Pohang, South Korea

During these couple of months I've learned something new, though. This is probably the first time ever when I have had so many promising opportunities that I simply can't get involved in all of them. I had to start prioritizing and actually refuse from things which is definitely something that doesn't come naturally to me.

Because of the standstill in my personal growth I have felt that I'm not moving forward, that I'm not evolving, and as a result I felt like I had betrayed myself and wasn't living up to my own standards. I also learned that this blog and my personal growth are very much intertwined. Without new profound realizations and discoveries in my own life it feels like I don't have enough interesting things to write about.

It's great to be able to plow through obstructions and get the job done. And it's good to keep yourself disciplined and on purpose. But if you forget your larger purpose while pursuing the small and endless tasks of daily life, then you have reduced yourself to a machine of picayune... Tasks are important, but no amount of duties adds up to love, freedom, or full consciousness. You cannot do enough, nor can you do the right things, so that you will finally feel complete.

- David Deida: The Way of the Superior Man

I'm sure no one wants to hear about the intricacies of my work as an SAP specialist, or what I'm learning at the university - which quite frankly isn't all that much. School and work really are not the places where you learn things about yourself, about what your wants and desires are, or how to discover your place and purpose in the world.

I wanted to empty myself of my commitments, obligations, duties, and wants in order to see them objectively and pick the ones that are most important. Applying Pareto principle, I wanted to find out the 20% of things that give me 80% satisfaction. Call it prioritizing or mental spring cleaning, but after I realized I needed to do this it felt like a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. This is the list I came up with.

Highest priority commitments

Currently my number one goal is to do a student exchange in Seoul, South Korea next fall. I should know in two weeks whether or not I get accepted but I'm having my hopes high. I also want to graduate some day, so right now I'd say the two commitments I really feel obliged to keep are

• School
  • Getting more courses done this spring so I'm a step closer to graduating.

• Work
  • Saving money for the student exchange.

I was losing money the whole fall due to not having enough work, but to my big relief that changed now in mid-January. It also looks like I'm able to work throughout the summer and save money for the exchange. I'm having a new kind of project role at work which gives me more responsibility than before, so I'm also taking it as a challenge and a learning experience.

High priority stuff

These are the things I enjoy a lot, or are otherwise the ones that are giving biggest dividends for the time I invest in them.

• Physical fitness
  • Going to gym, doing yoga, running after the snows melt, playing squash etc.

• Diet and nutrition
  • Making sure that I keep eating healthy, which involves preparing most of my own food.
  • Taking care of what I eat and how I exercise gives so much energy that they are more like enablers that make it possible to tackle all the rest of the things going on in my life.

• Relationship
  • I started dating a lovely girl about two months ago, and this relationship is something I really want to invest in and explore more :)

• Friends
  • The people you spend time with will shape your own personality. One of the fundamental success principles is to surround yourself with people who are forward looking and have a drive to succeed in life. Their energy will enhance your own. There are some extremely wonderful people in my life, and I want to keep it that way :)

• Language learning
  • Don't ask why, but I wanted to do a student exchange in a country where English is not so commonly spoken. This is because I want to learn a new language and I figured it's much easier to stay motivated when you are actually going to need it every single day. So yeah, as soon as I get confirmation about South Korea, I'll start studying the language lifehacking style.

• Personal growth
  • As I said, this area of my life has been on a standstill for the past couple of months. Only this week was I able to do something new regarding it, and it's amazing how much energy the experience gave me. I felt again that I'm moving towards some larger goal in my life. For me reading is an integral part of personal growth, so I will not mention it separately.

There are actually quite a lot of these high priority things that I want to keep in my life and juggling all of them might be a bit of a challenge. I don't know how things will turn out, but these are the ones I will try to devote my free time to.

And the rest

This category includes things that I will do if I have time left from my other activities. The main reason to write them down and have mentioned here is to stop myself from feeling obligated to do them. I want to be free of them, and enjoy them only when and if it fits my schedule.

• Aalto Entrepreneurship Society
  • It pains me to not be able to commit more to being an active member of the society, because Aaltoes is doing amazing job in aggregating entrepreneurship in Finland.

• Blogging
  • Even though I enjoy writing a lot, I've realized that I shouldn't force myself to do it, at least when doing so does nothing but makes me more stressful. I will keep writing new blog posts in the future as well, but I'm stopping myself from being committed to the earlier once a week schedule.

