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How to Quit Energy Drinks and Caffeine

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Over the past decade there has been a proliferation in the marketplace for energy drinks, shots, strips, and chewable tablets. Coffee has been the long-time staple for those who want a boost and eventually become addicted to the caffeine it contains.  Caffeine can be useful in some instances when you need to stave of fatigue and sleepiness but most of the time it is simply unnecessary. Caffeine is also a drug, a stimulant, and even if it is a mild addiction compared to other drugs, it can still have negative impact on both your life and your wallet. If you’ve taken caffeine before you know all about its effects on sleep, the racing thoughts, feelings of stress or anxiety, etc. There are plenty of reasons to kick this habit but like any addiction it requires some work and planning to do so successfully. For our purposes, I wanted to go over a few methods for quitting your caffeine addiction and try to minimize the withdrawal symptoms if those are something that you cannot handle.

In the past two years or so, I have been drinking energy drinks for months at a time before giving them up for a stretch and then returning to them again. It’s weird because in my teenage years, I actually gave up soda completely and went essentially caffeine and sugar free for multiple years. At some point, maybe it was during school in order to keep up, I started to consume those energy drinks. It wasn’t an everyday thing at first but it quickly became a habit and I found myself craving caffeine when I got out of bed. When I logically thought about that fact, I realized how pathetic that was and knew that I needed to quit energy drinks for good.

Why Do You Want to Quit?

The first thing that I did in this process of kicking this addiction was to clearly identify and write down my reasons for doing so. After all, the energy drinks weren’t all bad. I liked the boost of energy and heightened alertness at times so if I am going to quit, I had to identify reasons that were stronger than my enjoyment. Here was my list of reasons:

Erratic sleeping patterns

The sleeping problems were a huge motivation for me to crack this problem. Caffeine and the other stimulants found in energy drinks can wreak havoc on your ability to get to bed on time or will have you waking up intermittently throughout the night.  It became a reinforcing cycle, couldn’t sleep well which resulted in me waking up later or not getting enough sleep, which in turn made me have to rush through my day, drink another energy drink to ‘wake’ myself up, and also affected my ability to stick with my diet plans and undertake other goals.

For me at least, my sleeping pattern is the number one factor that I have identified for getting things done in my life. When it gets out of whack, I eat worse, I exercise less, I read less, I write less, and it goes on down the line like an infection. Even if I had no other problems with energy drinks and caffeine, this factor alone is reason enough to quit because it is hindering my goals for personal growth (see: How to Wake Up Early for Night Owls).

Money

How much money do you spend on your addiction each day? Energy drinks cost between two and four dollars each, so with taxes you could be spending $100 a month just for that extra unnatural pep. Extrapolate that over a whole year and you might be over $1,000 spent, depending on how much you consume.

Think about all of the money you waste by drinking energy drinks or coffee and what you could do with that extra cash. For example, if you have a $20,000 student loan debt, then that $1,000 you spend a year on caffeine drinks accounts for 5% of that loan! $1,000 could be invested for a nice return or used to pay rent or take a vacation. This money is just being wasted on a purchase you really don’t need in the first place.

In addition, I’ve noticed that my spending overall increases when I’m hopped up on an energy drink, I seem to have more impulse buys. Not only that, but because my sleep patterns get out of line, I tend to order out at restaurants for lunch because I didn’t have time to prepare anything before work. That is a big cost over time and only further solidifies my moving away from caffeine.

Health

I really don’t like how my brain and body have been craving caffeine just to get me through the day. Sure, it’s a mild physical dependence that isn’t too bad to get over but I just don’t like the idea of a drink having some psychological power over me. Also, caffeine raises blood pressure, so long term energy drink consumption probably isn’t a great idea. Stress and anxiety levels also tend to be higher on caffeine and stress is one of the biggest health problems in the modern world. Add to the fact, that I make poorer food choices when on caffeine, and it just makes sense for my health’s sake to get rid of them. If you have any type of digestive issue or condition like colitis or IBS, then caffeine consumption is only making things worse for you, so getting off of it would be a great idea.

Get in Shape with the right program: Visual Impact Cardio

Mental Clarity

On caffeine and these similar stimulants, my mind is noticeably alert and I have feelings of being pumped up and ready to go. However, this does not translate well to getting tasks done. While I am alert, I have a hard time focusing on what I need to get done or developing ideas and organizing them. Also, my creativity seems to have dark periods that directly correlate with my energy drink usage as my brain is jumping from thing to thing and never really having much depth to my thoughts at all.

Finding the Root Cause

I also think that it is important to figure out a root cause for the dependency on caffeine. Feeling tired or run down all the time can have its roots in a poor diet, bad sleeping habits, and a lack of exercise. Maybe it was simply a habit that was picked up during a time where you needed that extra energy but now only consume energy drinks because that’s just sort of what you do now.  Whatever the reasoning behind the consumption, if you can identify the underlying factors, it can make the transition away from caffeine and stimulants that much easier.

How to Kick the Habit

There seems to be two methods for quitting caffeine. The first is obviously just stopping your consumption cold turkey. This method is the quickest way but also the most difficult in terms of habit change and withdrawal symptoms. The second is to gradually reduce and eventually eliminate. This method makes it a transition into going without caffeine and energy drinks and not an abrupt stop, which is helpful because it isn’t very difficult and the withdrawals are minimized but it does take planning.

Cold Turkey

This is the method which I utilized the first few days. I felt extremely tired and had a minor headache with cloudy thoughts. It was doable but unfortunately it also coincided with a busy work week and interviews for other jobs. So, I switched to a minor amount of caffeine just to manage the fatigue and get through those few days. I think the cold turkey method is a good choice if you have the time and not much to do, so that you can get in the extra sleep you’ll want and not have to be so irritable.

The Gradual Method

This is the easiest way to kick a caffeine habit. The first step is to determine how much you consume each day. If you have two energy drinks a day, the just giving them up would be a rough go on your body for a week or two. I usually had one energy drink a day in the 16 oz. size, so I wanted to cut that dramatically. I determined that a 16 oz. usually contains 140-160 mg of caffeine and that I wanted to cut that amount significantly to wean myself off of it but still have enough to get through that first week.

I chose to replace an energy drink with a Mountain Dew which contains 91mg of caffeine in a 20 oz. bottle. I only drank half of this bottle and poured the rest of it out, so I ended up consuming roughly 45mg of caffeine. Lipton Green Tea is also a good choice because it has way less caffeine than an energy drink and a different taste, so that you aren’t reinforcing that energy drink flavor.

The goal for me was to keep the total mg of caffeine low so that it didn’t interrupt my sleeping habits but I wasn’t going through with the withdrawals to the same extent.  45 mg of caffeine in the morning on one day and then the next either reduce that amount or just not consume any for that day. It was a good idea for me to schedule the reduction towards the start of the week, so that, by the weekend (my days off work) I could just go without and be able to deal with the rundown feelings by taking naps, eating more fruits and veggies, and not have any stress make the feelings worse.

If you have a major caffeine habit, you simply have to stretch out the time line and slowly reduce the amount of energy drinks, soda, or coffee you drink each day. If you currently consume two 16 oz. energy drinks per day for example, try to reduce that initially to one 16 oz. and one 8 oz. for a few days, then perhaps drop that further to two 8 oz. energy drinks, then to one 8 oz., then to a bottle of green tea, and then eliminate caffeine completely. This is something that needs to be planned out to be most effective. So grab a calendar or a sheet of paper and keep track of how many mg of caffeine you consume and then start reducing it until you can kick the habit completely. It is a very good idea to consume more water during this process and I find that eating healthy foods and satisfying meals throughout the day helps with the cloudy mind somewhat.

Energy drinks, coffee, and other sources of caffeine and stimulants can cause quite an addiction that can cost you money, sleep, and your health but with the right plan you can kick the habit. Quitting caffeine can be one of the best decisions you make in your life because of all the direct and indirect impacts it can have on your behavior and spending habits. Make the choice now to free yourself from this habit and learn to find your natural balance again.

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How to Hustle Hard

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Hustle is a word that has a variety of meanings based on its usage. In the street vernacular, hustle is often associated with selling drugs but it can be applied to any other money making venture. Selling t-shirts is a hustle, buying a product low wholesale and then flipping it from the back of your trunk for a higher price is a hustle, etc. Hustle is also used in the world of sports, usually someone chasing down a loose ball for instance or not giving up on a play defensively. In either case, hustle is essentially buckling down and putting in work, even if you have to make something out of nothing or go a unique route to accomplish it. I want to use the term to explore some concepts that will help you not only to make money with a side hustle but that can also be applied to any other goals or ventures that you may have in your life, from picking up girls to pursuing an education. These aren’t necessarily hard and fast rules on how to hustle but if you bring them into your own life, your success rate in whatever you do will probably climb a lot.

Have a Greater Goal in Mind

If you’re a student, you may have some idea of what you want to do after you finish school. For example, if your dream is to become a doctor that might be your greater goal or it might be a step on the path. Either way, it is really easy to get bogged down and lose sight of what you wanted to accomplish in the first place. You want to be a doctor, but you forget why you want to pursue that profession while you’re sitting in the library studying for an English exam. Having a greater goal propels you forward during the dark times or simply during the times when your focus is lacking.

Wanting to be a doctor is great but that can often be too vague for your mind to be inspired by. Maybe you really want to be chief or surgery or use the skills you learn as a doctor to treat those who lack access to proper medicine. Whatever the case may be, visualize and revisit each day what that underlying motivation is and how you’re going to get there from where you are now. You won’t want to put in the extra hours that it takes or fight through the pain, if you don’t have a clear sense of where you want to end up.

Break Down that Greater Goal into Smaller Steps

Having a greater goal in mind can point you in the direction you want to head but how will you actually get there? It’s kind of like standing on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean and saying Europe’s over there…great, but what steps would you need to take to make it there? Greater goals give us hope but the smaller steps are what make our dreams a reality. Having smaller goals within the framework of your larger path helps to keep the dream alive and also gives you smaller checkpoints along the way that can help to measure if you’re on the right path.

If your goal is to create a successful website, that you can make a full-time income from, that could be considered a greater goal. However, you will need to break that greater goal down into things like marketing, generating revenue, creating content, etc. Those more general ideas can be broken down further and further until you get down to something like, “I will write one new article each day this week and email 10 other websites to ask if I could do a guest post to help build traffic.” That is something more specific and measurable. You can measure whether or not you wrote one new post each day this week and that is something that can help springboard you to a higher level towards accomplishing your major goal.

