Blogging – My First 50 Days

I started this blog on 11 Jun 08 and have completed my 50 days. I think it is a good idea to analyze and review my blogging “career”. Based on my experience so far, I have already decided to continue the blog posting, as I have started enjoying blogging. So this review will essentially be in the form of “Gap Analysis”: What I wanted, what has been achieved, what can be done to remove the shortcomings, decision what to continue and what to abandon.

So first, the Objectives. For me, the objectives of blogging, in the order of priority, were (and are):

a. To contribute and share good things/ideas with others, thereby contribute in improving the lives of others (For me, it is my legacy that I would like to leave behind)
b. To express myself
c. To learn internet/running a website as a technology (both the science and art)
d. To explore internet as a mean of earning money (i.e. to see if I can earn money on internet)

I think that I have mixed results for objectives a. Whereas I had been able to write articles that would have positive impact on many lives, the readership is not very large so the message has not been communicated to many people. Interestingly, the article “10 minute exercise that you can do any where” has been the most popular article. Overall, there had been over 1750 page views. I prefer page views over number of visitors because I am interested in communicating the idea and “page views” gives a better measure for this purpose.

Since I wanted to communicate the ideas to wider readership, I attempted few traffic generation techniques suggested on the web. These included posting in forums, e-mails, blog carnivals etc. These all generated some traffic. I also submitted articles to different free article sites and it was satisfying to see that the message was communicated to a wider readership. In one specific case, one of my articles was viewed over 400 times on just one site within 15 days of posting.

Coming to second objective “To express myself”, I think I have achieved this objective as in last 50 days, I have 20 postings, expressing how I view and experience life. These included ­­­articles that express my values and ideas of life, personal development, self growth and approach to rising from mediocrity to personal excellence.

The 3rd objective, “Learning about running a website” was also achieved to a high degree. From a novice, having absolutely no idea of creating a website or HTML, I have successfully created and managed my website. The site has a decent layout, adequate arrangement of material and ads. I have plugged in “statcounter” and ads from Google AdSence and Bidvertiser. I wanted to experiment with some affiliate programme as well, but I have left it to some later time. The bottom line is, I have gained a reasonable expertise to create a website using a template, modifying HTML code to have a layout of my choice, plugging in required features and ads etc. So technology is not going to be a barrier for me.

Monetising their site is the main aim of most bloggers. This was not the case with me, but I wanted to experiment with it to assess blog’s potential for earning money, in case I decide to run an internet based business. I have monetised my site by plugging in Google AdSence and Bidvertiser ads. Whereas I was able to generate decent revenue (decent from my standards, i.e. a person who did not aim to generate money from blog) from Google AdSence, Bidvertiser was a complete failure (so far, at least). My Bidvertiser account indicates a whooping balance of zero point zero zero dollars. Technically it is correct to say that I earn at least a million times more from Google AsdSence than from Bidvertiser.

Future plans. I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience so far. Though it is challenging, demanding and time consuming to post regularly, I am going to maintain this blog as I am doing something that I enjoy. I have made a few friends also through my blog. Some of the readers’ feedback had also been very encouraging and satisfying. To help someone in improving someway is a very satisfying feeling for me and forms a cornerstone of my vision of a great and successful life.

The area where I need to work more is traffic generation. Though I don’t find working for traffic generation very motivating, but then I think what is the value of an article if it does not reach the readers? Therefore, I have decided to spend 2 two hours sessions each week to promote the site over next one month. I have set the goal to have at least 8,000 page views by 100th day of this website, i.e. 5 times more page visits in the next 50 days. Hard Target?? May be. But I am very confident that I’ll achieve it. I‘ll report the result on day No 100. Do you think I’ll succeed?

How Much Is Your Site Worth?

Today, I came across this interesting site which estimates the worth of any given site. I believe that it uses visitor's data and site's daily earning (actual or assessed) to calculate site's worth. My site has been assessed as worth $146.00. Interesting to see that my passion can get me some money.

To find out the worth of your site, click the follwoing link.

My site is worth $146.
How much is yours worth?

Gold Or Garbage - What Are You Piling?

To be more successful, to be more effective, one has to work more and work hard. However, every human being, no matter how ambitious he is and how long he is willing to work, requires some time every day to do something that gives him pleasure, which refreshes and relaxes him and which charges his batteries for the next day’s hard work. These relaxing and recharging activities that we undertake during our repair time, and which are vital for an efficient workday, can be categorised into following three categories:

a. Gold. Have positive effect on us (improve us in some way).

b. Garbage. Have negative effect on us (damage us in some way).

c. Neutral. No or very little effect on us (leave us almost unchanged).

It is my observation that we all spent some time in each type of category. However, what really matters is that how much time, and with what intensity, we spent in each category? That is to say, whether you are piling Garbage or Gold or just “spending your time”. Your choice of Gold or Garbage activities will ultimately determine your long-term growth, personal development and effectiveness.

