been greatly reduced only to special romantic evenings at home, which, judging by the average American family, is about two to three times yearly.

Failure is like a barrier on the road to success – if you quit before you cross it, you’ll never reach your destination. Enough metaphors. In other words, always expect failure, because you wouldn’t want to have to face it by surprise.

Trust selectively

Which is the biggest factor entitled to screw you up at any time if you don’t pay attention? People, my friend, people.

Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend, says one of my favorite 70′s songs by The Undisputed Truth. Sadly, we humans are the only breed of life on Earth that ruin one another not only in the name of survival, but for the sport. So be deadly careful whom you give your trust to on your stairway to success, because the wrong kind of person can easily drag you down.

It’s the extra effort that counts

Yet another fact that those full of enthusiasm godlike creatures who sell books, audio lectures and tickets to personal development conferences often neglect to share with you, is that sometimes you have to really sweat hard so as to win.

Have you ever heard of an athlete who broke a world record just by looking at himself in the mirror and repeating the phrase “Yes, I can!“? I doubt so. Mindset is quite important (you’ll succeed only if you think you will), but good old practice and experience should never be forgotten.

The problem with most people is that they always settle for good enough. But since quite a long time good enough is just not good enough. In today’s turbulent and busy world, everybody is looking for the best simply because they lack the time or energy to risk their investment on something or someone without a reputation. If you had to choose between a Volvo and some Korean-built car at the same price for your kid, you probably wouldn’t risk and choose to purchase the proven safe Swedish vehicle. So, yeah, being the best and throwing every single effort to keep that spot in society, home or work is vital. At least if you want to become successful, that is.

Talent sets us apart. It helps us stand out from the crowd with unusual (perhaps it’s more correct to call it perfected) qualities and abilities that others could find the will, time or chance to develop. Yet why do so many people still think that talent is a prize that only a few lucky gamblers in the gigantic casino of nature were able to win?

Those lucky, talented bastards

It is often curious how talent is used as an excuse by the lazy: when a particular person is good at doing something, they must be naturally gifted, thus they have an unbeatable advantage over others. So why should we, the naive peasants, waste time and effort to become better than or to even be as good as that same lucky talented overachiever? If you were the kind of person who’s favorite activity is watching football on Sunday while drinking beer in true couch-potato style and who’s biggest achievement in five years is having driven your family to a picnic some whole 30km away from home, than this unneeded investment of energy and mind power would seem completely unexplainable to you.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but nature never intended it to be that way. She never hand-picked your name with the intention of making you a star singer, popular piano player or record-breaking athlete even before you were born.

It’s your fault that you’re not the second Pavarotti

“The most exciting place to discover talent is in yourself” Ashleigh Brilliant, English Author

You’re to blame that by the age of nine you weren’t trying to imitate the tenor voice tone in Mario Lanza movies, nor were you taking part in a small local church choir, just like Luciano Pavarotti would. I bet you didn’t know that his first professional dream, even as a boy, was becoming a football goalkeeper? If Luciano had persisted in following that child dream, he would probably have become a would-famous player, instead of one of modern history’s best and most famous opera singers.

So I broke your dream of singing a duet of New York, New York with Laiza Minelli at the Metropolitan Opera. Here’s the good news, though: you have a choice of thousands of skills and abilities in which to become the best in the world. And you have a lifetime for doing so.

The power of choice

Each day, your own actions open and close doors that lead to your success. The choices that you constantly make directly impact your future. In other words, your life is in your hands. With the risk of sounding like Tony Robbins, I will firmly state that you too can develop a talent starting from now.

Notice my word of choice when speaking about talent: develop, not create, not find, not realize. As simple as develop. Why is that?