• Developing business ideas
  • I am starting to seriously consider becoming an entrepreneur, and I have quite a few different business ideas to get started with. However, I feel that this is something I can also focus on later after I have done my student exchange.

There are a few other existing and emerging short-term opportunities in my life, and I try to keep what I have promised to deliver earlier. I don't want to prevent myself from accepting possible new challenges either, but I think I have to start acknowledging that I can't do everything, and to become rather critical about what I should commit myself into.

This exercise was first and foremost to help me regain some control over my own life and to figure out what I really want to do with the limited time I have. If you have done something alike or have a completely different method I'd love to hear about it!

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All in all, I was rather hardcore about the whole thing: I was the founder and leader of one of the best guilds - a group of players organized to work together - on the server in which I played. Eventually we merged with another guild so we could achieve more together, and we did. We became the first ones on the whole server to beat most of the toughest opponents in the game. I also wanted to give up my position as a leader because it got simply too tiring to run the whole thing and to deal with egomaniacs, who for some reason seem to be particularly attracted to multiplayer online games...

Picture by Shards Of Blue

What finally stopped me playing WoW for good is actually rather embarrassing. In the end of 2008 I was becoming more and more fed up with the game. I had graduated a year and a half earlier and was working full-time. What I didn't want was to come home after work and play a game that started to feel like work, too. I felt obliged to play it. Then I finally realized after a period of denial that I was not getting any enjoyment out of it anymore, but instead it was making me anxious and frustrated.

I figured that I might enjoy certain aspects of the game (mainly player vs. player combat, in which the players fight against each other in teams instead of trying to beat the computer controlled opponents) if only I had a different character class. At the time of writing there are 10 different classes one can choose from, with each having unique abilities and a different "role" to play: some are good at dealing damage, while some heal others or are able to withstand damage. All characters also have a host of supporting, more situational abilities. Unfortunately the one I played at the time was a definite underdog in player vs. player combat, which was one of the reasons for my frustration with the game.

Given my skills and knowledge of the game, it would have taken me about 9 days - meaning 9x24 hours of actual playtime - to create a new character and reach a level in which I might have enjoyed playing WoW again. However, I didn't feel like going through the whole process of leveling up another character, so instead I paid a company to do it for me. Considering how much money I made at the time, it felt like a good deal. The only problem was that it's against WoW's terms of use and I got caught, losing my entire game account. That was the end for me, and I didn't mind! In retrospect, paying some $99 to get rid of one of the worst addictions that I've ever had is not a bad deal.

After I stopped playing, I started to really realize just how huge time-sucking vacuum the game is. As I put WoW behind me I shifted my focus on other things, took the concept of character development - where you play your character in the game and develop its skills, get better equipment and more abilities - and started applying it to myself. I began developing my skills and abilities for real: I read books and blogs to acquire knowledge, and I fixed my diet and exercise habits to become fit.

Ever since I stopped playing the game and started to focus on the real me instead, I've been pondering why is it that these kinds of games are so addictive? How come there are people so immersed in playing them, that they even forget to eat and sleep?

First of all, I don't think many people get to really experience feelings of success or accomplishment in their daily lives. We tend to move through our existence in mindless drudgery; wake up in the morning, go to work or school, and for the rest of the time try to keep ourselves entertained. And I think here is the key: why bother trying to achieve something big and meaningful, when it's safe and secure to live a dull life and grasp moments of instant gratification by watching tv and playing video games?

This is what we've been conditioned to do since we were kids. We've been lulled into settling for this safe and secure life which doesn't provide opportunities for personal growth, and we rarely even know how to look for those opportunities. After all, personal growth is a scary thing to do. It means facing and really getting to know yourself, your own shortcomings, your desires, and accepting and embracing them. It means getting out of your comfort zone and putting your psyche in the line of fire; something will change or shift and you will not be the same person as you were before. Something dies, and something is born anew.

A lot of adults are living their lives in a state of continuing adolescence. There's no need to really take responsibility. You can forget about the feeling of incompleteness - why you might be unhappy or feel like your life has very little meaning - by simply turning on the TV or logging into an online game where you can be the hero; destroyer of evil and protector of good! But what if we didn't have television? What if we didn't have computer games or Internet? How would you then spend your time? What would you do to get your buzz? To feel like you've accomplished something?

