It’s hard to believe that another year is upon us. Didn’t we just go through this 364 days ago?

Not only is it time for a new year, but it’s also the start of a new decade, too. 2010 is no more. When I think back over the last decade of my life, I am pretty happy overall with what I’ve done with my life. What I’m most happy with is my sense of wanting more out of life and being able to go after it.

I’ve made some pretty massive personal changes in the last few years and I know that 2011 will be another year for change. I don’t like staying with the status quo for long – there’s too much to experience and do with life to be stuck in one place.

This site is over a year and a half old and there has been some great highs that I’ve felt writing this year, as well as some low periods. Let’s concentrate on the highlights – my new message of optimism for 2011.

Most Commented Article:

Why You Need To Write In Your Goals Book Daily

Most Viewed Article:

Seven Friends That You Need In Your Life

Most Popular Article:

100 Things That Make Me Happy

Other Popular Articles:

The Five Keys To Happiness

Know These Five Causes Of Conflict

How Healthy Is Your Relationship?

10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Life

Seven Ways You Can Relax Right Now

Most Controversial Posts:

The Victim Myth and The Victim Myth Part II: My Personal Story

I have to give a great big Thank You to the following exceptional guest writers who wrote some amazingly helpful and thoughtful articles this year:

James from TheInfoPreneur who wrote From Homeless to the InfoPreneur

Jen from Reach Our Dreams who wrote How To Stop Thinking And Start Doing

Jennifer from Girls Asylum who wrote Succeeding Means Loving Yourself

John from Real Simple People who wrote The Secret Stress Buster No One Dares Tell You About

Justin from Ignite Your Essence who wrote 4 Best And Worst Things About Being An Entrepeneur

Thu from Blogging For dot Info who wrote Understanding Your Chances In Life

Steve from SteveScottSite who wrote How To Get Your Own Personal Freedom…Starting Today

Mitch from Exploring Infinity who wrote Why We Sabotage Ourselves And How To Stop

I want to mention that I had the most fun participating in this free ebook, Small Ways To Make A Big Difference, with 40 other bloggers who provided their wisdom about how to make small changes in your life that will have a huge impact.

Whew, a lot of great writing this year. With lots more to come in 2011

Thank you so much for being part of the wonderful community here at A Meaningful Existence. I truly appreciate your support.

You know that if it wasn’t for you, this site wouldn’t exist. So, Thank You!

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It’s finally here! I’m finally ready to send out into the world my first ebook, Just For Today Challenge – 31 Days To A Better You.

Many of my oldest and most loyal readers will recognize the title of this book as it formed the basis of a series of posts that I did back in January. For 31 days, I wrote an post about what you can do Just For Today to make a change in your life.

I had such wonderful feedback from so many people telling me how they absolutely loved the Challenge and what a difference it made in their lives.

The Challenge was in contrast to New Year’s Resolutions (we all know those never work) and I wanted to give people the confidence that they could make a change in their lives one day at a time.

Everyone can stick with a change for one day.

If you are feeling overwhelmed and know that you need to make some changes in your life, but you don’t know where to start, this ebook is written for you.

There are 31 actionable (but relatively easy) tasks that you can do each day to start making changes in your life. When you see yourself checking off each day’s Challenge, you will be building momentum in your life to make more changes.

I’ve updated, expanded and provided 9 templates to help you complete the Challenges.

By completing the 31 Days of Challenges, your confidence will soar. You will have been exposed to things that you might not have ever thought of doing before and you will be filled with confidence that YOU can make a change in your life.

These Challenges will be minor tweaks that you will be able to build upon for the entire 31 days, day by day. The idea is not to overwhelm you, but give you something that you can accomplish Just For Today.

How long will you wait until you start taking action to make a change to A Better You?

The ebook is 100 pages long and it’s only $27.  You can buy the ebook through Paypal by clicking here to buy now for an instant download.

Even if you only adopt one change and make it lasting in your life - if that change makes you feel better about yourself, then it’s worth it.

The best time to start making last changes was yesterday, the next best time is now.