Well, even if you lost your chance of showing your remarkable voice to the world because you don’t look like Paris Hilton or you’ve never had the courage to chase this dream (which, Susan Boyle, by the way, completely proved wrong last year in the show Britain’s Got Talent), you can still start a blog, write the first words of the introduction to your future bestseller book, start running 15 minutes per day from tomorrow morning, so that by a few months you’ll be able to win the town’s charity marathon, or even start eating as many hot dogs as you can because you always wanted to win the local eating contest called Who Wants to Become a Grease-ball in 1 Minute. Because you can and because you have a choice.

Nobody will stop you for trying. Oh, and the first step should be the understanding that talent requires time and efforts instead of genes and luck.

Self-discipline is vital for achieving success and you know it well. So why don’t you start doing something for yourself today?

First, let’s check out what discipline really means: the training of the mind and character to produce self control, at least according to Oxford Dictionary. Right, now that we’ve cleared this up, let’s continue with the practical part of the post.

When small things become just as important as the big ones, discipline arouses. If your work desk is tidy and your home organized, it’s quite probable that you’re more disciplined than most people on this planet. So what?

Discipline means making a commitment to yourself and (really) sticking with it. The tough part is that there’s nobody to lead your way like in the picture. I’m sure that’s not obstacle for you, though

Image by Ronaldo Cabuhat

Let me start with a story this time: John, a young ambitious entrepreneur needed a partner to create a new store for portable computers. He knew that his friend Alan was good with technology and had sufficient laptop knowledge, so he thought he made the right choice to make him his colleague.

They decided that one of them would work three days per week, than the other one would take over the salesdesk for another three.

As time went by, John noticed that Alan wasn’t very serious about their business. Al would close the store two hours early and didn’t really seem to care when a customer entered the store. I’ll tell you what happened next in just a minute.

In my world, there are three kinds of people. Those who seem trustworthy but will selfishly deceive you sooner or later. Those who don’t care for anything and everyone else sees that. And the third, must-know type, who have found the right combination between helping others and their own personal interests.

Always be on the search for the third kind and be cautious with the first.

Anyway, let’s check out what happened to John and Alan‘s fairly new computer store.

People started noticing that one of the salespeople from John & Al Portable simply refused to help them, no matter how much money they were ready to pay for a new device or tech support. So they just started to go to a store 10 minutes away with a much friendlier staff. Needless to say, the store failed and John made a mistake he’ll never forget. He hadn’t thought that Alan was a good friend, but not a good business partner.

Don’t make John’s mistake.

Image by Amanda Kendal

While reading yet another inspirational ebook on how to build a better blog, I noticed how few of the tips I was actually applying. Sure, all of the ideas and tricks sound great and every blogger knows that that’s they way towards attracting a massive readership, but why doesn’t everyone (including me) put them into practise?

The same goes for real life. It doesn’t really matter how many personal development ideas you have. The question is how many of them are you actually using or on the path towards realizing them.

So what’s the idea here? Reading motivational books is good. Gathering ideas is good. Setting goals is good, too. But putting all of them into practise is much better. That’s what every successful person aims for.

I’ve been having quite a lot of unexpected tasks lately, thus making me spare some of my sleep time for work. This all got me thinking about my personal productive time, or the hours at which I’m most concentrated and innovative at the same time.

You have your own productive time too. It could be in the morning, or after lunchbreak in the office, or like me between 10:00 and 12:00pm. The thing is that only you can find it out, and that’s why I’ve gathered some questions to help you:

• When are you usually most concentrated?
• At what time do most ideas hit you?
• Which hours get you energetic and excited when working?

Maybe you already have the answers but you haven’t put them to good use. So here’s my tip of the month: Find out your productive time and use it as your advantage. Complete personal projects or even work (depending on your mood) during those few hours. But, please, don’t waste them watching a sitcom or updating your facebook profile.

In case you are a night owl like me, you can check out some great tips on how to stay awake from the Marc and Angel Hack Life blog.

I’d like you to think about this for a second: have you heard of any self-made millionaire that snapped his fingers and magically became rich? If you have, write to me and I’ll treat you a beer.