Always Learn More

Learning more and more about the world around you and whatever specific topic your specific goal pertains you will help keep you grounded and open you up to new ideas. For example, when I first started to try and get dates or pick up girls I was utterly clueless towards what I should do. I started reading a lot of advice put forth by various pick up artists and other guys and this helped me a lot. However, had I just stopped there I never would have made the identity-level shift, that allowed my confidence to grow ever higher. It was only when I started reading more philosophy, that things really fell into place for me, and I never looked back.

Too often we get caught up in fantasies and then these fantasies creep in to our mind, presenting themselves as our expectations as to how things should go. By constantly learning more, you have to revise your perspective on things, which helps you to be more fluid and open to the possibility that you have been doing things wrong. Learning more also helps to see the world as it really is, which allows you to solve your problems honestly.

Reading books, articles, and the like, will lead to your experimentation and exploration of new ideas and methods. Learn to stop completely pre-judging things based on how you believe it really is and try to learn how it actually is. Experiment with the ideas you pick-up, so that you can learn first-hand whether or not they are truly valuable to your cause or if you were wrong about that idea the whole time. Try to create connections between the things you read and experience and apply these new synthesized ideas to your life and how you will operate in the future.

Solve Problems by Getting to the Root Cause

There are many variables that lie just below the surface if you are willing to dig for them. Don’t misjudge a situation or a problem by concluding that what you initially suspect is anything more than a surface problem. For instance, if you feel lonely it isn’t because you are alone. It probably has to do with your ego and fears and the loneliness is just how it manifests itself. There are always deeper reasons and meanings behind why things happen and if you’re honest with yourself you can get closer to the truth. The more often you dig to the depths of situations, the stronger your mind will become and you can keep yourself aligned with the truth and keep yourself from deceiving yourself.

Take an Indirect Route toward Your Goal

Sometimes taking something head on can be disastrous. If you are out of shape and have a poor diet, the most direct path would be to overhaul your diet and start working out more. However, this is the path that most people take and it often fails. An indirect approach in that situation might be to work on your mind first, eliminating the triggers which cause you to overeat and building discipline so that working out just becomes a habit. Know that going direct isn’t always the most effective method in every situation. There are times when something is so entrenched and has so much power the only way to defeat it is by taking an indirect route and slowly encircling it. If you are not ready to face a certain challenge head-on yet, give yourself options and ways that you can slowly erode its power until you have the means to break down that last step towards your goal.

Learn How to Be Bored

Outside of work or school we often find ourselves with idle time that usually gets eaten up by distraction. It’s easy to get done with an eight hour shift and simply turn on the TV and zone out for the rest of the night. But where is that going to get you? There are plenty of distractions
that will take away our free time, if we let them. Take this time back and turn towards fulfilling one of the steps of your goals.  Use TV and movies as a treat for a job well-done. For instance, if you’ve gotten home from your day job all week long and then put in work on your goals afterwards, take one night out of the week the reward yourself and clear your mind. Just don’t sit there like a slug every night.

Let go of things and keep your mind clear of petty ego based problems. Emotions and negative thought patterns can wreak havoc on your life if you don’t recognize them for what they are and learn to move past them. Hanging on to these emotions and patterns will make you feel as if you need to escape from reality and hence look to distraction. For instance, if you try to get a girl’s number and she rejects you, let it go and don’t take it as a sign that you’re hopeless or no woman will ever love you. Instead, brush off the rejection but take a look at your approach, appearance, or even the words you spoke. Use what you learn for the next time you find yourself in such a situation. Don’t in that situation, fall back into drinking or entertainment to hide your wounds and never have to face rejection ever again, that’s a punk move.

Develop your focus. Focus is what will allow you to get through the boring steps necessary to reach your ultimate goal. Not everything can be fun or glorious. Goals take work and it isn’t always the most interesting thing in the world. If your focus is terrible, learn how to harness it over time. You may need to study a lot of books to accomplish your goal for example, but you can’t make yourself sit down and read. Why not start out with 15 minutes a day at first and work your way up to a heavier load? Remember, that small progressions are still progress so don’t discount these little steps along the way.

Everyone who wants to accomplish a goal needs some hustle in order to get it done. The problem is people get set on the wrong path or don’t have the clarity needed to make their hustle turn into something fruitful. By applying these principles to your own hustle you can increase your rate of success and use each victory as a stepping stone towards that ultimate goal you have.

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How to Get Your Ex-Girlfriend Back: She Moved On, Shouldn’t You?

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When a relationship ends it becomes very easy to second-guess the results, play Monday morning quarterback and convince yourself that had you only done this differently, she would have stayed. Maybe your reasoning rings true but the past has already gone and you find yourself in the position you are in now. It is a matter of fact in dating, that you will have an ex-girlfriend that you will want to get back from another guy or have her want you back when she has already moved on with her life. The situations are various i.e. she broke up with you (see: Following the No Contact Rule) or perhaps you broke up with her and now regret the decision to do so. Regardless of what the circumstances were, you now have the compulsive feeling to do something like make her jealous of you or to win her back fast and have things go back to the way they were.  When it all boils down to the base of your desires, can you honestly say that you want her to come back? Or is it really less about the actual relationship and more about your own ego clamoring to have what it has lost? For this post, I want to help you consider what it could actually mean to want to get back together with your ex-girlfriend, and that in most cases you end up chasing something that no longer exists because you feel bad or think it will make your life better.

I’m against getting back with your ex in most cases but if you still want her back, here is a program to help you with that. More information towards the bottom of this post.

When you’re in the mode of thought that you are certain that you want to rekindle a relationship with your ex, I know that those feelings can be immensely powerful and completely consume your thoughts. I’ve been in the same spot you have, as well as countless other guys, and the thing is that if you move on these thoughts tend to move on as well. It is really incredible how things completely change, if you add the ingredient of moving on and combining it with time. Girls who you convince yourself are your one and only, eventually fall from thought and you begin to question what was so special about them in the first place.

If you have recently broken up with your girlfriend, you really need to take some time to get your mind right before you make any decisions (Moving on From Your Ex-Girlfriend). A decision based on emotion is generally a poor one and can have you wondering what it is you were thinking once you’ve healed your heart. If you are a guy who still clamors for a girl he dated a long time ago, seriously move the fuck on. She wasn’t the idyllic flower you make her out to be in your mind and thinking so is going to make every other girl you meet, pale in comparison, thus screwing up your future dating prospects. You can’t be one of these guys who goes through life on some Great Gatsby type quest to get back his true love, who turns out to be a spoiled child, and not a woman worthy of loving.

See Things As They Are

Idealization and nostalgia about the past creep into your thoughts and cloud your judgment about what you truly want out of your life. It’s just like when older people think back to the ‘good old days’ when ‘things just worked better’, conveniently leaving out all of the things that sucked during that time period. Think back on your relationship with your ex-girlfriend honestly, take off the rose colored glasses, and ask yourself was it really that great? Your girlfriend might have been cool, but is there really not one more woman out of the 4 billion or so on this planet that could be an improvement? Did she cheat on you (don’t be a chump and try to get her back)? What were the honest faults of the relationship? (Signs a Relationship is Over)

Stop idealizing that things were all good, because they weren’t. If your girlfriend dumped you and you still think that things were going ‘really great’, trust me, they weren’t. She dropped you for a reason. You may just be completely oblivious. Keep in mind that nothing in life stays the same and really things aren’t supposed to. People change. You or your girlfriend changed enough for the relationship to be over. That is a major reason why reconciliation isn’t always such a good idea, as the personalities and circumstances that once had the two of you in love have shifted and aren’t going back to the way things used to be.

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.” –Marcus Aurelius

Break the Dependency Cycle

It’s no secret that love is like a drug. There have been published studies that show a striking similarity in the effects on the brain between someone who is in love and someone with an addiction. It feels so terrible after a break-up because you aren’t getting your fix. You have conditioned yourself while in a relationship with your girlfriend to expect certain things and when they happened you get a positive flood of emotions. Now that she is gone those stimuli aren’t being provided which makes you feel really down.

In essence, you may have relied on her to provide you with feelings of happiness, ignoring the fact that happiness (if such a term is valid) must come from within. Any time you rely solely on external influences whether they be people, drugs, food, or whatever to fuel your positive emotions you are going to experience a severe crash when they are suddenly taken away. If you are still hurting after a break-up, you should strongly consider a no-contact or if you can’t totally avoid her, an extremely limited contact policy with this girl. In order to start to let go of the past you have to let fresh wounds heal a bit, which is hard to do if you constantly talk to the person you desire most.

“…look to your own means, leave everything that isn’t yours alone. Make use of what material advantages you have, don’t regret the ones you were not allowed. If any of them is recalled, let go of them willingly, grateful for the time you had to enjoy them—unless you want to be like a child crying for her nurse or mother. After all, what difference does it make what a person is enslaved to, and cannot live without? You’re no different from a teenager mooning over a girl when you ache for your familiar haunts, your club, your old gang of friends and former way of life.”- Epictetus

Stop Being Afraid

Yes, underneath all of this longing for your ex-girlfriend lies a great deal of fear. If you are in a state of loneliness right now (How to Stop Feeling Lonely), your fear may be that you will end up alone or not find a girl as good as your ex. Both fears are unfounded. At some point in time, we all end up alone, but your life doesn’t have to be resigned to dating failures and pangs for the one who ‘got away’. You have to decide that you’re going to live the life that you want, you will improve yourself, and find other women who will fit with who you are and who you want to be in the future.

If you are trying to get your ex-girlfriend back from another guy, your ego is once again rearing its ugly head. Your deep seated fear may be that he is better than you and thus your value is lowered. You may want some revenge on your ex, which is your ego showing itself in the form of pride. This type of fear also shows up in guys who want to make their exes jealous of them post-break up. There is this bizarre idea of one person winning after a break up, based on whether they have upgraded or downgraded in terms of their next partners or current lifestyles. It is really just shallow nonsense and you do not have to and should not play these games. (Lucid Dreaming for life improvement)

You can’t hide from these fears by masking over them. If you’re in pain, let yourself feel it, don’t overreact to it but definitely don’t cover it up either. It’s okay to be hurt after a relationship. You can feel betrayed, disappointed, jealous, or any other feeling but the key is to not get bogged down in them for too long. Ultimately, you are responsible for letting things continue to bother and hurt you. There needs to come a time where you let go these negative feelings and focus on the life you still have to lead. (Shift towards something more constructive like a new workout or creating art).