It's not only the feeling of achieving something that makes online games addictive. There is the social aspect as well. The game world has its own rules and measures of success - for example in WoW being able to beat a tough opponent before anyone else in the game is a source of pride and prestige. There are competitive aspects beneath the surface, and I happen to be a rather competitive person by nature, so for me it became important to be one of the best in the game - and I ended up playing a lot to get to that point.

In offline games it doesn't matter so much how well you play because similar social aspects and competitiveness are missing, but online you want to show the others just how good you are and how much you have achieved. Like I said, in that world you can be the hero. You can be someone.

The problem is that you are someone only as long as you play the game. Outside people don't know about your achievements in the game world. Outside there are different rules and different measures of success. So when you are not playing the game anymore you may not have much to celebrate. I feel like I was in a limbo for the two years when I played WoW intensely. I feel like my life was on hold; I was just doing my work, and then spent the rest of my time immersed in the game world. 

But I guess you can cheat yourself only long enough before reality kicks in - and when it does, it does it hard. Then you stop and think "What the hell am I doing... Is this how I want to spend my limited time on the face of the Earth?"

I think a big difference between achieving things in the real world and in these online games is that in the games there is a much more limited set of rules, and the games are designed in a way that everyone can feel like the hero of the day. You know from the get-go what you need to do to progress, and the more you progress the better you feel. A bond is born between the real you and your avatar in the game world.

Picture by dsrmacLife, on the other hand, is not so simple and we've been receiving mixed signals since we were kids about what we should do and have to feel happy. We've been conditioned to believe that education, good job, house, car, marriage, and children is what life's all about, but there are numerous people who have all that and yet they are miserable. So maybe we've been lied to. Maybe there is something else that will make you feel like your life has a purpose, a meaning, or a direction and that you are being congruent to that purpose and living it.

Finding that purpose is by no means an easy task. And there is no Gandalf that will come and tell you that you need to pack your things, travel to Mordor, and throw The One Ring into the Mount Doom. You can read every self-help book there is, which will likely provide you with good tools, but in the end you're still on your own when it comes to figuring out what your life will be about. 

In the game world you know all the time what you should be doing to get to the next level, but in real life you don't. In the game world you have a direction where you're heading to and you know where it will take you. In real life it's much more difficult to find something even remotely like that and you can never be sure where you will end up, or what surprises are in store for you.

Now, what if you knew yourself well enough to realize what you want to achieve in life? What if you had a grand vision you know would benefit the rest of the humanity and make you feel like your life has meaning? And what if there was a system, or a toolset that provides you with a sense of direction, telling you what steps you need to take and what you need to do to get closer to your grand vision? What if - in the same way you're guided through the game world - you could receive similar guidance in real life enabling you to realize your potential?

Wouldn't that be something!

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If you like this article, please consider sharing it with your friends!

I think the topic of liming beliefs falls into "personal development basics," so to speak, but it is something that's useful to think about every now and then. It's also a topic I have never written about before, so hopefully it will be of interest to you :)

Now, what exactly is a limiting belief? Let's start with some examples:

• I love photography but I'm never going to be good enough to make it for living.
• It's always someone rich and famous who gets the kind of girl/guy I want.
• I was bullied as a kid which made me an introvert, and because of that I can never become successful in relationships.
• I am not smart enough to do well in business.
• I would love to write a book, but I don't have the talent/patience/creativity.
• My kids don't respect me because I don't have a well-paying job.
• Women/men don't like me because I'm fat.
• I'm overweight because of my genes, so I can never become fit.

As I've written before, our interpretation of the world and what happens around us is largely based on our beliefs. These beliefs can be roughly divided into two groups; positive and negative, or enabling and limiting. It's the negative, limiting beliefs that prevent us from achieving what we want in life, whereas the positive, enabling beliefs support us when we're reaching for our goals. 

If you have a limiting belief that "you're not smart enough to do well in business" - even if you would say it modestly and still think you're pretty clever - it will inevitably affect your unconscious mind and how you behave. The only job of a belief is to prove itself true, and if you keep hammering that kind of belief into your head, sooner or later you will start to act according to it. Worse are of course the limiting beliefs that you really deep down know to be true. 