I personally grade these three types of activities on a scale of –10 to +10. Activities that fall between +3 t0 +10 are gold. Activities falling between –2 to +2 are generally neutral and anything below –3 is Garbage.The more gold you have, the better your life is, and more developed and successful person you are.The more garbage you have, less developed you are. You don’t have an effective “self” or a successful/great life, even if you have plenty of money.

How do we decide what is gold and what is garbage? My criteria for each type of activity and the activities that people generally pursue in that area are:

Gold Activities (+3 to +10)

These are the activities that have positive short and long-term effects. These are absorbing, engaging and challenge your intellect, body or emotions. Since these are challenging, one tends to avoid these, especially when he feeling low physically, emotionally, or mentally. However, once engaged, a person gets absorbed and may even lose sense of time. Consequently, these activities refresh, recharge and build up energy, making it easier to continue. A key characteristic of such activities is that when one has finished these, he feels satisfied positively, feels good about himself and has a sense of fulfilment.

My choice of Gold activities include

a. Reading a really good book. For example Steven Covey’s “First Things First” or “The 8th Habit”, Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, Coelho's "Al-Chemist" etc.

b. Exercise. Jogging, weight training, walking. These really refresh me and one hour of exercise allows me to add 2-3 hours of mental work or quality time with family.

c. Yoga and meditation.

d. Watching a really really good movie. A film like “Forest Gump”, “The Secret”, “Ben Hur”, or some educational and inspiring documentary etc.

e. Exploring/learning something new. This could be as small as a learning new words or basics of a new software module or may be something more challenging like flying and aircraft.Visiting a new place (during an evening or a complete holiday package) Tasting some new food/drink

f. Getting involved in emotionally engaging and intimate activities like making love, spending some quality time with family or friends, teaching something to your kids.

g. Writing, whether it is a diary, journal, article or a book

h. Gardening. Gardening provides light exercise, is engaging, and can be a great stress reliever for many reasons, including getting you into the sunshine and fresh air, creating more beautiful surroundings to come home to each day. A side effect is the sense of contribution towards nature, which, in the long term, a major positive impact on your life.

i. Some challenging games or puzzles that develop focus and concentration

The signs of a Gold activity are that it is intellectually or physically challenging, teaches you something worth knowing, develops a skill worth having, or improve your existing state (physical, emotional or intellectual). During the activity as well as later on, you have a strong sense that you are doing the right thing. It builds your self-esteem and confidence as well as your energy levels. And mostly, it is stress relieving.

Neutral Activities (-2 to +2)

These activities have no major long-term negative or positive effects, but have short-term positive effects as these rejuvenate a person. These are generally not intellectually or physically challenging and therefore, are easier to engage into. A conscious and positive person chooses these activities when he is physically and mentally tired and is not bothered much about long-term positive effects. After end of such activities, a person may feel physically or mentally refreshed, but most probably, it will be a very short-term effect. Neutral activities include:

a. Fun time with friends, without any intellectual or serious discussion

b. Watching light TV sitcoms and shows like “Friends”

c. Reading novels, magazines etc

d. Watching a sporting event

e. Listening to light music

f. Light computer games like “Hearts” and puzzles

g. Drawing and Paintings.

h. Learning to play or playing music instruments.

Whereas some of these activities have the potential to move to Gold activities, depending upon how you are engaged in these, a word of caution for Neutral activities. Neutral activities do not have a long-term negative impact if one engages in these for short period of time only. However, spending too much time in activities of this category will effectively make that very activity Garbage. You will come to know about it when, at the end of the activity, you have the unpleasant feeling that you've wasted your time.

Garbage Activities (-3 to –10)

We generally know that we must avoid activities in this category, but even then, we all tend to spend some time in this category. The difference, however, is that people with high self discipline and confidence spend a very little time in Garbage activities. This happens only when they are extremely low in their energy level, tired and exhausted for any reason. At times, it is a conscious choice or a revolt against self-discipline, just to challenge oneself. On the other hand, people with low self-esteem, having self-doubts and low energy levels spend most of their recreational times in Garbage activities. Whatsoever the reason, the indication that one is engaged in a Garbage activity is that he gets a dull pleasure during activity and feeling of guilt or loss after the activity. Even during the activity, there is a voice deep inside telling us that we are engaged in a self-destructive activity. It disables you intellectually, emotionally, and physically. During such activities, one is less capable of performing complex skills or dealing with complex emotional or intellectual issues.Garbage activities include:

a. Watching too much rubbish TV shows (like Jerry Springer Show, WWF etc)

b. Getting drunk

c. Watching violent movies

d. Doing anything that you'd be ashamed to talk about with others

e. Reading cheap novels or gossip magazines

f. Surfing the net without any specific objective

g. Using drugs

h. Internet chatting and attending forums (at any given time, if you are participating in more than 4 forums, I assure you that you are just wasting your time)

So What to Do?Personality/character of a person and the way he uses his spare time are reflective of each other. Confident, highly energetic people having high self-esteem, self-discipline and a positive attitude towards life mostly choose Gold activities.People with low self-esteem, doubtful and lacking self-discipline spent most of their leisure time in garbage activities.