There are so many different reasons why I blog, but I wanted to highlight the Top Five Reasons Why I Blog:

1. To create something meaningful

It would be so easy to just come home from work and just sit in front of the TV each evening. It takes A LOT of work, sacrifice and dedication to start and continue with a blog. But, I receive a sense of personal satisfaction knowing that I’m creating something meaningful with my time and energy. There is a lot of other things that I could be doing with my time and energy, but I choose to blog because it is more meaningful to me to write and share my experiences and knowledge with others. I look back at how far the site has come and it’s been an amazing growth experience. Knowing that I’ve also touched people’s lives and have helped them has given what I do with my time more meaning.

2. To meet people from all over the world

Bloggers are an amazing bunch of people. Of course, everyone has their own personal reasons for blogging, but overall the sense of community is fantastic. I’ve met some absolutely wonderful and amazing people online from all over the world and have been exposed to things that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to. Some of the emails that I’ve received from readers have blown me away with their insights and the life experiences that they are willing to share with me. Being able to connect with others and learn from them is a major reason why I continue blogging.

3. To share what I’ve learned in my own life with others

I’m not here to solve everyone’s problems, but to share those things that have worked in my life or the experiences that I’m struggling with in the hope of inspiring and motivating others. If something that I’ve written has helped someone else not to struggle like I have in my life, then it’s all been worth it. Of course, there are things in my life that won’t translate to someone else’s circumstances, but there are other experiences that are universal. I love sharing my knowledge and experiences with other people who can use that information to change their own lives for the better.

4. To increase my skills and learn new things

I’m a firm believer in continuous education, whether that’s formal or informal. I love to learn and try new things. Since I had blogged for about a year back in 2005-2006, I thought I know a lot about blogging, but things have really changed technology-wise since back then. Not only is my writing skills increasing, but I’m also learning so much more – programming, design, SEO, marketing, communicating, analytical thinking, etc. I’m learning so much on my own and from others – the community spirit is amazing because of course there’s too much to know for one person. It’s amazing what new skills you pick up without even realizing it. My writing skills have increased tremendously from blogging and I’ve noticed the difference from when I first started to today. Of course, I’m always learning so I’m always improving, too.

5. To inspire and be inspired

Before blogging, I was somewhat satisfied with my life. I thought that I knew what I wanted out of life and what I was willing to do in order to get it. Blogging and writing about personal development (something that I’ve been interested in for over 15 years) has inspired me to demand more from myself and not to be satisfied with the status quo. I am so inspired by reading other people’s blogs and what they are doing with their lives. Things that I thought were out of reach for me, now seem absolutely possible. We never know what life has in store for us, but until we strive to reach for something, we won’t know the possibilities out there. I just hope that my writing has inspired people as much as I’ve been inspired. It’s the circle of inspiration.

What about the reasons that I don’t blog for?

Here are 3 Things I Don’t Blog For

1. Money

I don’t blog for money. Sure, it’s wonderful when someone buys my product or an affiliate product and I earn a few dollars, but I’m not fooling myself into thinking that blogging will replace my current salary. With the amount of time and energy devoted to this site, I would be better off working a minimum wage job somewhere. Blogging is hard work and it is definitely not easy money.

2. Fame or Celebrity

I could care less about being famous of being a celebrity blogger. That’s not to say that it’s not nice when people think of you and link to you, but I don’t aspire to be famous for blogging.

3. Status

You can tell who are the bloggers who are really wrapped up in their ‘status’ as an A-lister or wannabe A-lister. I blog for personal satisfaction and not to gain status. Having 50,000 followers on Twitter, or 5000 ‘Friends’ on Facebook, or 25,000 connections on LinkedIn doesn’t really matter to me. I value quality over quantity, every time.

Your turn. What do you blog for? What do you not blog for?

Related Posts:

1. Top 5 Reasons To Leave Your Job
2. My Top 5 Secret Success Factors
3. Invest In Your Most Important Asset – Yourself
4. 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Life
5. Are You Being Your True Authentic Self?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

Darren Rowse from Problogger.net sent out a challenge yesterday to his readers to take part in the 7 Link Challenge. This sounded like a lot fun, so here is my entry for the Challenge.

The idea is to publish a post that is a list of 7 links to posts that you and others have written that respond to the following 7 categories.

Your links should be to:

• Your first post: The First Step
• A post you enjoyed writing the most: 100 Things That Make Me Happy
• A post which had a great discussion: Do You Need To Let Go And Forgive?  
• A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written: Don’t Let Your Ignorance Stop You 
• Your most helpful post: Seven Friends You Need In Your Life
• A post with a title that you are proud of: Garbage in, Garbage out: Why You Need To Control What You Allow Into Your Life
• A post that you wish more people had read: Invest In Your Most Important Asset – Yourself

This was a great (and easy) Challenge to complete.