It's worth to consider for a while where these limiting beliefs come from. I would say that there are roughly two sources; external influences and inner reasoning. By external influences I mean situations where a limiting belief is imprinted on us by outside forces, and by inner reasoning I mean our own thought processes; how we seek to understand, interpret, and explain events that happen around us, and consequently create beliefs on how the world works.

The external influence can be something our friends or parents have led us to believe, such as "You can't get a good job unless you get a university degree." We're also continuously bombarded by messages in media that guys need to be tall, have 6-pack abs, tan etc. to land a beautiful woman, whereas women are led to believe they need to be blonde, super skinny, yet paradoxically maintain large round breasts and small but firm butt (unless you're Jennifer Lopez or Shakira, that is).

There have been different beauty standards for ages and that is not the real issue. The problem lies deeper: As we almost inevitably fail to meet those standards, we start to believe that we can't have the kind of guy/girl that those same standards say we should desire. As we start to believe that and get into relationships, we can't escape this underlying, gnawing feeling that we have somehow 'settled' for that relationship because we can't do better. It's not what we really, truly desire, but it's good enough. Now obviously it's not a very healthy basis for a successful long-term companionship if both partners feel from the beginning that something is missing, that something could be better than it is.

Us humans have a built-in tendency to create patterns in our quest to understand the surrounding world. This tendency has helped us greatly to survive as a species, and to create all the amazing technology we have today. However, it works for both good and bad. We learn rapidly by associating different things to each other, giving birth to these patterns. We have been doing this already since we were toddlers; if we want mom's attention we simply need to cry and we get it. Or if we eat a lot of chocolate cake and then feel sick, our brains create a connection between eating the chocolate cake and the feeling of sickness that follows.

I think it's important to realize, that being able to create these kinds of connections is a very powerful ability. What if we didn't have it? Eating a chocolate cake and the feeling of sickness would be two completely separate events. We would be blind to the causality. Now just think how advanced this ability is in humans! All the sciences are based on it. Without being able to observe different phenomena and create patterns out of them, we would have only a rudimentary understanding of the world.

The problem with this amazing ability is, that it can also do us a disservice by creating connections that are false and potentially harmful to our wellbeing. A lot of people live their lives locked inside a limited set of rules. Rules that are conveyed from their beliefs. If you have observed as a child that other people in school get better grades than you, reasoned that maybe it's because you're stupid, and then started to really believe it, how do you think having that kind of belief will affect your future life? You're creating a reality in which it is an impossibility for you to get those good grades, or otherwise achieve same things the "smart people" do.

Or let's say you approach a woman in a bar who turns you down, and then witness another guy hit it off with her. Your built-in tendency starts to come up with reasons why the other guy was successful and you weren't. Maybe he was taller than you, so that's why you failed, or maybe he had more expensive clothes.

In the end it doesn't matter whether or not a belief is true. The limiting belief that "I'm overweight because of my genes, so I can never become as fit as the people in beauty magazines." might very well be spot-on accurate, but what if there are two people who both have similar genetic disadvantage, yet only one of them carries this belief? I'm certain that the person who has the limiting belief will not even bother trying to become fit or otherwise improve her health by exercising, whereas the other person keeps on working out, eating healthy and consequently improves her quality of life!

In essence, limiting beliefs create boundaries. They tell you what you can't do, what you can't achieve, what you can't be. Switching these negative limiting beliefs into positive enabling ones can hugely increase your faith and confidence in your abilities, and what is actually possible in life.

We have been creating these beliefs - both positive and negative - all our lives in our attempt to understand what is going on around us. And most people are completely oblivious to the fact that they have these beliefs. So the first step is to become aware that you have them, and then assess them critically. Which beliefs are such that help you achieve more in life, and which ones are holding you back? After this it's time to manually unlink those harmful connections and dismantle the limiting beliefs.

These beliefs usually contain three parts: external behavior, inner condition, and a link between the two. Here are couple examples:

"I am not smart enough to do well in business."

• External behavior: do well in business
• Inner condition: not smart enough
• Link: to (do)

"Women/men don't like me because I'm fat."

• External behavior: women/men don't like me
• Inner condition: I'm fat
• Link: because

Reframing is a cognitive technique that can be used to blast those limiting beliefs into oblivion. It can be used to destroy both existing beliefs and ones that are just starting to form inside your mind. In fact, it can become a very powerful tool to learn to recognize a limiting belief in the making, while the connection between external behavior and inner condition is still being created, and use reframing to prevent it from gaining foothold.

