This post has been a long time in coming, and in it I’ll explain why in order for me to move towards truth, love and power, I’ve decided to close Life Coaches Blog.

Be Willing to Change Everything in Your Life

In David Deida’s book The Way of the Superior Man, he talks about how you must be willing to change everything in your life when necessary.

A man must be prepared to give 100% to his purpose, fulfill his karma or dissolve it, and then let go of that specific form of living. He must be capable of not knowing what to do with his life, entering a period of unknowingness and waiting for a vision or a new form of purpose to emerge. These cycles of strong specific action followed by periods of not knowing what the hell is going on are natural for a man who is shedding layers of karma in his relaxation into truth.

But when do you know it’s time to let go of something and move on?

Among the signs of fulfilling or completing a layer of purpose are these:

1. You suddenly have no interest whatsoever in a project or mission that, just previously, motivated you highly.

2. You feel surprisingly free of any regrets whatsoever, for starting the project or for ending it.

3. Even though you may not have the slightest idea of what you are going to do next, you feel clear, unconfused, and, especially, unburdened.

4. You feel an increase in energy at the prospect of ceasing your involvement with the project.

5. The project seems almost silly, like collecting shoelaces or wallpapering your house with gas station receipts. Sure, you could do it, but why would you want to?

3 years ago, I started Life Coaches Blog with enthusiasm, fire, desire and a real hope to help the world and improve my life in the process. Today, I feel all 5 points Deida lists above when I think about this blog.

It’s not that I’ve lost my passion for personal growth – far from it. But my path of personal growth has moved away from Life Coaches Blog’s path, and so to move closer to my truth I must leave it behind. For one, it has become less and less truthful for me to write a blog called Life Coaches Blog, as I haven’t been a ‘life coach’ for the longest time.

It has also become less truthful as I believe less and less in the simplistic answers most ‘life coaches’ out there offer as the gospel truth. The more I’ve grown, the further I realize I’ve moved away from the original tone of this blog. And to try to offer simplistic formulas for personal growth that I no longer believe in for the sake of web traffic and the hope of earning a quick buck, would just be me lying to you, and me lying to myself. And for the sake of my own growth, down that path I cannot go.

Real growth takes time, thoughtfulness and effort, and cannot be achieved just by reading 7 easy tips. To attempt to sell you otherwise is simply lazy-ass thinking.

The Dip (When to Stick and When to Quit)

In his book The Dip, Seth Godin talks about the dip, the dead end, and how winners quit all the time; they just quit the right stuff at the right time. The difference lies in knowing the difference between a dip; the tough journey between the beginning and a worthwhile goal, and a dead end; where no matter how hard you slog you still end up going nowhere.

But when is the right time to quit? Godin proclaims that anytime you’re going to end up average, you might as well quit – because average is for losers.

Quitting at the right time is difficult. Most of us don’t have the guts to quit. Worse, when faced with the Dip, sometimes we don’t quit. Instead, we get mediocre.

The most common response to the Dip is to play it safe. To do ordinary work, blameless work, work that’s beyond reproach. When faced with the Dip, most people suck it up and try to average their way to success.

Which is precisely why so few people end up as the best in the world.

To be a superstar, you must do something exceptional.

Not just survive the Dip, but use the Dip as an opportunity to create something so extraordinary that people can’t help but talk about it, recommend it, and, yes, choose it.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Am I being too harsh? Isn’t your time and your effort and your career and your reputation too valuable to squander on just being average? Average feels safe, but it’s not. It’s invisible. It’s the last choice – the path of least resistance. The temptation to be average is just another kind of quitting…the kind to be avoided. You deserve better than average.

If I’m truthful to myself, I’ve made Life Coaches Blog just average. And in order for me to become more powerful, I have to let go of the things that give me less returns than the power I put in.

In a life with finite time and energy, I find myself saying no more and more the more I realize what’s truly important to me. The enemy of the great is truly not the bad, but the good, as choices become more refined and require greater awareness at that level. It’s easier to say yes to ice-cream versus a dish of rubbish, but harder to make the choice when you love both vanilla and chocolate flavors.

Letting go of less important and more average work frees me up to do the work that truly matters – my very best creative work. And that’s powerful.

To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy

In his book First Things First, Stephen Covey writes about the four human needs.

The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase ‘to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.’ The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economic well-being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love, to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.