“The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material. But this is going to take some sweat to accomplish.”-Epictetus

What has Really Changed?

Some thing or many things caused an end to your relationship. Let’s say that you do get back together with your ex-girlfriend, what has changed for the better? Did the time apart fix your issues? Doubtful. Are you both on the same page as to what those issues were? If not it’s going to be a really tough go. The simple truth may be that the two of you drifted too far from the original path you met on and now are heading in diverging directions. Don’t go back to an ex-girlfriend simply because you thought she was the best girl you’ve dated and now your options seem limited. That’s just lazy and quite frankly unfair to the both of you. Most relationships you have aren’t going to work out, learn from the mistakes and apply them with your future girls. Repeating a past mistake isn’t going to correct it, so be completely honest and clear-headed with your decision.

If You Really Still Want Her Back…

Some guys find that even after they’ve prepared themselves emotionally to move on and had other women in their lives, they still believe that she was the right fit for them.

If it’s the case that you’re in a good spot emotionally, and you still feel like she is the one, perhaps you consider a program to help rekindle things between the two of you. The Magic of Making Up is a full ebook program designed to assist in mending broken relationships. Over 50,000 people have given it a try, visit here to read successful user testimonials and further information about making up with your ex. Here is a brief  video presentation from the book’s author:

 

The Magic of Making Up, comes with a full 60-day money back guarantee. So, if you are so inclined to try it out, there’s nothing to lose!

Conclusion

If you’re reading this post, I know that you may be really gung-ho at the moment to get your ex back. Yes, you might call her or send her a text and then she comes over and things seem really great….but then what? Chances are she has moved on, either emotionally or physically with another guy. Accept it. It’ll hurt like hell but just get through the pain. I’ve had girls that I’ve wanted back too and girls who wanted me back, in neither case was it really a good option for both parties and if it’s not good for the both of you then it simply won’t work. It’s difficult at times to get through that emotional hailstorm but it does eventually pass and you meet new girls who take the place of old memories. If you think you want to pursue your ex-girlfriend, ask yourself do I really want to or am I just being emotional?

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How to Get Ripped Abs

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There are not only an untold number of methodologies but also an untold number of reasons for guys to exercise. Honestly, isn’t one of the biggest one to get the chicks? Even if that is your surface level goal, getting into shape has profound effects on your confidence, discipline, outlook on life, and that’s not even to mention all of the long term health benefits. Guys who are athletes obviously train to optimize their sport specific results, even if that isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing form their bodies could take. Many other guys go for the traditional bodybuilding training, however, to transform themselves closer to that ‘Greek Ideal’. This body comes with a solid muscle base and lower body fat percentage, highlighted of course by those six pack abs. Some guys see pictures of Arnold or Frank Zane and think that this is their ideal to have that insane size that is symmetrical and also tapered. Other guys see themselves in the aesthetic construct of guys like Zyzz (RIP), Brad Pitt in Fight Club, or Zac Efron in Neighbors and get the motivation to train based off of that. Whatever your case or motivation may be I don’t think there are many guys who would dislike having a set of ripped abs proudly displayed on their midsections. The question is how does one go about getting this ripped look? What kind of diet and exercise program should one follow? In this post, I want to lay out my own current strategy to get in fantastic shape and have a great six pack to go with it.

Diet

The diet is the most important aspect of undergoing a body transformation. You can train all you want but if you aren’t eating right, you will never maximize your muscle gain or your fat loss, in essence you will stagnate for long periods of time.

My diet to start off with is pretty basic. I am not following a strictly low carb diet that would induce ketosis and lead to extreme fat loss because I want to keep up my training schedule, which requires carbohydrates to be able to get through. I want to lose fat at a slow pace (0.5-1.5 lbs per week) so that I can retain as much of my muscle mass as possible and potentially gain some. Losing fat while gaining muscle is a very difficult thing to do but it can be done, you simply won’t be doing either at the most optimal level and since I haven’t trained very much in a while I can expect gains simply by starting back up.

In order to accomplish this, I am taking a carb cycling approach to my diet. This means on days that I work out my diet will be higher in carbohydrates and on my two off days I will keep it under 100g of carbohydrates per day and possibly under 75g. My schedule looks like this:

Sunday- Off Day (Low Carb)

Monday- Weights & Cardio (Higher Carb)

Tuesday- Weights & Cardio (Higher Carb)

Wednesday- Weights & Cardio (Higher Carb)

Thursday- Cardio (Moderate Carb)

Friday- Off Day (Low Carb)

Saturday- Weights (Moderate Carb but with extra carbs post-workout)

This is the diet I have followed for the first week and so far it seems to meet my goals of not losing muscle, losing fat slowly, and not hindering my energy levels especially during workouts. I have been working out for over a week and a half but didn’t start concentrating on diet for the first 3-4 days. I am still 2-3 lbs lighter and have a noticeably leaner look than I did when I started the workout plan.

I have yet to count calories and I don’t plan on doing so for a while. My initial focus is to ‘eat clean’ and to keep my macronutrients within an acceptable range. Most meals are kept quite simple with a protein source, a good carbohydrate, and a green vegetable (spinach, broccoli). If I can keep a majority of my meals this basic, I can avoid eating junk food, easily cycle my carbohydrates, and plan my meals in advance.

My definition of eating clean is as follows:

-No Fast food or sweets

– Low Sugar

– On low carb days substitute grains for greens. Also, bump up the protein and fat intake.

-Stay away from liquid calories. Water and skim milk (on high carb days for protein shakes) are what I will be drinking.

-Stay away from heavily processed foods

 

Protein

My protein sources are pretty consistent each day and I simply up my portions on days when I need more. Chicken, tilapia, tuna, salmon, eggs, whey protein, skim milk, beans, and nuts. Those foods make up the majority of my protein intake. The chicken and fish is either steamed or grilled, never fried. Also, lean red meat is acceptable but it’s probably one meal out of the week if that.

Obviously, protein is going to be the key factor to preserving and growing muscle mass while changing my diet and training program. Again, I haven’t counted calories or nutrients beyond my low carb days, just a rough estimation of how much I should eat per meal. I generally keep my meat portions between 8-12 ounces which ensures that I’m getting more than enough protein without going overboard with the calories. I supplement with whey protein powder which I mix with skim milk or add two scoops to water on my low carb days. I want to keep my muscles fed throughout the day and the whey helps me accomplish that.

Carbohydrates

Low carb diets are great for losing a maximum amount of fat in a minimal amount of time. While I am including carb cycling in my diet, I am not going low carb because it would be detrimental to my muscle gains and I am under no deadline to lose fat. Slow and steady is my plan. Since the body can break down carbohydrates quickly and use them for energy, especially during times of stress (workouts), I definitely want them around so my body doesn’t decide to break down muscle in order to fuel me through the day. Also, as soon as I got off a strictly low carbohydrate diet I would probably gain a bunch of weight back, which would suck.

Carbohydrates also help the body to recover and allow me to have much more energy in order to train both harder and longer. For the purposes of my diet, my carbohydrate sources come from the following foods: potatoes, brown rice, wheat bread, oats, veggies, beans, nuts. On the low carb days, I definitely bump up the amount of veggies I eat, replacing potatoes or brown rice with spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce.

Fats

In order to lose fat, I am NOT going on a low fat diet. My fat intake will stay between 15-25% (estimates) of my total calories each day. The reasoning behind this is that low fat diets can inhibit testosterone function which is a no-no for my purposes because I want my muscle and my hormones in optimal range. Honestly, the biggest thing for me is to get my fats from sources that aren’t fast food or other fried disasters. My fat comes mainly from these foods: eggs, nuts, fish, olive oil, peanut butter, and some from chicken (skinless).

 

Sample Diet (High Carb Day)

Meal 1: 4 Scrambled Eggs with salsa (add black beans for more calories plus protein and carbs) and 1 cup of oats

Meal 2: 1 scoop of whey protein powder mixed with 1 cup of skim milk

Meal 3: Chicken with broccoli and brown rice

Meal 4: 1 scoop of whey protein powder mixed with 1 cup of skim milk

Meal 5: Peanut Butter Sandwich on whole wheat bread (This definitely adds calories and fat but should work nicely for my purposes of not dropping weight too fast).

Meal 6 (Post-workout): Chicken or fish with 3 small russet potatoes and spinach or salad.

This sample day works out well because all of the parts are in place to make adjustments easily. If I lose weight too fast I can easily up my calories by eating a bit more but not including junk food. If I find that after a while of losing fat I am gaining some back then I can easily cut by replacing with one more low carb day or making some minor adjustment.

 

Sample Low Carb Day

Meal 1: 2 scoops of whey protein in water

Meal 2: 5-6 scrambled eggs cooked in olive oil with cheese and salsa added. (Remember, I bump up fat intake on these days).

Meal 3: Chicken with Romaine Lettuce salad (mostly use fat free Italian dressing but may use ranch if I need the calories)

Meal 4: 2 scoops of whey protein in water

Meal 5: Fish (salmon most likely for the fats) with lots of broccoli or spinach.

Meal 6 (if necessary): 1 scoop of whey in water with a slice of whole wheat bread –OR- cook up a can of tuna with seasoned with lemon and pepper and add some onion and cheese.

Cheat Meals

I haven’t done a cheat meal yet but it can be beneficial to have one cheat meal a week where you don’t go crazy but eat something that is outside of the normal diet. Most likely, I’ll do one day where I simply go pretty high on the carbs just to re-feed my muscles but that might only occur once every two weeks or so.

Vitamins

You may have noticed that I did not include fruits with this diet. I am not opposed to fruits completely, I will have a banana a few times per week. However, I tend to stay away from too many fruits and will drink no fruit juices because the sugar gets easily stored as fat. Green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are rich in either Vitamins A and C. Romaine lettuce is high in Vitamin K. Potatoes have lots of potassium. So my dietary needs are being met and I supplement with a good multi-vitamin each day. I do eat fruit, simply not every single day.

Supplements

I take the following supplements:

-Multi-vitamin

-Whey Protein

-Creatine

-Fish Oil

That’s it for right now and probably for the rest of the process. You don’t need as many supplements as some companies will try to claim, most of your results come from four factors (weights, cardio, rest, diet). Supplements are there to do just that supplement your routine. Some can make you marginally better but they aren’t going to do squat if the rest of your plan is screwed up.