Basically reframing means consciously arguing against, or reasoning with the belief you have created. If you take time to think about a belief you have and apply reframing to it, you'll notice that the belief is most likely irrational and cannot be true, so why not just abandon it? After all, you are a rational person, aren't you?

Here are some ways to reframe a limiting belief. Let's use "Women/men don't like me because I'm fat." as an example:

• Counter example: Think of a time when a woman/man has liked you, or liked someone else despite the person being fat.
• Be specific: How does a guy/girl move from not knowing you to not liking you step-by-step simply because you're fat? The idea of there being an instant 'I see you - you're fat - I don't like you' causality is ridiculous, so what is really going on there? If you can't figure it out, then why are you still having this belief?
• Outcome orientation: Think about what is going to happen to your success level if you keep thinking this way? What if you'd think differently?
• "All"-ness framing: Do you think every single fat person in the history of the world has gone through their lives without another man/woman liking them?
• Reframe external behavior: People fancy different things. Not all men/women are bothered by you being fat. Some might even find it sexy.
• Reframe internal state: It's not that men/women don't like you, but you're probably not what they are ideally looking for in the opposite sex. This means you have an advantage, because you can come under the radar and surprise them with your other good qualities like sense of humor or wittiness. 

One of the nicest examples of reframing (although it wasn't called that in the actual study, the principle is still the same) in real life that I've read about was done in a secondary school where the kids were divided into two groups for workshops. Both groups were taught study skills, but the other one also received a special module where they were taught that brain is not static, but more like a muscle that can be improved by working it out and doing proper exercises.

As a result, the kids who began to see their brains as something that develops and becomes better with practice started improving their study habits and grades. For me this is a clear example of how the limiting belief of "I'm not good at school because I was born stupid." was reframed. The walls built by that belief were torn down, and it became possible for the kids to do something that they couldn't have done before.

Please share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments! If you know of more ways to reframe limiting beliefs, let the rest of us know! :)

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The metallic doorknob was warm to the touch. The door itself was of sturdy, wooden make, and behind the door would be 28 second year high school students whose lives he wanted to change. This was the moment of truth, so to speak. This was what the hard work of the past two years had been leading to. This would be, for the first time ever, Happiness 101 - an elective course in the science and philosophy of happiness, aimed at students who still were to decide what they wanted to do with their lives.

He wished that he would have had a chance to attend this course back when he was a student. It would have saved him a few years of drudgery, moving from job to job, from illusion to illusion, trying to pursue fleeting images of what would make him happy. He imagined being happy traveling the world. He wasn't. He imagined having a nice house and a nice car to make him happy. They didn't. He tried other pursuits too; practicing martial arts and immersing himself in painting, and sometimes he did feed happiness, but the happiness was always on the run, always seeming to slip his grasp and move farther away when he was about to reach it.

Then, two years ago, a friend of his shared a link on facebook that changed his life. It was a video recording of Matthieu Ricard's speech about the Habits of happiness. In that speech there is a section that imprinted itself on his memory, a section which he can recall word-by-word even to this day: 

So how do we proceed in our quest for happiness? Very often we look outside. We think that if we could gather this and that, all the conditions, something that we say "everything to be happy." To have everything to be happy, that very sentence already bears the doom of destruction of happiness; to have everything. If we miss something it collapses. And also when things go wrong we try to fix things outside so much, but our control on the outer world is limited, temporary, and often illusory.

So now look at inner conditions. Aren't they stronger? Isn't it the mind that translates the outer condition into happiness and suffering? And isn't that stronger? We know by experience, that we can be in what we call "a little paradise" and yet be completely unhappy within.

...The experience that translates everything is within the mind.

He had found his explanation. He began to understand why those illusions and pursuits of happiness had failed. He finally realized, that happiness is an entirely internal emotion, a process within oneself that is to some extent affected by what happens outside, but is a lot more dependent on other inner processes and state of mind. And with this realization his whole perspective on negative emotions changed. He learned to accept them, to recognize them for what they are; internal processes. And slowly he learned to let them go whenever they appeared. And as a result he was happier than ever.