We often forget that success requires (exhaustingly) hard work. Only a great investment of time, will and efforts will get you to the top, unless one of your parents’ name is Rockefeller.

The question here is whether you’re ready to make the big leap and put all of your energy into succeeding and achieving your professional or personal goals.

People make wrong choices, all of the time. They start things that are often extremely difficult and time-consuming to finish. Yet they don’t realize that their actions impact directly their future in only two ways – failure or success. How do your current actions influence your own future and are you willing to change that?

Beginning from primary school, society puts you in a box with limits. You may have been good in chemistry, but your litterature grades weren’t so bright, for example. So you end up in a situation where you’re expected to be best in everything, which is simply impossible.

But there’s something that nobody in primary, secondary school or even university taught you. You have absolutely no limits when it comes to being happy.

You’re free to keep experimenting until you find your perfect job that brings you money and joy.

You’re free to keep searching for the perfect partner that gives you love, security and joy.

Sure, we live in tough times for changing jobs. And some of you may already be married, so there’s no need to experiment, is there? But just don’t stay in the box that society put you in – keep trying to be as happy as possible. It’s the small changes in life that matter. Break out of the limits and start your quest today.

This box is the box of good enough. Most people have a good enough job, good enough relationship, good enough house, good enough car. If you want to be one of them, that’s OK. But if you’re the ones that always search for the best, than you’re different. Because that’s the caracteristic of every successful or happy person I know.

1. The Secret

This book by Rhonda Byrne introduces the law of attraction in an easy to understand manner. It’s a must-read for everyone who’s watched the film its named after. Despite containing lots of quotes from the movie, it expands further with more clarity on how to really attract what you want.

Check out ‘The Secret’

2. The Law of Attraction

If there’s anyone that can explain the law of attraction to a monkey and teach it how to use it, that’s Michael Losier. His book will not only help you understand the key principles, but also apply them with surprising success.

Check out ‘Law of Attraction’

3. The Key

The titles of our three top books so far have started to sound a bit cheesy, don’t they? Contrary to their life-changing contents. This book by Joe Vitale is for readers with an advanced knowledge of the law of attraction. It proposes great solutions for common problems that enthusiasts face.

Check out ‘The Key’

Check out the law of attraction blog for more information.

I’d like you to stop for a bit and think about this: Do you know a person that has no problems whatsoever? Because I simply can’t. I suppose that neither can you.

Problems are a natural part of your everyday life. Only when you realize that, will you be able to start concentrating on how to solve them, unless on the negative thoughts and emotions they provoke.

What I’m trying to share with you is that things go wrong sooner or later. So instead of thinking that they will never occur, be as much prepared for them as you can be.

Expect the worst and enjoy the best. A simple and sure way to happiness.

You can start by enjoying the comfort of your home. Or by relishing a humble cup of sweet relaxing tea. Start with anything you want. You don’t have to invest anything, nor make efforts – you simply have to feel grateful and happy with the moment.

Now that you’ve started, why not enjoy yourself, your family, your loved one, your good friends, your helpful contacts and every positive, energetic person you know? Yes, that too would be a small step towards happiness.

At work, savour your success and productivity. Experience the goodness of having a relaxing conversation with your colleagues (at least those who have a calming effect on you). That’s a start as well.

Just dive into the joy of the moment. Choosing at least three three of the upper things to start enjoying will guarantee a kick start to being a much more satisfied person. Or simply think about something else that you’ll like. After all, you have a simple choice in life: to focus on the positive or to whine about the negative, without making efforts to change it.

Do you know contagiously joyful people that charge you with positive energy only with their presence?

In case you don’t, it’s about time you met one or even became one yourself. Try giving others a smile when they don’t seem to have one and the results will be magical. You’ll instantly become the person to be with in any situation.