 

The Workout

For the time being, I will be working out at home (Updated: Back in the Gym using Visual Impact Cardio instead of Insanity and lifting barbells also). For my resistance training, I will be using dumbbells and an Iron Gym pull up bar. This limits me to the type of training I could be doing (i.e. heavier lifts) but it should work just fine as there are plenty of dumbbell exercises for each muscle group and I can always add more weight as I progress. Also, I won’t be doing any leg specific days with weights but I will get work on my legs by using the Insanity/Insanity: The Asylum hybrid workout as my cardio.

My schedule looks like this:

Sunday– Off (maybe a walk around the neighborhood)

Monday- Arms/Shoulders (morning), Insanity (night)

Tuesday- Chest/Back/Abs (morning), Insanity (night)

Wednesday- Arms/Shoulders (morning), Insanity (night)

Thursday- Insanity

Friday- Off

Saturday- Chest/Back/Abs

What I like about this schedule is that I get 4 weight lifting workouts per week as well as 4 cardio workouts per week by using Insanity. Monday-Wednesday, I separate the two types of workouts to ensure some recovery occurs and a maximal effort is given (got this idea from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding).

I usually substitute the upper body exercises that are in Insanity by doing other cardio movements since I have already lifted weights during that morning. I scheduled Friday and Sunday as off days and designated them as low carb days because it works best with my schedule. Also, the Thursday-Sunday portion allows for plenty of recovery from those first three days where I double up the workouts and may workout 1.5-2 hours total.

The importance of rest and recovery cannot be understated. Getting enough sleep each night will allow my body to grow and recover. Also, the body releases a majority of hormones through certain sleep cycles, meaning if you don’t get the sleep you won’t get as much of the necessary hormones. Rest isn’t being lazy, it lets your body hit an optimal state to maximize the results.

Consistency really is a key component in getting in great shape, both in terms of diet and exercise. Even really disorganized routines can produce some results if done consistently but they won’t be maximum gains and people will eventually stagnate. Having an exact plan laid out with the ability to adjust it to your own personal needs is essential and can save a lot of unnecessary guess work. It is easier to stick to a well-thought out plan than trying to figure things out for yourself and cobbling something together..

Rusty Moore is a fitness trainer who has two awesome workout programs for men called, Visual Impact Cardio and Visual Impact Muscle Building. Both of these workout ebooks have been created to get guys the lean and muscular look.. I have the cardio program myself and let me tell you, it is definitely a challenge. I’ve also read the Muscle Building program (which includes a fat loss portion), so that might be what most guys would want to go with. Especially, those who need to pack on the lean muscle mass like Achilles. Plus, the whole 60 day money back guarantee is  a pretty sweet deal.

It is a downloadable program and is not available in stores, so it can be started right away. Visual Impact Muscle Building comes in three phases which lasts for two months a piece. The first phase pretty much helps to build a muscular foundation which is then further refined by the next two phases of the workout. In order to get an Achilles-like body, it would probably be a good idea to repeat Phase 1 of Visual Impact twice, in order to build up mass within four months time and then use the other two phases to start to chisel out a ripped body. This way, the full program is spread out more and it would give someone more time to have their bulking diet to take effect and get serious muscle gains.

Here to Check Out Visual Impact Muscle Risk Free for 60 Days!

How to Keep Yourself on the Right Track

Too often people solely focus on diet and exercise in order to achieve some physical change. That’s great and also wildly important but they also tend to completely ignore the psychological aspects of changing parts of their lives drastically. Think about how many times you ate junk food or sat on the couch merely out of habit. You could have worked out or eaten better and you logically knew you should have but you just didn’t ‘feel’ like it. The problem is that if you decide to undertake a new workout and diet without addressing your bad habits and mind states, you will most likely fail in your pursuit once the initial motivation wears off or you become busier than you had anticipated. I am going to lay out some ideas and helpful tips that can help to stay committed to undergoing a body transformation to get those ripped abs.

Change Your Environment

One way to avoid eating junk food is to not keep any in your house. If you can’t see it, then you probably won’t eat it. This also applies to other daily distractions that may keep you mindlessly occupied instead of hitting your workout goals for the day. For example, consider deactivating Facebook if you spend a lot of time on that. Think about the things in your life that can hinder your progress or derail you totally and figure out how you can remove or lessen that negative influence.

Have a Plan

All the words I wrote up above? That is a plan. Well, more of an outline for the purposes of this post but I do have a more detailed plan for how I want to achieve my ripped look and for what changes I need to make in my lifestyle in order to achieve that goal. A basic plan can start small, maybe, simply a workout plan that you do for a month or so to install it as a habit in your life. After, you’ve got the workout part down pay, then maybe you address your eating habits in a more serious way. If you aren’t good a sticking to plans then maybe a complete lifestyle overhaul all at once isn’t a good plan for you. Maybe you need to break down your negative patterns step by step. (See: Exercising but Not Losing Weight, Spring Break Workout Plan)

Meditation

Meditation is a great habit to pick up. It is simply focusing your mind for 20 minutes or so and clearing out all of the thoughts that are racing through your head. Doing this really helps me to relax and focus on what I truly want to do instead of whatever my mind is worried about at that particular time.

Motivation

Motivation comes and goes, however, you can find sources of inspiration each day to help keep you on track. I like to download motivational podcasts and speeches and listen to them during the day. You might find some cool motivation videos on YouTube that can get you psyched up before your workout. Maybe you have someone who’s physique you admire and you can read an interview with them about how they achieved their goals. Whatever it is, make sure you have a steady stream of positive energy coming into your life, it really does make a difference.

Consistent Not Perfect

Understand that you will make mistakes and occasionally miss workouts. That’s okay. The biggest factor in affecting a positive change is being consistent, not being perfect. If you want to get in shape then you need to stick with it, so don’t let one bad day ruin your whole week, or a week ruin a whole month. If you fall off the wagon, get back on.

Conclusion

Okay, there is my post on getting ripped abs. I plan on updating and revising it as I see fit and as time goes along. I will take the above information and utilize it for the time being but I definitely will make adjustments if my fat loss is too slow or if I drop weight at a pace faster than I’d like to. I’m really like the process so far, I have tons of energy and I’m really focused on giving it my all so that I can transform my body. It’s hard work but it is definitely worth it.

 

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How to Find Niche Website Ideas

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Making money online can seem like a daunting process to those who have never built a website before in their lives. Don’t worry yourself too much, because I am going to walk you through this adventure step by step and try to help you avoid the pitfalls of this passive income game that I’ve learned through first-hand experience. The singular most important part of this whole process however, is to make sure that you choose the correct niche market to enter and to choose a proper domain name. Choosing the wrong niche or not having a clear idea on where to take an idea to will yield you little to no results and leave you frustrated. So, with that in mind, this next post in our series is going to explore the idea of how to get ideas for a niche website and start the planning process. Read here on How to Set Up a Niche Website Step by Step

A great idea for a niche website should be one with few competitors, one that has the potential for lots of traffic, and finally one that has a chance to be built upon further.

Create a List of Ideas

Grab a sheet of paper or open up a word processor and start listing any idea you have for a potential website or a potential topic to blog about. You don’t need to be specific at this time, just build this list until you have 20 or so potential targets. Examples could include: Fashion, sports, cell phones, running shoes, tablet computers, etc.

Now, those ideas on the list are probably very general broad terms searches. On this large scale let’s see who dominates these sorts of general categories:

Sports- ESPN

Fashion- Vogue, other major fashion magazines

Cell phones- Sprint, Best Buy, AT&T

You get the idea. We aren’t going to try and compete on these major broad term search terms but we are going to use them as an example of how you can dig deeper and shift your focus to something more competitive.

Write About What You Enjoy

On that list, if you wrote it out, how many of those ideas about things you enjoy personally? A niche website doesn’t have to be about something that you enjoy but it helps the process a lot. I’ve built other sites and have written articles for other people on topics that I honestly had little interest in and getting the work done was like a chore for me. While this website isn’t a niche website, I really enjoy writing and creating new ideas to share for it and because I haven’t limited myself in the topics I can choose from I can write for as long as I feel like. If this is your first rodeo, then it might be a good idea to get the hang of the process by finding an idea that interests you and that you wouldn’t mind writing about in the future.

Solve a Problem, Offer a Solution or Aid

People are constantly searching for ways to solve their everyday problems. What a good niche site does is inform them on how they can go about solving a problem (free blog posts) and then offers a way to help aid them or outright solve the problem (product or service). Some things will naturally get a lot of traffic but make no money. You can have a funny meme picture on your website that gets 100,000 views in a day but you probably won’t make very much money or none at all off of it. You have all of these people coming to your site in order to alleviate boredom NOT to solve a problem. You need to really think about and research different problems that people face from each of your niche ideas and determine if there is a way to ultimately monetize that. If not, then the niche isn’t the one for you.

Build Around a Proven Product

In the internet marketing world, niche websites are generally built around a product or type of product. In the case of our cell phone idea, this would be a review site of the best smart phones or something like that. When people buy products online they are looking for information about those products including the features and what sets them apart from their competitors. If you can find a niche, around a specific type of product and get some good traffic going, you can then make a good deal of money through affiliate links that link to that product.

How this works in practice with our cell phone idea. Topics to write about could include:

Smart Phone Reviews (Individual phone model reviews)

Best Smart Phones Under $200

Best Smart Phones for Teens

Best New Apps

For each of those posts you would write a full article and include a link to those particular cell phone’s product page on Amazon (if you’re enrolled in their affiliate program)

You continue to write these blog posts that target smaller questions and searches within that larger niche. (Note: Don’t actually do a cell phone website unless you’ve got a really unique idea, it’s a really crowded field with fierce competition.) Also, you cannot buy a domain name and use a company’s name for instance, ‘buyapplecellphonesforreallycheap’, is copyright infringement because it uses the Apple name without permission.

You can gather further ideas for your niche by heading over to Amazon or going on forums about your topic to look for ideas about what people are buying and what they are talking about. Using those two sources you can get a good idea of what kind of product you can link to from your site and plenty of ideas in regards to what you should write about.