I urge you to check out some of the above links and go over to Darren’s site to check out other people’s entries.

If you are a fellow blogger, share with us your entry. I’ll check out as many as I can. Thanks!

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Every Friday I get to share with you 5 articles that I’ve read this week that have either touched me or that I found to be very thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy reading this week’s offerings;

First up is Dave Navarro at his site Rock Your Day who wrote a very thought-provoking article on limiting beliefs called Give Up. I particularly enjoyed reading this article because he provided some great steps on progressing past our limiting beliefs. This is one message that I, for one, need to be constantly exposed to so that I can move past what’s hindering me in my own life.

I quite liked this quote from the article:

But here’s the thing: Whatever seems ludicrous, whatever you say “I could never do that …” to, that’s the limiting belief that you are absolutely committed to. In fact, you’re so committed to it that you’ve got a ready-made collection of reasons excuses to support it – and you’ll fight me like hell before you give it up. – Dave Navarro

I think there’s a theme going on, because the next article is a guest post by Henri Junttila called How to Deal With Rejection: 5 Fresh Ways to Look at Getting Rejected at Dragos Roua’s site Brillantly Better, who also talks about our beliefs and how we attach labels to what happens to us in our lives. Henri provides 5 great ways that we can remove the fear of being rejected. I don’t know any on the planet who has not been rejected at something at least once in their lives. This is a great article to keep in mind the next time we face rejection.

The next article that I think you should definitely check out is one by Yaro Starak at his site Entrepeneur’s-Journey who continues to wow me with his series on Positive Change. Fair warning that this article is very long, but it’s worth reading until the end. Go read How I Realized My Sense Of Self And Why It Changed Me Forever and let me know what you thought about it.

It was very insightful when he writes about the incident that bought about lasting change in his life and, in particular, this part:

You see most of the problems I had, although resulting in physical symptoms, where actually a result of my broken mind. At least that’s what I chose to believe, because then I knew I could repair myself. Of course you can’t control what you are born with, but I could choose how I dealt with it, reacted to it and thought about it. – Yaro Starak

Like James’ recent guest-post on this site, From Homeless to The InfoPreneur, we can’t control with what we are born with or our circumstances, but we do have a choice on how you deal with what you have been given in life.

Next up is Ash at The Middle Finger Project who wrote an article called 18 Ways To Avoid Becoming A Human Robot (And Why Circles Are Better Than Lines) who made me stop and think about how we categorize people and draw lines between different groups. She provides 18 great ways that you can start to erase the lines between people in your own life so that  “we can start to erase some of the lines that could be boxing us in, and keeping us from connecting on a meaningful level with the people we share this planet with.” I think that you will find this article as insightful as I do. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

I write articles about personal development on this site so I read with interest Jonathan Wells’ article called 67 Personal Development Pitfalls to Avoid at his site Advanced Life Skills. Jonathan has managed to write 67 attitudes that we should avoid doing when it comes to personal development. Great list, Jonathan!  As I wrote on his site, I particularly like his advice concerning:

Don’t…

2. Get caught up in competition. Strive for cooperation.
10. Forget to be grateful.
28. Make lame excuses, just take responsibility.
67. Try to convince yourself that the things on this list don’t matter.

What do you think Jonathan should add to his list? What’s missing?

What have you read this week that was particularly thought-provoking or insightful? Let us know by leaving a comment. Thanks!

As always, I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Spring is here so go out and enjoy the weather.

Related Posts:

1. Top 5 Reasons To Leave Your Job
2. My Top 5 Secret Success Factors
3. Invest In Your Most Important Asset – Yourself
4. 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Life
5. Are You Being Your True Authentic Self?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

Sharing is caring and since I care so much about you and your journey of putting meaning into your existence, I want to share some of the great personal development articles that I’ve read this week. I hope you get a chance to read these articles and let the authors know how their words affected you.

Someone mentioned to me that they thought it wasn’t a good thing for me to send my readers to other personal development blogs as I was sending readers to ‘the competition’. How silly!

There is no competition and I’m glad to be able to share with you some great articles that I’ve read during the week.