This experience had another effect on him as well. He became fascinated by happiness, and what we actually know about it. This fascination sent him on a quest for knowledge on what was scientifically known about happiness, and what the philosophers of different times had written about it. While learning and discovering, and in the process becoming a more content person himself, he started to feel the urge to share this feeling. He wanted others to know about it, so that they too could be happier and give up the pursuit of the external conditions that can only provide fleeting happiness at best.

The door in front of him, the hand touching the metallic doorknob, was the culmination of his personal journey into happiness. He twisted his hand and pulled the door open. He could feel curious eyes looking at him as he walked into the classroom. He could hear the hubbub receding as he put his jacket on the back of the teacher's chair and turned to faced his audience. 'God, they look so young,' he thought, and a moment of doubt hit him: 'What if they are too young, or too inexperienced to understand what I'll be teaching? But then again, it's now or never. Soon they have to decide whether they want to spend the next 40-50 years in engineering, physics, medicine, law... And if they don't have good understanding about happiness before that decision, there's a high chance that they, like so many others, will end up with unfulfilling lives.'

He cleared his throat and started speaking. 'Hello everyone, my name is Mr. Willow, and we will be spending these Wednesday mornings talking about happiness. I believe, that happiness is one of the most fundamental drivers that affect people's decisions, and I trust that each and everyone of you wants to be happy. We will look into recent scientific research on happiness; what is actually known about it, and what common misconceptions are there. You'll learn that people are surprisingly bad at estimating what would actually make them happy, or what they really want, and most people seem to spend their lives pursuing fleeting, or momentary happiness without understanding what happiness really is, and how it can become a permanent state of being instead of just a passing feeling.'

It was quiet now in the classroom. He thought he could feel tension in the air. As if the students were shouting 'Finally!' within their heads. He looked them in the eye, from left to right, and continued. 'We will look into how we humans believe that having a lot of freedom and choice makes us happy, when in reality it's almost the opposite. We will learn how our minds actually synthesize happiness, making us more content with some of the decisions we make than what would be rational. We will study how different chemicals that our bodies release affect our feelings, and what causes the release of those chemicals...'

Two hours later the classroom was empty, and he was feeling exhausted and excited at the same time. He was surprised how intently the students had listened to his every word, and how eager they were to participate in the class discussion. He had hoped that happiness would be a subject matter that was so personal and important to everyone that they would really want to listen to what he had to say, but until now it hadn't been possible to know for sure.

After introducing the course he had proceeded to break down happiness into different, more specific concepts such as sensory pleasures, amusement, contentment, relief, excitement, wonder, ecstasy, elevation, gratitude, and compassion. Much of the class had been spent discussing the definition of what happiness really is in order to build a foundation for the coming sessions. 

To stimulate the minds of the students and encourage some creative thinking, he had divided them into small groups and given each of them 15 minutes to discuss possible reasons and explanations for why rich people are not happy. Some of them might be, but why doesn't money and power themselves bring happiness? One group came up with an answer that got stuck in his mind: Rich people are unhappy because they have nothing to dream for.

He realized that this group had stumbled on something profound: they have nothing to dream for. As long as one has dreams, or aspirations, it means that the current state of being can be improved. It means that even if one is unhappy or discontent at the moment, that dream is something to work towards. It gives hope. Even though the dream might be just an illusion and realizing it doesn't provide lasting happiness, simply being able to dream can be a powerful thing.

Being rich and powerful - with enough money to do anything you want - but still unhappy is a scary situation to be in. It means that nothing you can do will make you happy. You can realize every dream you have, and when those dreams coming true provide only fleeting moments of happiness at best, you will be left discontent and without anything to dream for. What a feeling of hopelessness that might be!

For homework assignment, and to prepare for the next weeks session, he had instructed each student to think and write an essay about what Adam Smith had said:

The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another... Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.

This was what he had set out to do all those months ago, and it was happening right now. He felt empowered. He felt, that if only he could make these kids think what really makes them happy, not only would it improve their own lives, but in the long run it could change the world. Perhaps others would also see that the extensive, destructive materialism does not bring happiness, so why destroy this planet in pursuing it? A good and happy life does not require all that stuff we tend to surround ourselves with.

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According to Dictionary.com, the definition of psychological personality is

a) the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.

b) the organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of the individual.