Go for the Low Hanging Fruit

This means that you should try to find and explore a niche which has little competition and thus is ripe for the taking. I know of many marketers that go after something in the fitness niche but too often it’s in regards to how to lose fat or put on muscle fast. Both of which have plenty of traffic but lots of competition. Meanwhile, I’ve seen other fitness orientated site which were built around specific types of sports supplements which probably averaged around 1,000 searches per month but were easy to rank for and found an eager buyer looking for information. Try to find a small segment of the market that isn’t being paid very much attention to and you can be become the person who addresses every single aspect of that niche and get all the customers for yourself.

There are some terms that you should be familiar with if you are going to run your own niche website and they are short-tail and long-tail keywords. Search engine searches are based on the keywords that users type in when they are looking for something. A search term such as ‘best diet’ is considered a short-tail keyword, it is both a compact and highly competitive keyword. However, most search terms are long-tail keywords in which the user is getting more specific with the results they desire. An example of a long-tail keyword would be ‘best diet to lose fat in three months’.

Long-tail keywords are the key to finding a way to be profitable in niches. While you may not be competitive for a really high search volume keyword like fat loss, you certainly write blog posts that target the long-tail keywords such as ‘fat loss diet plan for men vegetarians’. Having 50 or so of these smaller target blog posts allows you to encircle the more competitive keywords and syphon some of the search traffic they never think to reach. A good way to find long-tail keywords is to start typing phrases that relate to your niche in Google and start writing down what the keyword suggestion menu is telling you. Sometimes, you really hit a home run.

Don’t Paint Yourself into a Corner

I like to choose niches that have plenty of topics to write about or that I can easily expand into other related topics once I’ve built some traffic and morph it into a larger authority site. Having a niche site about windshield wiper blades might be able to make a bit of money but it would be pretty tedious and how much can you really write about them?

Picking a narrow niche might work well to get some search engine traffic but will it make you that much money? It could if it’s the right niche, however, you might have nowhere to expand the site after that and you’ve pretty much reached the limit for that site. I like to have the goal of at least writing 50 blog posts over time for my initial niche idea and then writing related topics to expand my reach and potential profit.

These are just some of the ways you can come up with an idea for your first niche website. Take your time with this part because it can mean all of the difference between having a steady passive income each month or having your affiliate account sit at zero each and every day.

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How to Make Money with a Niche Website

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In my last post about creating passive income, I gave a general overview of how you could start to make money online, mostly through working for other people. However, I also mentioned the creation of your own ‘niche’ website as a great way to make cash. Building your own website is probably the best way to either start your journey towards entrepreneurship or simply pay off the bills every month by having some amount of money deposited into your bank account each month. Believe me, it’s a great feeling when you know each month you’re going to receive some amount of money from work you did three or four years ago! This process is not always the easiest and usually success doesn’t come overnight, however, if you dedicate yourself towards learning what to do and sticking to it you can begin to generate substantial passive income for yourself. It may be a small amount at first but remember that the sky is the limit in terms of earning potential. With this post, I want to lay out the basics of building a niche site from scratch to set the stage for future articles that will delve deeper into the information you need to know to hit the ground running.

What is a niche website?

A niche market[1] is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing. (Source: Wikipedia)

So a niche website is that definition in website form. For example, if you build a website about dogs, you are in the ‘dog niche’. Meaning, your website will be exclusively about dogs and dog related products.

Niche vs. Authority Websites

Ok, sticking with our example about starting a website about dogs, an authority site would be a website that encompasses multiple aspects about dogs from how to adopt dogs to dog training.

A niche website about dogs could be about simply dog training and nothing else. See the difference?

Micro vs. Macro Niche Sites

A niche website can be broken down further into smaller niches within the more general niches, this is referred to as a ‘micro niche’. So, a micro niche site for dog training could be something along the lines of ‘dog training for ugly dogs with low self esteem’….haha that’s a really micro site and would be worthless, but you get the idea.

Now that those kinds of questions are out of the way….

How do you Make Money from a Website?

There is a multitude of ways that one could monetize a website and if you can generate traffic (more on this later) you surely make a little something, even if you have yet to optimize you site. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways you can make money from your website.

Advertising

The most popular and probably the most lucrative options for websites (at least initially) is by signing up for Google Adsense. Google Adsense is an advertising system that I’m sure you’re aware of, and as a website owner you can places ads on your website that earn you money each time someone clicks on an ad.  Adsense is the first way I started to make money when I launched my first website a few years back and it continues to bring in revenue to this day. Some websites have higher click through rates than others so niche selection can be important if this is going to be a main source of getting paid.

Beyond Adsense, there are other services that offer advertisements, especially in-textual advertisements. I’ve used these types of ads and honestly they don’t generate very much income, even when you have heavy traffic, as the amount per click is usually pennies.

Another option for advertising is selling advertising space on your website to companies who are relevant to your niche. You can work it out so that they pay you a lump sum each month for the privilege of advertising on your website. This will only become an option once you have some serious traffic built up but can be a great source of revenue.

Affiliate Sales

Before the internet, if you wanted to sell products you had to come up with one on your own or at least have some start-up capital to become a wholesaler. Nowadays, if you have a website you can sell other peoples products either directly on your site or in the form of an affiliate link. Affiliate links take the traffic that your website generates and sends it to someone else’s product or sales page, so that the traffic can hopefully make a purchase.

The great thing about being an affiliate is that your only job is to promote the product and you can sit back and collect the revenue. For each sale you generate, you will receive a portion of the profit, while the creator of that product deals with the customer service and shipment.

There are many sites which offer signups to become affiliates. Clickbank is a popular website that deals mostly in the realm of digital product sales like ebooks on how to lose weight for example. There are also places like Linkshare and Pepperjam who handle the affiliate programs for major corporations such as Apple.

Amazon.com has a very popular affiliate program called Amazon Associates. It offers associates a certain percentage of the sales (usually 6.5% to start, I think) for any item a person from your website buys in their entire store. So for example, if you have a website about dog training and you link to a book on Amazon about training dogs and a person clicks your link and ends up buying a watch instead, you still get paid! Many niche sites are built strictly around promoting products on Amazon and letting the profits roll in. Unfortunately, some states are no longer allowed in the Amazon Associates program (including mine L ), which sucks because it leaves a lot of potential money on the table, so check to see if yours is included in the ban (a majority aren’t). You can still find other affiliate programs that will work even if Amazon is not an option, you just have to look for them.

Selling Your Own Product/Service

There are many niche sites that end up going the advertising and affiliate routes but find that often what brings in the big bucks is selling their own product or service directly. For instance, if you decide to build a fitness website you might consider your own ebook training program about ‘how to lose fat fast’ or if you’re a personal trainer you might consider selling your own coaching services by the hour or something like that. This can be a goldmine and the start to your own business if you play your cards right.

Donations

Yep, you can even monetize your site by having a button for people to donate through PayPal or some other service. This is really only an effective strategy if you provide people with lots of free value and they truly appreciate the effort or advice you have given them. So if you create a site about iPhone cases, then it probably won’t be a very profitable option for you, so I’d stick with the affiliates and ads in that scenario.

Where do I Create a Niche Website?

There is a difference between a free site and a hosted domain that you paid for beyond just the fact that you paid for one and not the other. That difference is the fact that with free blogs you are limited as to what you can do by that services terms and conditions as well as their customization options.

Free Blogs

You can go to WordPress.org right now and start a blog for free. However, you cannot put up Adsense ads directly on your free blog (maybe you can now but it used to take some coding skills to make it happen and it was against the rules). I think you’re allowed affiliate links as well but overall your options are limited.

Google’s blogger features the implementation of Adsense so if you can build the traffic to your free blog you might make a bit of money off of the advertisements.

Your free blog will also have the address bar issue which doesn’t look all that attractive if you are trying to build an actual business or long-term revenure….’yoursitename’.wordpress.com or ‘yoursitename’.blogger.com looks a whole lot less proper than ‘yoursitename’.com. Plus, the self-hosted websites seem to do better in search engine rankings which means more traffic for you and potentially a whole lot of money.

Hosted Websites

In order to have your own personal website you must register a domain name and buy a hosting plan from a service provider. A domain name will run you about 15-20 bucks a year to register but you can usually find some really good deals for your hosting plan that will save you a bunch of money. I use Hostgator to register and host all of my websites. I bought a hosting plan from them that allows me to create as many websites as I want. If you want to run a website, you will have to spend money to register the domain and for the hosting plan (hint: most hosting plans are under $10 a month, mine was like 5 or something ridiculous like that. Seriously, it’s like buying a drive-thru meal each month, without getting fat). Treat is like an investment and recoup your initial outlay as soon as it’s feasible; my hosting plan has paid for itself and then some within a short amount of time.

Final Thoughts

This has been a very basic overview of what niche websites are and how you can utilize them to make passive income. Later posts in this series will cover specifics on how to choose a niche, domain names, how to set up a website, free plugins, how to build traffic, etc. I’m going to try to break all of this stuff down for you guys to the best of my ability. This is a personal development blog, so I figure that I should kick some of my knowledge about making money online in between my other topics. So stay tuned.

Online Dating Guide for Men Part 2: 7 More Tips that Work

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As I wrote on the last post, my ‘guide’ to online dating, I did a three week run on OK Cupid to test out and try to find out what really works on these dating sites. My results were pretty good and in terms of simply getting a response, which I’ve heard from other guys is the hardest part for them, my results were fantastic. I messaged 19 girls on that site and got 13 of them to message me back, which ain’t too shabby, and the more I learned the greater my success was. In this post, I wanted to share with you guys what worked for me and what I should have done differently in my dialogue with these girls so that hopefully you can enjoy some serious success with your online dating profiles. Also, check out my posts: Where to Meet Girls After College,  How to Dress Well for Men for more ideas outside of online dating.

#1 Your Initial Message Should Stand Out from the Crowd

Okay, so I experimented with different opening messages and telling a girl she is cute can work but you should follow that up with a specific question about who she is. I try to open up with some sort of commonality between us told in a cute or funny way. For instance:

Example opener #1: Your Halloween costume in that picture isn’t as good as mine. :p. What are you going as this year?

I had a picture up with my Halloween costume on and this girl did too. I threw in a bit of simple teasing just to establish a playful tone. Emoticons are important in text because what you say can often be misinterpreted and some girls are that dumb to take something obviously meant as a joke and get pissed about it. Notice I followed up with a question which serves as a call to action, meaning, if she approves of my pictures she will almost certainly respond and invest in a conversation.
This conversation naturally launched into more about Halloween and funny costume ideas which I suggested and then she approved of. It was great because she started making jokes and was digging the interaction. On my third message, I sent my number, and she texted me a day or two later. However, I did make a mistake that I’ll get to later but it was going well.