The great news is,People spending more of their time in Gold activities develop self-esteem, confidence, and high energy levels.I invite you to make 2 lists.A list of all the activities that you do in your spare time and categorise them as Gold, Neutral or Garbage.Make another list of activities that you think are Gold and which you should undertake.Analyse list of current activities.Make a resolution to discard Garbage activities.Slowly and gradually replace your current Garbage activities with Gold activities of your second list.And enjoy the positive results over the period of time.

Article Categories

Recently, one of the reader has pointed out that the archive section (on the right sidebar) is not very user friendly. He has pointed out that once the month “June 2008” is clicked, instead of article titles, all the entries of June appear. This is not very reader friendly.

I agree with the comments. In fact, when I started blogging, I used the built-in archive set-up of Blogger.com template. It was only at the start of this month, when archive set-up changed, that I was able to check this feature and find the shortcoming. So I have decided to modify the set up to make it more user friendly. I have two options. List the articles in categories and facilitate the visitors to navigate through their favourite categories OR to list articles chronologically, wherein only list of articles appears for each month and offer the visitor the choice to click on article which interests him. Another option is to have both the options. I personally prefer the first option: Categories. This is what I am going to work on during this week. I’ll also check built–in features that Blogger.com offers for automatic indexing. Next step will be to incorporate option 2 also. So eventually, I’ll end up exercising option 3.

Great Life - Decide What You Want From Life (Part II)

The process of having a great life essentially comprises of following steps:

a. Your vision/definition of successful or great life
b. An accurate assessment of your passions, strengths and values
c. Envisioning your future and
d. Planning and taking action

a. Your vision of success A general vision of success is to have a lot of money, position of strength, great health, awesome figure, influence, big mansion, fleet of luxury cars, personal jet, great family life, lovers etc etc. That all is good. But it is too materialistic. You may or may not want this type of success.

Some people see success in things other than material gains. Just consider following quotes:

Money, achievement, fame and success are important, but they are bought too dearly when aquired at the cost of health -Anonymous

It’s great to be great, but it’s better to be human. -Will Rogers

Success is a journey, not a destination. -Ben Sweetland

I cannot separate success from peace of mind–the two must go together…- Anonymous

All of us are born with a reason, but all of us don’t discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others. -Danny Thomas

Success is knowing what your values are and living in a way that is consistant with your values. -Danny Cox

We see a marked difference in the ideas of success. It varies from person to person and even for a person, it varies over period of time. I therefore emphasise here that, to have a great life, define what is your idea of success. What does success mean to you? What would you have to be doing to feel that you are a sucessful person? Most probably, your idea of success or a great life will be a list of items/ideas listed above or their variants plus some more ideas of your own. Whatever it is, write it down. It is the first step. To help you further, here are some questions that you may ask yourself to come to your definition of success:

What is my deepest desire?
What would I like to accomplish in my life?
What would I like to accomplish this year?
Where would I like to be in 5 years?
Where would I like to be in 20 years?
What am I good at?

And look into all areas of your life:

Your career/ profession
Your family / social life / relationships
Your health
Your financial situation
How you have fun (how spend your holidays)

Answering these questions will help you to get closer to your idea of a successful life. I encourage you to give it a try and write down answers to 6 six questions that I have listed above. Go one step further and write down answers of first 5 questions for each of the 5 areas of your life listed above. Do you see some pattern emerging? This is just a start. You need to repeat this process over time to really find what successful life means to you.

b. An accurate assessment of your passions, strengths and values Each one of us is gifted with a unique set of passions and strengths and each one has his own set of values. Now let us explore our passions, strengths and values.

1. Passions Try this simple but effective approach to find out your passions. Complete the following statements:
a. My heart pounds with excitement when………………
b. I feel especially good about myself when……….
c. I get a lump in my throat when…………..
d. I lose track of time whenever I am………………
e. If I could be any person in history , I would be ………….
f. When I dream about the future I see myself……..
g. If I could change one thing it would be……….

Don’t be too concious about the answers. Write down whatsoever comes to your mind. Expand and refine it gradually.

2. Strengths Identify your strengths. Mark as many of the following words that you identify yourself with.

sharp supportive systematic decisive
inventive loyal conventional trusting
risk taker spontaneous methodical respectful
inspiring analytical team player meticulous
competitive determined self-composed sensitive
self-sufficient adventurous possessive accurate
intelligent smart composed well-disciplined
influencing enthusiastic steady perfectionist

curious calm unselfish thorough
Diplomatic self-assured dependable precise

By choosing the words, do you see a better self-assessment of yourself?