I’m along this personal development journey with you and if there is something that I think other people could benefit from, then I’m going to share it with you.

Jonathan wrote a thought-provoking article this week called Be Your Own Guru at his site Awake @ The Wheel. This is a great post about taking personal responsibility for your life. You can listen to others and try to incorporate what they teach you into your life, but ultimately you are the only one responsible for making positive changes into your life.

I’ve noticed that in my own life things seem to go in cycles or as Paul at Diary 4 Life calls it, The Cycle of The Four Seasons. Sometimes it may feel like we are in the depths of Winter, just biding our time and waiting for Spring to come. Sometimes we are enjoying the Summer time of our lives, but we also know that Fall will soon be here. The one constant in our lives is that there is no constant. We are always changing, just as seasons change.

I love Colin and his Exile Lifestyle blog. Beneath all the envy I feel for the way that he lives his life is the admiration for what he’s able to write such thought-provoking articles. I wasn’t disappointed by his recent article called Risk Falling (Out of a Plane). 

After all, how can you expect to fly if you aren’t willing to risk falling? – Colin Wright

We all have roadblocks in our lives. Do you know what yours are? Ayo at his site Discovering Purpose wrote an article called Personal Development Roadblocks which provides a great list of those items that are blocking you in your personal development journey, plus he offers ways in overcoming these roadblocks. What a useful article!

What stops us from achieving our goals? Justin at Ignite Your Essence describes through his video that in order to go after what you want in life that you need to Believe In Yourself. Once you believe in yourself and really believe that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, your self-confidence grows. It’s a fairly short video, but well-worth watching as the message is very important.

If you’ve read (or watched) something that really made you think this week and wanted to share it with me, then leave a comment with the link. Thanks for sharing!

As always, have an awesome weekend!

Related Posts:

1. Top 5 Reasons To Leave Your Job
2. My Top 5 Secret Success Factors
3. Invest In Your Most Important Asset – Yourself
4. 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Life
5. Are You Being Your True Authentic Self?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

It’s Friday and that means I get to share with you my weekly round up of articles that have made me stop and think and go Hmmmm.

These articles are on fire so check them out!

First up is Nathan over at his site Nathan Hangen who tells us that There’s Never Been A Better Time Than Now. I quite like how one activity, running, made such an impact on his life.

I learned that in tackling something I didn’t enjoy, like running, that I learned how to take control of not only body and mind, but of my life. — Nathan Hangen

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about we take what we know for granted. I expect other people to know what I know – after all, shouldn’t it be obvious? Pat Flynn at The Smart Passive Income Blog says not and shows us that It’s Dumb Not To Dumb It Down and that we should be trying very hard to overcome The Curse of Knowledge. A very interesting and thought-provoking post. It’s a great reminder that there are people out there screaming for us to tell them what we know. We all have such pools of knowledge and experience that we, as bloggers, can share with so many people. Let’s all learn from each other.

Next, Sean over at his site, Location 180, tells us the story of how he now loves his life in his article, Quit Your Job, Love Your Life.

… the bottom line is, life is too short to keep doing shit you don’t love. – Sean Ogle

How true, Sean, how true! Quite the inspirational post. The picture of the cubicle farm is very familiar to what I see every weekday. Hmmm.

For something a little different, Hulbert guest-posted at The World’s Strongest Librarian and opened up about his OCD. I’m sure that you will find how he describes The Life Of An OCD Blogger to be as fascinating as I did. Wow, it really opened my eyes as to what some people go through on a daily basis. It just goes to show you that you really don’t know what goes through other people’s heads. I have more respect now than ever for Hulbert knowing the challenges he faces every day.

Finally, for some shameless self-promotion I wrote a very thought-provoking article at Ben’s site 6Aliens called, I Won The Lottery. Did I really win the lottery? Well, go check out the article and tell me if you’ve won the lottery, too.

I hope you enjoy this week’s offerings. What have you read this week that made you stop and think and go, Hmmmm? Let us know by leaving a comment. Thanks!

As always, have a a great weekend!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

A friend sent me this poem today as they knew that I was feeling down. I hope it affects you as much as it did me.