In psychology, the act of learning implies behavior change. Meaning, that when something is learned, the behavior of the learner changes as a result. If personality then is an organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of an individual, learning changes also the personality of the learner. This does not require major life experiences. With open and curious mind it's easily possible to learn something new every single day, and the cumulative outcome of that learning is a changed personality.

It's very important to realize, that no one is born more confident, social, outgoing, competitive, creative etc. than anyone else. Your early life experiences are paramount in the forming of your personality, which affects how you behave and think in different situations. Although your personality greatly determines how you think and act, the way you think and act also affects your personality. It's a two-way connection.

Want to become more social? Study how those you consider more social than you behave in group situations. How do they look at people? How do they listen to others? What kind of body language they use? How do they project their voice? And most importantly, how do they behave differently compared to you? What is your current situation, and what needs to be changed to get from where you are to where you want to be?

You can learn a great deal by observing other people. After all, it is by watching others that we have learnt most of the essentials in life such as walking and speaking. We have an innate tendency to model our behavior after those around us. Just watch how two best friends mirror each others' wording, phrases, or body language and you know what I'm talking about. 

So, in order to actually become more social, and have that characteristic become an ingrained, natural part of your personality, you need to first start behaving like a social person. Make a conscious effort to act differently than the "regular you" would. Use the information you've gained when observing others and model your behavior to fit the image of a social person you've created in your mind. It's not easy, and it takes focus and willpower to do something that doesn't come naturally to you, but the more you do it the easier it gets. This is a sign of the new behavior starting to become an integrated part of who you are.

If I had been told over a year ago that this kind of personality change is possible, I probably wouldn't have believed it. However, considering how much my own personality has changed during the past year, I can't really deny it either. For example, I began to build my confidence simply by starting to look people in the eye whenever I was walking outside. Then I focused on doing it while I was listening and speaking to others. And yes, it took quite a bit of conscious effort at first, but nowadays I don't even need to think about it. It comes automatically. After getting used to maintaining eye-contact, I began to study and focus on adopting more subtle signs of a confident person such as how to greet people, how to enter a room, how to take control of my environment, how to speak in a more confident manner etc. There is still work to do and room for improvement, but it's easy to recognize how I feel much more confident than I did only a few months ago, before I started to make this conscious behavior change.

Two more things you can do to help the process are visualization and having inner discussions inside your head. Visualize being in social situations and acting the way you would like to act. Imagine yourself being the soul of the party, imagine people enjoying having conversations with you. This might sound like fantasy stuff, but many top-level athletes, public speakers, and other successful people practice visualization. There is also a lot of literacy about its importance and effectiveness. And anyway, it's not like you're going to lose anything by doing it ;)

By inner discussions I mean talking to yourself like you're your own best friend. It's ridiculous how many people constantly criticize and put themselves down in their thoughts. Instead, psyche yourself up when going to a social situation. Say to yourself: "Bro, you look awesome tonight! Everyone is waiting for you to come so they can have a chat with you. You will leave a great impression on everyone as you talk with them in your calm, confident manner. You know and they know, that if you weren't going to show up the evening wouldn't be nearly as much fun as it's going to be now. All thanks to you!"

I believe strongly, that the inner discussions - or thought-chatter as some like to call it - and visualizations have an impact on your subconscious mind. I also believe, that we are in much less control of our actions than we would like to admit. Instead, the subconscious mind is steering us towards different paths, different decisions, depending on how we think and what our beliefs are. By visualizing yourself as a very social person, you're giving instructions to your subconscious mind that this social person is who you really are. As a result, the way you behave may start to change without you even noticing it at first, as it all feels very natural and you are just 'being yourself'.

A study [download PDF] was done in 2007 that very profoundly demonstrates just how powerful the mind can be, and how much power visualization has: A group of athletes were instructed to visualize exercising their hip muscles, and without any actual gym training or physical activity they had similar strength gains (24% increase in physical strength) as a control group who went to the gym and did the actual hip exercises (28% increase in physical strength). Apparently the mind cannot make a difference between real and imagined experiences. Considering that these people actually had significant physiological changes as a result of what they imagined, just think how much visualization could help to change your behavior, attitudes, beliefs, or way of thinking!

Your personality changes whether you like or not. The big questions is; are you willing to take responsibility of who you are now, and to consciously start guiding that personality change in order to become who you want to be, to become your best self?

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