#2 Check Out Their Profiles First and See who Checks You Out

If a girl looks at your profile take it as a green light to message her. I swear I got a response from every girl except for one. Now, these conversations didn’t always go anywhere but I at least got past the initial filter. Here’s a variation of a message I sent to the girls who checked out my profile:

Example Opener #2: I caught you playing look at one another’s profile tag…already starting with games are we? 😀

Completely stupid, right? It works though. Calling them out for playing profile tag and not messaging you, again, establishes a playful tone and then you immediately hit them with a question. This literally started to become my go to move as opposed to messaging at random, I simply clicked the profiles of girls and then fell back to see who looked at me. There were plenty that I never messaged but the example opener worked 90+% of the time on the one’s I did.

 

#3 Girls will Flake, Others will Give You Nothing to Work With
Seriously, online dating can be a crapshoot. You will hook girls into a conversation, have them text you, and then never hear from them again even if you made no glaring errors in your convo. Like the Halloween costume girl, texted me and was responding quickly to all my messages and even investing/qualifying herself to me. I was going to go for a date, but the next time I texted her, I got no response. I tried again a week later and once again no response. My rule is to always try twice and then delete the number from my phone….if she’s interested she’ll take the two seconds to respond.
Other girls readily responded to my messages but gave me no material to work with. They wouldn’t ask me questions or give many details in their answers. With these types of girls, I simply stop trying because it’s not worth my time to try with someone who won’t work with you.

#4 Go for the Number but Give Them Your Facebook

I deactivated my personal Facebook page because I frankly find it pretty useless. However, this cost me in the online dating game because it acts as a social proof to girls and lets them know you’re not a psycho. The easy solution is to give them your number and tell them to shoot you a text and also send them a link to your Facebook to let them know you’re a legit guy and not some creeper. Once I re-activated and started sending links the flaking went down considerably.

#5 Girls that Message You First
Girls that message you first….it is so on. Out of the girls who messaged me first, three of them were attractive. I got all three of their numbers, got one date, one who I could date if I choose, and one who lived too far away but sent me some naughty pics regardless. All you have to do is not screw it up in your messages and you can get the number fairly early, from there it is standard text game.

#6 More Messages that got Responses
I call these types of messages stupid date ideas. I got the idea from the movie Scarface, in which Tony Montana claims that ‘girls like ice cream mayne’. Tony was right and it works so ridiculously well.

Example Message #3 (Doesn’t need to be an opener): So when you take me to “insert date idea here” I don’t know what “flavor or dish or whatever” to get. What are you going to get? 😀

Seriously, this worked like a charm. Say for example you jokingly suggest she takes you to the Olive Garden, the message would be something like: “So when you take me to the Olive Garden, I don’t know if I should get the Chicken Parm or the Neverending Pasta Bowl. Thoughts? What are you getting? :D”
After that question sign your name like a letter so: Sincerely, (your name)

I don’t know why this worked but my thoughts are that it flips the idea of a date, on to her taking you out and presumably paying…which often gets under their skin, expect responses like: “Wait, you have to take ME out!” Secondly, it makes a date a sort of no big deal and even playful thing, almost creating a mental picture of her actually on a date with you and sometimes visualization is powerful. Third, it is so corny and obviously absurd that girls just seemed compelled to respond and once the conversation is going it’s simple to get them to text you, provided you do the Facebook link.

#7 Patience is a Virtue
Some girls take forever to respond to your messages but they eventually will if you’re interesting. Also, don’t be afraid to reengage a girl who didn’t message you back but wait some time before you do it. Like maybe wait a week or two and don’t even acknowledge your last message but just start it up and try again. This got me a few numbers that I wouldn’t have gotten if I just gave up. Other girls you shouldn’t bother with because their flakes anyways but you can always give it one try to see if she responds before you give up.

I literally had a girl message me back two weeks after the fact and I saw her showing up on my matches as being ‘online now’ almost every day. Another girl, I sent my number to after she seemed to be really interested but I didn’t hear anything from her. Five days or so later I re-engaged with the stupid date idea template above and she sent me her number from it and I got a date. Girls will talk to you and ignore you for a variety of reasons so never take this online dating thing to heart because it is really dumb sometimes.

So after three weeks of experimenting with online dating, these are my ideas to impart on you guys. I say online dating is a mixed bag, pretty frustrating sometimes. There aren’t always that many girls you will find attractive and secondly they flake wayyyyy more than girls you meet a bars or something like that. I’ve never had so many phone numbers that went nowhere but the girls that I got further with have been cool thus far. For right now, I’m done with the online game but I’ll check the matches every once in a while to see if I spot someone cute and do my whole shtick. This game is pretty easy, I got way over 50% to respond to me but once again sometimes success is fleeting. Again, here is part one if you haven’t read it: Online Dating Guide for Men Part 1

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Online Dating Guide For Men: Tips to Help You Get More Responses

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Online dating has been around for a long while now and though there is still some stigma attached to going on the internet to find a date, it is much more common than it used to be. Unfortunately, when you get out of school you have a lot less time and way less exposure to women than you previously had. Your options at that point are bars/clubs, social circle, and online dating. I don’t think that you should do any of those things exclusively to meet new women but each of them has their benefits and drawbacks. It is hard to go out every night when you have to get yourself early in the morning, I mean, I love to go out and party but the shit is exhausting after a while. However, it is more of a challenge and really helps you get over social anxiety and things like that. Getting girls through your social circle is also great but it is limited unless you keep expanding it and have new potential dates coming around on a consistent basis. Meeting girls through online dating sites is cool for the most part but it is more difficult to convey things about yourself, and it is harder to get a response when the perception of your personality is based on text and still photography.  It is extremely easy to contact a large amount of girls in a short amount of time who you know are interested in meeting someone, even if it isn’t you.  I wanted to create a sort of guide to online dating for guys because it is a fairly different experience than meeting a girl at a bar. Note: I’ve also written a Part 2 which gives further examples of what to do and what I had success with on my latest Online Dating adventures.

One good thing is that once you’ve got a phone number and a meet up it is just the same as any other method for meeting women. It can be a crapshoot sometimes, so it’s best not to rely on meeting girls on the internet. I use online dating sporadically as a supplement to the girls I already meet. I am a big believer in casting a wide net and having a lot of options, that way you don’t fall for some chick because she’s ‘what’s available’, instead of being an interesting person worth your time. Then again, if you are a dude that just wants to sleep with a bunch of girls, I suppose online dating will be much more conducive to that end.

Keep in mind that this is geared more towards younger guys probably (18-29), who aren’t in college anymore (Where to Meet Women after College), and are looking for more casual dating. If you’re in college, your best bet is meeting through social circles, it is insanely easy if you make the effort and involve yourself in as many groups and activities on campus as you can. Of course, you can also you online dating sites as well but it shouldn’t be necessary. Here is my post about meeting girls at college parties, if you haven’t already read it.

The Dating Sites Guide

Zoosk

Zoosk has had a pretty large TV advertising campaign for the past couple of years, so on the plus side it has lots of people, and also on the plus size are the people (attempted fat joke, you like?). Seriously, maybe it is just in my area but this site was awful. The setup sucks and I did not find one girl that wasn’t a two time baby momma, an obesity statistic, or a high school dropout. It is free, so I guess check it out…?

Plenty of Fish

A step above Zoosk. If you can sort through all of the hot mess that inhabits that site there are some good looking chicks amongst the masses. I would only use this site to contact those few and then be out.

OK Cupid

I don’t know why but this site in my area seems to have the greatest number of cute girls and it’s not even close. What I like about this site is that it is easy to sort through, more information, and an overall higher number of girls that don’t have a million kids by the age of 23. You can also hide profiles on the main screen so all of the girls that you are not interested in can be filtered out so that all you see are the girls you want to message and new users.

Other sites

I haven’t tried Match or any other paid dating websites because I’m not going to pay to meet some girl online. If that’s my option I’ll pay a bar cover or go to a concert and give myself a chance to get her interest in person instead of through text message. There are all of these other sites like Christian Mingle and other niche dating websites, but I have no interest in those.

Your Dating Profile

OK, so you’ve decided to use online dating as a supplement for meeting more women, now it is time to talk about the profile itself. I keep a profile up on the site that is already filled out but I remove my pictures while I’m not actively using it.  This prevents anyone from messaging me that I don’t want to deal with. Like I said, I like to use online dating strategically to find attractive girls I wouldn’t have otherwise met, not to let any girl with a laptop into my life. Also, this is a numbers game. Your pictures will be the biggest factor in getting responses followed by an engaging message and then the content of your profile. Expect to get no response from lots of girls and send out plenty of messages. Because it is harder to convey your personality through a dating profile and because it is easier for her to reject or ignore you outright, don’t expect to get the same kind of responses that you would be able to receive in person. You can certainly get better at meeting girls online but never take it personally if it doesn’t go well.

The actual text of your profile isn’t necessarily all that important but it is a good way to get your personality across. Don’t sit there and list every book you like or TV show you watch every Thursday and don’t talk about serious issues either. Keep it short and to the point but also try to mix in a bit of humor. It’s about being positive and fun loving, someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously or brag about how great they are. I don’t even have some of the categories filled out on my profile. It is a simple introduction that conveys my lifestyle and personality and then some stuff about what I am passionate about. Simplicity.

Pictures, like I mentioned previously, are the most important aspect of online dating. Online dating is much shallower than meeting someone in person. You should have at least three pictures on your profile, less than that and it seems to give off a negative vibe. (Look good in your picture: Dressing Well for Men)

I try to have one of these pictures be one where I am with other people, like a party or something along those lines. Don’t have too many pictures where it is just you and a girl in the picture because that also seems to have a negative ‘player’ connotation to it. I have one from a Halloween party where my arm is around a girl but she’s cropped out. This works well because it shows a fun and social context, plus the added benefit of showing my personality through my costume and facial expression.

Try to have other pictures from something like a vacation or an event you went to but you want pictures that are interesting and capture your lifestyle in a fun way. Maybe a goofy picture, one picture that has you looking your best, and then another one where you are with other people. Pictures convey personality and lifestyle better than text can, unless you’re a great writer, and thus the minimum amount of pictures should be 3 but by all means put up more if you’ve got good ones. Another thing is to clean up your photos a bit. I’m not saying photoshop your pictures but sometimes you’ll have pictures where you’d look great if the lighting or flash wasn’t so bad. Don’t outright lie, but try to make these pictures work for you.