If I Knew

If I knew it would be the last time
That I’d see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
and pray the Lord, your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time
that I see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss
and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time
I’d hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would video tape each action and word,
so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time,
I could spare an extra minute
to stop and say “I love you,”
instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would be there to share your day,
Well I’m sure you’ll have so many more,
so I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there’s always tomorrow
to make up for an oversight,
and we always get a second chance
to make everything just right.

There will always be another day
to say “I love you,”
And certainly there’s another chance
to say our “Anything I can do?”

But just in case I might be wrong,
and today is all I get,
I’d like to say how much I love you
and I hope we never forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance
you get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you’re waiting for tomorrow,
why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes,
you’ll surely regret the day,

That you didn’t take that extra time
for a smile, a hug, or a kiss
and you were too busy to grant someone,
what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today,
and whisper in their ear,
Tell them how much you love them
and that you’ll always hold them dear

Take time to say “I’m sorry,”
“Please forgive me,” “Thank you,” or “It’s okay.”
And if tomorrow never comes,
you’ll have no regrets about today..  – George Michael Grossman

What would you do differently if you knew it would be the last time?

Related Posts:

1. Book Review: Crush It: Why Now Is The Time to Cash In On Your Passion
2. Do You Need To Let Go and Forgive?
3. Are You Being Your True Authentic Self?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

Every Friday I get to share with you just some of the most thought-provoking and interesting personal development articles that I have read during the week. Here’s this week’s offerings:

Steven wrote a very personal and powerful post about The Night I Gave Up On Life at his site Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life. “A few nights later I decided that the jacket of life no longer fitted me and I was taking the jacket off for good” Wow. Go and read this post and tell me that it doesn’t touch you. Sometimes we don’t appreciate how lucky we really are. All of us have choices.

I just discovered Ashley and her site The Middle Finger Project. The first article I read from her site Live Alive, Not Just A Life: Guidelines for Rebelling Against Reality was a great first impression and is spot on. Check her out and let me know if you think she rocks as much as I think she does.

Hulbert at his site From Bottom Up wrote an interesting piece about Tony Robbins and Why. I learned something new about Tony Robbins’ background and I think you will, too. I wonder if the world would have the current Tony Robbins if he didn’t have such a rough childhood.

I enjoyed reading Mick’s story about How to Help Yourself at his site The Mick Morris Musing and I think you will, too. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a Servant Leader.

Jonathan asks us Would You Fall Asleep Reading Your Life’s Story? at his site site Awake At The Wheel. This was a great thought-provoking article. I would hope that I wouldn’t fall asleep (well, not during certain parts at least).  Would you?

I usually share 5 articles with you, but this week I have a bonus since I just had to include Walter from Lion Slinger and his article A Lesson About Time. Walter is always thought-provoking and he doesn’t disappoint this time. Check out his article and let me know what you think.

It’s really tough choosing what to share with you as there are so many great sites to check out and great articles to read. I hope you like this week’s offerings.

What have you read this week that made you stop and think? Let us know by leaving a comment below. Thanks!

As always, have a great weekend!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

It’s Friday and my favourite day of the week. This is the day that I get to share with you articles that I’ve come across this week that have made me stop and think. I hope you enjoy them.

First up is Paul over at Diary 4 Life who asked us Gratitude – What Are You Grateful For? I’m grateful to Paul for reminding me that I have so much to be thankful for in my life. What are you grateful for?

Next, we have Yaro over at Entreprenuer’s Journey who wrote a great article (the 4th in his Positive Change series) called Don’t Let Your Ignorance Stop You. I really liked this article and thought it had some great advice. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

J.D. Bentley wrote an article at his site Wage Slave Rebel telling us How To Handle Criticism Like A Millionaire. There are so many great nuggets of wisdom in this article that made me stop and think. I know you will, too.

Ever been in jail? I haven’t and I have no desire to visit one either. Hulbert Lee at his site From Bottom Up really made a lot of us think of the consequences of drinking and driving when he wrote part one and part two of his brother’s night in jail in What It Feels Like To Spend 10 Hours in a Jail Cell.

Finally, we have Eleanor over at Give A Break who asks us to consider Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits! This is a great inspirational article and a must-see video about Nick Vujicic. I dare you to tell me you’re not inspired after watching this video and visiting Nick’s site. No excuses and no limits!

What have you read this week that made you stop and think? Share with us by leaving a comment. Thanks!

As always, have a fantastic weekend!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to my feed to have all the future articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!