How to make others happier using 8 simple tricks

1. Listen. Everyone wants to be heard much more than they want to hear.
2. Compliment. It’s the details that matter. If your girl has bought a new blouse, say that the color really suits her.
3. Smile. The good thing about smiling is that it’s always welcomed and often contagious.
4. Remember. Ask your colleague if he or she has fixed her car problem. It means you really listened the last time the two of you talked.
5. Give help. But only when you’re asked for it.
6. Be serious. From time to time, people need serious conversations without gossip or fun jokes. Be that guy or gal when necessary.
7. Do what is needful. Give hugs, kisses, pats on the shoulder or simple “you’ll do fine” messages, depending on the person you’re talking to.
8. Be honest. Most people know when you’re lying, so just be frank with them.

The skills mentioned need time and will to be mastered. But a combination of at least three of them can make you a great communicator. Thanks for taking the time to read this article!

Image by Danny Perez

Have you ever tried taking your laptop, leaving your usual workspace and going to your favorite coffee shop or park with a wireless internet service? Simple changes in your environment can inspire new thoughts, angles and ideas, as well as make you productive.

Eventually, work becomes a boring routine, just like kindergarten, school and college becomes dull with the time you spend there. One of the simple and effective ways to stimulate your creativity is by finding new places, scenes and people to draw aspiration from. That’s called change.

Kindergartens have a great method of inspiring kids: they change environments. They teach your kids to paint different things with the same crayons each day. They take them to walks, parks, lakes, new places. Things don’t change much since then. It’s just that at work you’re responsible for finding motivation to be productive. And there’s no nanny to tell you how.

Written by CBSE Sample Papers

Here is a task for all you readers for today. Think about the person you dislike the most, preferably someone related to your profession. Take a notepad and write ten reasons why you dislike him.

Do not get carried away and write reasons like “I just don’t like him”. Be honest and impartial.

Done? What are you waiting for?

Done now?

Good!

Now look at the reasons again keeping you in the mind. Yes, think it like this way – If someone else was to write such a list about you, will these reasons appear in that list? Put a check mark beside every reason that you think people will say about you. Again, be honest and impartial because you won’t again anything by lying to yourself.

Now you know what your shortcomings are. Take another sheet of paper and write the solution to each shortcoming. Solution may be one time, or something to follow daily, but make sure you write it down.

Now keep this paper in your drawer. And every morning go through it. When you have done every solution (for daily ones, keep a 30 day limit), redo the exercise.

This will help you find your own mistakes and solve them yourself without embarrassment.

Hope each one of you find this useful. If you have any similar self-improvement tasks in mind, leave it in the comments on mail it to me.

I’d like you to stop and think over this for a second: Are you waisting your time on the wrong stuff?

Success means knowing when to quit and what to stick to. Yet so often we spend precious efforts on actions that don’t directly benefit our lives. Most people are afraid to quit simply because they don’t want to admit their failure.

But who said that failure is a bad thing?

Here’s a list of eight signs that you’ve failed and that you need to move on to something else:

1. There’s no reason to keep on going.
2. You don’t have the time required to succeed.
3. You don’t know enough on the topic (so start learning).
4. The project milestone is simply unachievable.
5. You’ve run out of money.
6. You just can’t get serious about it.
7. Enthusiasm or interest have gone away.
8. It sounds too good to be true (hidden risks).

Just remember: quitting something is the beginning of starting another thing. Even if you’ve failed, that doesn’t mean that you can’t to your best somewhere else.

Image by Ali Farid

Let’s be straight and honest here. Successful people who’ve realized everything by themselves have no secret stories and keys. Work hard, believe in yourself and have fun while doing it. The tough part, however, is finding the balance and it’s here that most people simply fail and give up.

So screw secrets and ultimate guides, as there are virtually no rules on how to live your life. Instead, concentrate on finding your passion and combining it with making money. Reading inspirational books is one thing, but true personal development requires action.

Richard Branson started out his billion dollar business by creating a magazine from nothing, working amazingly hard. It’s this passionate commitment that has been pushing him throughout the years to create world-known chain stores and even the first commercial flight in space.