Pictures you should avoid putting up are selfies or anything else that makes you look bad. Girls specifically write in their profiles about these pictures because they can create the perception that you are a douche, even if that isn’t the case. It’s okay to have one, if you have other pictures like the ones I mentioned before, but a bunch of shirtless pictures you took with your cell phone will probably ruin your chances with some girls right off the bat (however, it is a good idea to look great on the date, see: How to Get Ripped Abs).

Messaging

I don’t have a set strategy of things that I say in the initial message but I’ll try to break down a bit what works and what doesn’t. First of all, simply saying ‘hey’ or ‘you’re cute’ is pretty damn ineffective. There is no substance to that and it is very unlikely that she will engage you in conversation. Also, you guys who send some sexual message, my question to you is what are you thinking? A girl might be down on the first meet up but why are you pressing it that early? I understand that all that you may want from girls is sex but why are you messing it up with girls who may be willing but don’t want to be talked to in that way from a stranger? Keep in mind that girls, especially the cute ones, are in some cases receiving literally hundreds of messages from other guys. If you don’t set yourself apart in a good way, you’ll be just another message that gets deleted.

It is perfectly okay to tell a girl that she is cute right from the start but it should be in context of a more in depth message. I find that playful messages get the best responses, something that will make her laugh a bit and will get her attention. There should also be some sort of question in there that she can respond to, like an either or question, or a question about would she rather do this or that. There’s no sure fire stock message but use your imagination and experiment until you find something that works.

Don’t have super long conversations on the dating website either. Have a two or three message exchange and then move the interaction to the phone. Say something about how this email back and forth is kind of lame and ask for her number or send her yours and perhaps a Facebook profile link and tell her to text her name to your phone. From there, it’s all about text game and getting a meet up.

A Few Things About the Women to Watch Out For

If a girl has only one photo be a bit wary and try to get her to send you more pictures before you attempt to meet up. One picture can be completely deceiving about what she actually looks like and sometimes if you get two or three pictures, you start to wonder who this girl is because they will all look different. Some will be scary. Of course, also make sure you get a few full body pictures as well. Cameras can be angled and photos can be manipulated easily to make it look like she is extremely attractive when it’s all a well-played illusion.

Watch out for female losers. It’s weird how sometimes men are always perceived as the one who is a ‘loser’ but on these sites you will come across plenty of girls that you do not want in your life at all. Let me repeat that, regardless of how good she looks, you do not want some of these girls in your life under any circumstance. Take the time to actually read their profiles, I swear some of them are like a complete psychological analysis. Watch for things like, ‘I can’t stand being alone.’ Also, look out for any hint of bitterness about exes or their material expectations for a man. It’s hilarious to see a girl who doesn’t have a GED, rant about how she is a princess who deserves a man with a good job, car, and that will take her out constantly. Really read these profiles because most of the time it will reveal so much about her that she doesn’t intend for it to do.

You will have to sift through a ton of girls that you don’t want but there are some good ones on there that you could form some kind of relationship with whether it be serious or not. These girls will usually write in complete sentences and just generally have a positive vibe about them. The crazy or the too much trouble for it to be worth your time girls will almost always reveal themselves in the crap that they spew on their profile.

Conclusion

I’ll leave the dating logistics to you for now, though I may write up some examples of exchanges and my new online dating shenanigans in a few weeks after I get through this new round of messaging. Take online dating for what it is, a tool to help you meet more girls and not necessarily ‘the girl’. There is a bit of an art to it and I hope that this little guide has been somewhat helpful, like I said there should be more to come with this so subscribe and stay tuned. (Update: Here is my Part 2 Guide to this article with the real life examples.)

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How to Wake Up Early for Night Owls

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I wrote a post last week about how little habits can have a large impact on your overall goals and ambitions in life. In that post, I mentioned that my sleeping patterns were probably the biggest ‘little’ habit that was screwing me up the most. I have been staying up until 3 or 4 AM for the past few months and then getting up sometime between 10 and 11 AM and then going straight to my job. The problem with this kind of schedule wasn’t a lack of time but just a terrible overall flow to my day. Getting up late caused me to rush through what was left of my morning. My eating habits were suffering because I didn’t give myself time to prepare meals and instead was eating on the run. Also, my daily work habits were getting to be very poor. I would immediately go to my job (a place I actively dislike) and then get home and would just want to veg out, as I was drained psychologically and would have to try to pep talk myself into exercise and writing after a long day. Sometimes, this pep talk strategy would work and I would take action, but more often than not I failed and found myself getting lost in YouTube or in a movie.

However, after I wrote that post last week I decided that I had had enough of that kind of schedule and needed to switch back to an earlier riser model. The change has been quite significant for me and I have experience a ton of benefit already, though, it has not happened without a hitch and things that I definitely need to improve upon. The good thing is that I have set myself on a new course and one in which my daily growth is the focus and not trying to decompress after work and then having to gear up to cram all of my daily tasks into my evenings. While I am only on my first week of re-establishing a habit of waking up early each day, I am completely confident that it is going to stick because I have given myself enticing reasons to wake up early and feel excited about changing my life with the extra time that is allotted to me while my energy levels are at their highest. (Another post about sleep: How to Lucid Dream Easily)

How to Get Up Early

The biggest issue for me was not getting up for my alarm clock, that is a slight problem and one I will get into, but the simple ability to get myself to fall asleep earlier so I could get up early was a problem. I would often try to go to bed earlier but instead of falling asleep, I would lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about whatever random ideas popped into my head. It is kind of hard to get up by 7 when you’re still up at 4 AM and your brain just won’t shut off. The first thing I did on Monday, was to avoid any sort of caffeine or other stimulants throughout the day so my body wasn’t being propped up and feeling wired later that night. I also made sure I exercised fairly hard that evening to add a layer of fatigue that would induce me to fall asleep quicker. The last thing I did was to take some Melatonin at around 11 PM that night to help aid me into sleep. I only took the Melatonin for the first two nights just to help push me back from falling asleep at 4 AM to falling asleep at 2 AM. Melatonin doesn’t knock me out but it does help some, I just don’t like that in the morning I feel extra sleepy and a bit groggy.

So, Monday and Tuesday, I woke up around 8:30 in the morning which was about two hours earlier than I had been getting out of bed. This was a completely perfect set up for changing my sleep habits.  It was early enough that I would be somewhat sleep deprived but could still function and would be likelier to go be able to fall asleep at a good time and push back the time I rose to even earlier still. What happened was on Tuesday night, I felt tired from the two previous days and fell asleep at midnight, having set my alarm for 6:45. Wednesday morning I was tired, but I got up anyways. Thursday, Friday, and today I have woken up by 6:30 each day. This is where I stand now but I think that I might push it back a bit farther to 5:30 because I feel that it would be optimal for my morning production.

The other problem I mentioned was getting up for my alarm clock. I would get up to turn it off but then go right back to my bed and lay down. I didn’t fall back asleep but on one of the day’s I laid there for an hour plus and didn’t do anything productive, which was one of the points of getting up earlier. On the other days I would get up and get into a routine but I would also spend 30-45 minutes reading sports articles instead of doing what I was supposed to do.  Web surfing is fine in moderation, I just have a problem with me doing it at that time in the morning, I need to keep that at the end of the day when I’m already getting sleepy and don’t have the same brain power to write or focus intently. To change this, I need to condition myself to immediately turn off my alarm and head to the bathroom, to do the whole water on the face routine and remove the sleep from my eyes. From there, drink a glass of water and get into my morning routine.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that I don’t necessarily feel sleepy at the same times each night, so while one night this week I was ready for bed at 11 PM, yesterday I wasn’t ready to sleep until 12:15 or so. There is of course going to be some variance in the schedule but I kept my alarm at 6:30 to help establish the habit and train my body to fall asleep faster because I am waking up when the alarm goes off and then sleep is done. Under six hours of sleep I am increasingly useless by the middle of the day but if I get six and a half there seems to be a dramatic increase in my focus and fatigue levels. From past experience, I know that if I keep my alarm clock consistent my falling asleep times will always be within an acceptable range unless I consciously try to stay up later.

Morning Habits

The whole sleep cycle is interesting to me and all but the real reason I’m making this change is to get more things done while I am awake. My favorite addition to my daily routine has been my morning walk. Waking up, drinking a glass of water, and then heading outside for a 2.4 mile walk is awesome. There are several benefits in doing this. First, it is exercise first thing in the morning. No, it is not a huge calorie burner but 200-300 extra calories burned each day can shed some significant fat and there is a reason that many bodybuilders do their cardio by walking for distance and on an incline. Second, being outside clears my mind and helps to appreciate the world around me. Fresh air, sun, and getting my blood flowing have really accelerated my creativity and work ethic during the ensuing hours. Thirdly, I listen to motivational podcasts and speeches during my walk which floods my brain with positivity for 40 minutes first thing in the morning. My goals and how to achieve them and change my life is the first thing my brain focuses on each morning which sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Also, I wanted to start writing each morning to establish some consistency and improve my skills in this area. I wrote a 2,000 word post the other day and am currently writing this post on this beautiful Saturday morning. It feels like my brain is seeing things through a different lens. Just last week, I would get home from work and not really want to do everything that was on my task list. Now, I’m just hoping I can fit it all in before 11 AM. The key to mastering anything is consistency over long periods of time. I am hoping that I can not only get better at communicating through my writing but also accomplish goals of making at least part of a living through my words and also doing creative things like novel writing.

Lastly, I have established a set time in which I will read each morning. I have about 18 books currently on my Kindle that I have either yet to finish or that I downloaded but have yet to begin. Yesterday, I finally sat down and finished Friday Night Lights, which was an easy read. Also, this morning I have continued my reading of Byron’s Don Juan. I love to read and I haven’t been giving myself enough time to do so to the extent that I’ve wanted. I enjoy thinking in different ways and exploring different styles of writing because I know that it will only serve help my own and bolster my own creativity. Entertainment and thinking all rolled into one.

Negatives Thus Far

I mentioned earlier in this post that I haven’t always kept to my schedule in terms of production during this first week. This is a simple fix and really requires me to simply push back the web surfing and whatnot to the evenings before I go to sleep and have accomplished everything that I have set out to do that day.