3. Values To achieve something in life, you have to set goals. To set goals, you need to decide what is important to you, what your values are. When it comes to values, there are no right or wrong values. They can be anything that you consider important or maybe something that you couldn’t imagine living without. Just make sure that the values you choose to define yourself are truly your own values and not someone else’s or imposed due to social conditioning. Look at the following (non-exhaustive) list and identify your values:

Achievement Adaptability Adventure Amusement
Assertiveness Balance Beauty Being the best
Bliss Boldness Bravery Brilliance
Calmness Camaraderie Care Cheerfulness
Clarity Cleanliness Congruency Cooperation
Decisiveness Dignity Duty Empathy
Experience Expertise Exploration Family
Firmness Fitness Flexibility Grace
Gratitude Growth Guidance Happiness
Health Heart Helpfulness Humor
Intimacy Learning Modesty Peace
Pleasure Proactivity Relaxation Richness
Self-control Silence Simplicity Sincerity
Solidarity Strength Tranquility Trustworthiness
Truth Valour Vigor Virtue
Wealth

c. Envisioning Your Future You have defined your vision of success. This is what you want from life. You have defined your passions. These are the activities that make you really happy. You now know your strengths. These are your tools to achieve what you want from life. You know your values. These are the guiding principles in your life. If your activities are aligned with your values, you will have a great life, irrespctive of the magnitude of material gains. Material gains will however, come your way.

The key to graet, successful and happy life is to align passions, strenghts and values work for envisioned successful life. However, if you have started this process fo r the first time, you’ll find conflicts in your vision of successful life and your values, passions and stregths. This being the case, follow your passions and values. You can always bulid the streghths needed to support your values and passions. Following this process, you’ll find a truly successful and great life. This may or may ot be the “successful life” that you envisioned at the start of this process. If it is not, then your present idea is more likely a result of social conditioning and childhood programming. Dump this vision. Follow the vision that emerges from your passions and stregths.

d. Planning and taking action The next step to achieving a great life is to set goals, plan and execute. But this is a complete topic in itself and will be covered in a series of forthcoming articles.

Great Life - Decide What You Want From Life (Part I)

When it comes to the question “What do you want from life?” the people can be categorized in the following three groups:

a. The people who simply let their life happen. They never think about what they want in their lives and become victims of their own circumstance. Career is just a job to get by financially. A house is just a place to come and rest and eat, chosen primarily for cheap rent or closeness to work place.

b. The people who make their own life, who decide how their life will be. They have a clear idea of what they want from life, what they want to accomplish. They plan, set goals, workout strategies and have a clear picture how to achieve what they want.

c. The people in between the above two categories, who have some preferences, some goals, some visions. But they are indifferent about most parts of their lives. If they have some clear financial goals, they may ignore family, children, relationships, health and spirit etc. They lack a wholesome, balanced approach.

With so much of emphasis on positive thinking, personal development, goal setting, planning etc in the last hundred year or so, it is no wonder that we see a shift of people from category a to categories b and c. However, perhaps more than 95% of people still fall in category a and c, having either absolutely no or very limited idea of what they want from life. Is it acceptable? Is it a good way to live our lives? Should we really ponder what we want from life? This brings us to the question why it matters to know what we want from life?

To know what you want from life is the first step towards a happy, fulfilled and satisfied life. But one needs to be very careful to answer the question as what he wants from life. One can either “find” or “decide” what he wants from life. Knowing the difference between “finding” and “deciding” is a very tricky business.

You “find” what you want from "your" life once you explore yourself as to what are your values, what are your passions and what is the legacy that you wish to leave behind?

On the other hand, when you “decide” what you want from life, it is mostly under social pressure and childhood programming. You might think that “you" want fame, money, power and position. Nothing wrong with these desires, but one has to be very careful to pursue what he wants from life. It is possible that you spend years or even your entire life pursuing something which you believed "you" wanted from life only to find at the end of the day that your ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. So it is of utmost important to ensure that your vision of what you want from life is the right path for you. Your vision of how you want your life to be will decide whether you have a happy and satisfied life or a constant feeling of regret and emptiness.

Remember, it does not matter how hard you work, how intelligent you are, how desperately you have struggled for something. Unless you follow your passions and calling, pursue your unique talents, goals, dreams, and ambitions, you will not be truly happy no matter what you achieve materially.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to find their true goals, dreams, passions, and purpose. Instead of pursuing a rich and rewarding life that results from aligning one’s life with one’s unique talents, gifts and passions, people are socially conditioned and programmed to desire for just more; more money, bigger house, luxury car, social status etc.

So how to find or decide what we want from life to have a great life??? This will be covered in Part II of this article.