Creating a Better Life

The Benefit of Burning Out

I burned out on the 45-Day Boundless Living Challenge.

Because instead of deciding to work on what was important to me, I tried to work on what I thought should be important to me.

But I believe that I’ve learned more in my “failure” than I ever could have learned by “succeeding”.

If there’s one thing that I got from the burn, it was clarity.

I can finally appreciate the contrast.

I’m clearer, more focused on what I can offer the world and what I want to receive.

I’ve been very focused on the Free Personal Development Material blog, and the majority of reactions to it have been good.

I’m considering shutting down this particular blog (Creating a Better Life).  Not deleting it, and not stopping my blogging… but this particular venue just may have run it’s course.

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One of my biggest struggles up until now was trying to be everyone but Lyman.

Write list posts so that I can pull in traffic… never really liked them much - now watch an idea for one pop up!

Post every day… nope, writing really takes a lot out of me, and trying to produce a full on, perfectly original, thought provoking, funny, blah blah blah masterpiece while working a full time job and trying to be a part of my family just burned me.

Write reviews… man, I can barely get through some of the books I’ve been sent to review, never mind having to write about them (no disrespect to the wonderful authors and publishers who have sent me books… I do appreciate you.)

It just stopped being fun.  And dammit, I want my fun back!

Ahhh…. that felt good…

[ Thanks to Maria for her article on authentic blogging - it really helped in clarifying my thinking. ]

Creating a better life means making changes when changes are necessary.  And changes have become necessary in this slightly skewed personal development bloggers life.

Good changes… exciting changes… fan-frickin’-tastic changes.

Checking In

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything… the last time was back on January 19th, and even that was a simple link post.

In the past, I’ve usually gone down on the writing front because of depression.

I’m happy to report that this time around it wasn’t the case.

I’ve gone down on the writing front simply because I needed to take some time for myself - to clarify my goals, to do some better life creating on my own, and to make some tough decisions about just where my resources of time, energy, and money are best utilized.

I struggle with whether or not to apologize for this. While there are many of you out there who know me pretty well by now, and therefore know that I’ll be back after one of these unplanned hiatuses, there are others who may have come across this blog, subscribed to it, and then forgot about it because no content was coming their way. If that’s you, welcome to Creating a Better Life! I appreciate your attention.

If you’ve contacted me recently, your email may still be sitting in my inbox. Give it a little more time before you become offended by my non-response.

Thank you all for your attention and patience.

Link Love Gratitude

If there’s anything a blogger loves, it’s incoming links.

While I don’t do reciprocal links or have a blogroll here on Creating a Better Life, I do appreciate every link that comes in. Well, maybe not so much the spam, but almost every link.

Thanks to the following bloggers for opening up lines of communication with me over the past week:

journey to raw health

The Viral Garden

Shards of Consciousness (also here)

NoDirectOn (not: NoDirection)

Branding & Marketing

Additional BlogLOve

Motivational Corner

Casual Fridays

(Most data from Technorati, with some editing due to duplicate content, date funkiness, and spam. If I missed you, let me know and I’ll edit this.)

Thank You. You are all appreciated.

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Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners

New (and Free for Now) Blogging Course from Simpleology

Mark Joyner and Simpleology have finally joined us… the bloggers.

And he “half-wants” to know what you think about it.

He’s set up a new Simpleology Course - Blogging: Learn to Blog for Fun and Profit.

And (for now, at least), he’s giving it away in exchange for a link on your blog.

I know that many of my regular readers are bloggers, so I thought that they might like to take a look at the new course and evaluate it.

But I also know that I’ve got some readers who have expressed an interest in blogging, but haven’t taken the plunge yet.

The following is for you.

I’ll Help You Blog

There’s a bit of a catch-22 when it comes to getting this course and new bloggers.

You’ve gotta have a blog to post the link to get the free course that will help new bloggers.

So here’s what I came up with.

If you sign up for Simpleology 101 (or are already signed up), I’ll help you get a new blog started.

Then I’ll help you get the link up to the free course, so that you can start learning.

No other strings attached.

Let me just be clear on something… I only want to work with people who are really interested in blogging… not just setting up spam blogs that steal others content or who are only interested in making a quick buck.

And for full disclosure’s sake: I am a Simpleology Strategic Partner - while neither Simpleology 101 or the blogging course cost anything (for now), if you purchase one of the other courses offered by Simpleology, I will make a commission. I’ve purchased Simpleology 102 and Simpleology 103, and I’m very happy with the investment.

Here’s Exactly To Do

1. Sign up for Simpleology 101 (you can skip this step if you’re already a member.)
2. Contact me using this form, letting me know that you’ve signed up.
3. I’ll help you set up a free blog.
4. You write and publish an introductory post about what your new blog is about.
5. I’ll help you get the code on your new blog.
6. You start your new blogging adventure!

Please notice the word help in the above steps. I won’t do anything for you except walk you through the steps. If you want to hire me to set up a blog for you, you can use the same form to contact me regarding my rates.

Also, please note that this offer is only good for as long as Mark is offering the course for free.

Here’s to your new adventure in blogging!

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Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners

I’m Officially Taking a Break

I’ve been fighting this for a long time, and not wanting to accept that something just isn’t working. I’m still not exactly sure what it is… but I need to find out.

So I’m taking a break from blogging. No delete key, and no schedule on when I’ll start again. I’m going to continue responding to email, participating in online groups, etc… but I need to let the obligation of writing here on a regular basis go. All I’m doing is spinning my wheels, and I need to really get back to the basics of creating a better life.

The Personal Development Carnival will still be published here this coming Sunday, and I’ll continue to manage it. And there may be the occasional (or not so occasional) link post when I find a great resource that I want to share with people. We’ll just see what happens.

I love you… see you soon.