Another, negative that I have noticed is that I tend to crash in terms of energy right around 8 PM. I’m willing to bet that most of this has to do with adjusting to the new schedule but I don’t like how irritated I’m becoming at this time. While doing an Insanity workout the other day I was in a bad mood and would get easily frustrated at my declining coordination due to being tired. Also, putting off my work out until the night seems like it will cause consistency problems for me if my mood or energy level isn’t going to be great.

This leads me to needing more time in the morning to be able to fit in a weight lifting routine or Insanity workout sometime after my morning walk and probably following a light breakfast. Maybe a shift back to 6 AM will handle it, which I was planning on moving towards already but I need to experiment and find the optimal schedule to handle my work load for the day.

Conclusion

Making the change to getting up earlier has been wonderful for the most part so far. The transition is still not complete and I will need to get up earlier yet still but I can definitely tell that this will be the most important part of changing my life that I will make for a long time. I get more work done each day and have it done before I even head to my day job. My evenings are now free and I don’t feel under the gun to accomplish things that I have set out to do. The question after I complete the transition and early rising becomes an established habit for me is what to do with the extra free time. Do I increase my writing work load? Do I take on new hobbies? Meet new people? New challenges? The possibilities are endless and I can’t wait to have the luxury of ‘having time’ to do fun things. If you are like me and have a long history of poor sleeping habits then I encourage you to decide today and make the shift towards getting out of bed earlier. I think that you will be very pleased with the progress you make in your life.

How to Deal with Loneliness after a Break Up or Anything

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It is a common feeling amongst people after a break up or a change in their lives that takes them away from their usual social group (graduating from high school or college for example) to have feelings of loneliness. Having feelings of loneliness isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, sometimes, it can spark reflection in our lives and make us want to take action to create positive energy. Loneliness becomes a problem when it is chronic and ongoing in our lives. Every experience in our day to day world simply gets worse and our focus on the now goes out the window because we are fixated on what our mind feels like were better days. I’m sure times in the past have been wonderful or that you see other people who look like they are having a great time and you wish that you could feel the same. However, this mindset is a trap that can make you sink further and further away from the present moment and moving forward and instead sulk in a miserable limbo. In this post, I want to delve into what I think loneliness is and how I ultimately deal with and overcome it.

The first thing we need to cover in our exploration into loneliness is to simply address what loneliness exactly is. Is loneliness being alone? No. Loneliness is often conflated with being alone when the two are truly separate concepts. Now, the usual portrayal of a lonely person is someone who is by themselves and has really poor body language and a terrible emotional state. Ok, it is true that if you are alone you may also be lonely but it is not a prerequisite. Being alone is just that, a state of being. I am currently sitting in my room typing this article. I am alone but I am not lonely. There is another person right now, at the same time as me, surrounded by other people (friends, family) who feels the pangs of utter loneliness.  This is a really simple idea but I truly want you to understand that you being alone is NOT the cause of your loneliness, it may be symptomatic but it is not the root cause.

Another thing that I have thought about loneliness is the fact that it is not an emotion in itself. To me, loneliness is sort of a combination of other emotions like sadness, that come together and form this Voltron like state we call loneliness. This was an important idea for me to realize because once I recognized that loneliness was based on emotional states, I knew that I could overcome it. Emotions are very malleable things, you can change your emotions almost instantly. Have you ever felt kind of down and then listened to some inspirational speech and then felt a flood of positive emotions? It’s an awesome experience and a simple example of the quick turnarounds that can be made in our emotions. If loneliness is indeed rooted within our emotions then we should have a clear path towards dealing with and ultimately overcoming it.

For purposes of this post, I am going to use the example of dealing with loneliness after you break up with your girlfriend (see: Getting Over Your Ex Fast). Your own personal loneliness may have different triggers and other root problems to deal with but this is going to be a general break down of these ideas. Whether you were the person who ended the relationship or you were the one who got dumped and didn’t see it coming, break ups tend to cause emotions such as sadness and anger as well as feelings of longing, idealization, helplessness, and desperation. It is perfectly natural to feel this way and despite your ability to shift emotional states almost instantaneously, it is going to be a longer process to make the shift from a majority of your day involving negative emotional states versus you feeling good throughout the day.

Love and relationships can create a sort of dependency or addiction that gets focused on a person or feeling instead of a narcotic drug or other obsession. This dependency and the ensuing loneliness seems to be the result of feedback that has been habitual in your life. For instance, if you are used to your girlfriend sending you text messages throughout the day, when she stops after the break up, it feels like there is something missing. What is missing is the usual feedback you are used to receiving. Nothing positive or anything at all has replaced that feedback and so you experience negative emotions or you replace it with negative habits such as trying to text her when the relationship is clearly over (see: Follow the No Contact Rule). You are essentially expecting something to happen each day that has ended and as soon as you can begin to alter your expectations the sooner you can get past the loneliness.

If you just had a eureka moment and said to yourself, “Ok, great. All I have to do is find a new girlfriend or group of people and the lack of feedback will be fulfilled. My loneliness will be over.” Sorry, but that is the wrong path. In that instance, all you are doing is creating a new cycle of dependency on other people and as soon as that person or group of people no longer provides that positive feedback you will be right back where you are now. I’m not saying that it is a bad idea to meet new girls and other new people, that’s great, but I am saying that your positive state of mind cannot be dependent on other people’s presence or actions. If that is the case, you will always be a slave to your emotions because you have opted out of controlling them yourself.

***I’m against getting back with your ex in most cases but if you still want her back, here is a program to help you with that.***

Getting rid of loneliness comes as a result of exploration of the self (See: Lucid Dreaming). You have to get your internal state handled and then all of the external things that enhance your life experience (girlfriends, friends, new experiences) can fall into line. If you are completely alone, you must know that this is not in itself a negative state, you are not in state where you are being deprived of good feelings. It is this narrative that we tend to create in our heads that can be so destructive and cause us to wallow in loneliness for long stretches of time. We love stories and we tend to replay the same patterns or memories in our heads over and over again. Of course, you are going to feel lonely if you are telling yourself how awesome your life was when she was around and how nothing good will happen afterwards because you are so helpless and alone. If you are saying the same damn thing to yourself every single day and every single day you feel lonely then you are going to start believing the fact that you really are lonely and just accept it as a new way of life.

This type of thinking can steer you way off course from where you truly want to go in life. You start doing anything just to mask the feelings of loneliness by trying to sleep with as many women as possible or doing drugs or whatever else. If you have a narrative about your life, especially a negative one, it is like writing a script. Once you create a story world there are a limited number of options as to where the story can lead because you’ve established certain rules within that story that the characters must follow. Don’t back yourself into a corner where you feel your only options are masking the problem or just wallowing within your own pity, take action to face it and eventually solve it. Not dealing with it in the right way will push you to seek the more external solutions and maybe you keep replacing girlfriends thinking that one will eventually make you a completely person when in reality all that you are doing is ignoring your own internal development and never satisfying that lack you feel inside.

There needs to be a sense of responsibility for the way you feel. If you are currently lonely, it is not someone else’s fault for making it so. I know, I know, you ‘hate’ your ex for making you feel this way but you need to own up to the fact that it is you who let these feelings persist. In fact, maybe you should appreciate them for allowing these negative emotions you’ve been hiding to surface so that you can now focus on loosening their grip on your life. It is our fault for not taking control of our own lives and allowing the space in our lives where we used to have positive feedback and allowing them to be filled with these negative emotions instead of moving forward towards what we truly want for ourselves. The more you disengage from the notion that your good feelings are dependent on things or people external of you, the more you can exercise your independence and cultivate positive moods from within.

In my own life, when I have had these feelings of loneliness I tried to resolve them with the external at first. However, as I grew up I learned that I needed to stop idealizing my past life and the great people I had met and spent time with and instead shifted towards making myself happy first. After a break up, you usually have at least one positive from that situation and that is more free time to focus on other things. I will say to myself, “Hey! I have lots of time now and we can either wallow or we can focus on dealing with these emotions and then introducing new positives into my life in order to grow and move past this negativity.” It’s really almost just changing my interpretation of the situation from ‘oh no my girlfriend left me, I’m going to be alone forever’ into seeing it as a new opportunity to explore. I like to start by filling the extra time with a block, maybe an hour or so, where I just think about things and try understand what I am feeling. Other days, I may take that hour and go for a walk or workout (see: Cutting Workout) while listening to motivational speeches or podcasts to help boost me out of my shallow thinking and mood.

Flip the loneliness from a negative into a call for action. You feel terrible and so you need to make changes in your life to feel better than you ever had. Remember, you are missing feedback so you must address that as well. Positive feedback can come from new hobbies and things like meeting new people. I like to keep flooding myself with positive experiences because it helps me to heal faster and get back on the correct path. I handle my internal issues but I also try to make my external life as enjoyable as I can thus creating new cycles of positive feedback but not allowing myself to be exclusively dependent on them for my happiness. Positivity breeds positivity, so pursuing new activities and meeting new people can serve as a sort of relief from the loneliness but it is not a cure, just a tool to help you cope until you sort through what is causing your bad emotions.

For help with Socializing and Finding New Girls, see:

If You Really Still Want Her Back…

Some guys find that even after they’ve prepared themselves emotionally to move on and had other women in their lives, they still believe that she was the right fit for them.

If it’s the case that you’re in a good spot emotionally and you still feel like she is the one, perhaps you consider a program to help rekindle things between the two of you. The Magic of Making Up is a full ebook program designed to assist in mending broken relationships. Over 50,000 people have given it a try, visit here to read successful user testimonials and further information about making up with your ex. Here is a brief  video presentation from the book’s author:

The Magic of Making Up, comes with a full 60-day money back guarantee. So, if you are so inclined  to try it out, there’s nothing to lose!

Loneliness is a terrible trap to fall in to. You start to believe all of the negative things that your mind is telling yourself and so it just becomes a situation that spirals out of control. In order to pull yourself out of it you must face and deal with your emotions head on. Explore who you are, what you want, and what your true values are independent of anyone else. You have conditioned yourself to feel loneliness because you have either established a dependency on another person or situation or have just failed to cultivate who you really are. Get in touch with your true self and forge a new path that is built on inner strength and confidence. Don’t shut yourself out from the world but rather seek to establish new bonds and new activities to fill the empty space that your old feedback cycles have left behind. Things external to yourself are out of your hands but your internal well-being and happiness is based on you and you alone. Relationships are great to have but their foundations are made of sand if both people are not happy with themselves.

 

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