Life Coaches Blog served my spiritual need for meaning and contribution for the last 3 years, by giving me the chance to write and give away over 400 free personal development articles that have helped people, and by dedicating Life Coaches Blog’s profits to charity.

The thing about love, is that its not just about a connection to others but also about a connection to oneself – about how connected you are to your own heart. My heart tells me that it’s not enough to want to leave a legacy; it’s about leaving a legacy that you can be proud of.

I don’t want to leave behind mediocrity. And in a way I can’t really explain with the power of words, my heart tells me that if I continue with Life Coaches Blog I will be heading down an average path. The journey has been good, but I’ve gone as far as I can go here. And when I look at going down a new path, it is this path that my heart tells me is the path with heart.

I will be closing down Life Coaches Blog by stopping all posting, but I’ll still leave the site up. I still get comments and thanks for articles that are in the archives, and as long as they remain useful to someone I’ll be leaving them up to serve as my own little legacy.

Thank You

I want to thank all the life coaches who have contributed articles for Life Coaches Blog. Your contributions are all appreciated, and I deeply apologize for not being able to publish all of them. I should have been quicker and much more frequent in my replies, and for being inefficient and seemingly aloof, I’m sorry.

So, to Brenda Tung, Carey Powell, Chrissy Scivicque, David B. Bohl, Eleutherios, Jeanine Austin, Jeff Cleveland, Josh Perez, Karen Parsons, Paiboon Busayarak, Pete Tan, Rick Cook, Shelley Stile, Todd Goldfarb and Wang Yezhong, I thank you deeply – Life Coaches Blog could never have been as successful as it got without your help.

Create a Blog You Can Be Proud of

If I may give my contributors some advice – you don’t need anyone else to publish your articles for you. Create your own blog. I’m guessing it’s a lack of technical familiarity that’s holding some of you back – well, with free and easy to use software like WordPress and support forums, it’s not too hard. Or, use a host like Site5 that helps you install WordPress with the click of a few buttons, then customize it from any number of free WordPress themes.

As to how to create a blog you can be proud of, read Steve Pavlina’s How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog) and How to Make Money From Your Blog posts. I suggest my own 9 Keys to Building a Blog You Can Be Proud Of. Watch Merlin Mann’s video on How to Blog. Think about what they say. A lot. And then just do it. You won’t be perfect from the get-go but you’ll learn most from doing.

The Next Step

So what’s ahead? I still love writing, and I still love personal growth, so if you want to follow me on my journey you can follow me at the new 21 Dragons. It’s not a personal development blog per se, although it does have personal growth posts like The Beginner’s Mind Sucks But You Still Need It, A Letter to a Young Colleague and Personal Growth is a Choice.

Instead, it’s more a personal blog than anything really, which is why you’ll find sudden thoughts on marketing like The New MacBook’s Story, riffs on internet marketing like Before Making Large Bags of Money Online and muses on design like Apple & The Essence of Simplicity.

It’s also more snarky and contains some swearing, so it’s a little different from Life Coaches Blog It’s a real hodgepodge of my interests, and definitely not a ‘targeted, niche blog’. And that’s perfectly fine with me, as I explain in Why 21 Dragons Exists that I’m doing this for fun not profit (if you’re wondering about the name, check out What Does ’21 Dragons’ Mean?). And I’m happy and excited and inspired to be doing it.

Which, I’m beginning to think, is the best reason to do anything.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a swell idea to me

Unfortunately, that idea never materialized as I became caught up in life and work.

A few of the personal development bloggers I’d started to email had already replied me though, and I’d always felt sorry to have their work languish in my email.

So this is what I thought I’d do: share the idea online, and if anyone else is keen to do it they can pick up the idea and run with it.

If you’re reading this and are keen on doing this ebook, here’s what I have for you. These are the replies that some personal development bloggers have already shared with me, please be so kind to include them in the ebook.

And to all those who submitted their contributions to me: I’m sorry I let this slip. It was my fault. If someone decides to go through with this ebook I hope it makes a difference to the personal development blogging community.

Lessons Shared by Personal Development Bloggers

David Seah

“I use my own life story as a vehicle for expressing my ideas as they become clear to me. I write from this perspective because I love hearing about how other people have solved their problems. I appreciate the spirit of camaraderie and friendship that accompanies their storytelling and advice. This in turn has inspired me to be generous with my best ideas, my personal insights, and the weird tools I’ve designed. I’m passing it forward. I try to maintain this spirit of generosity on my blog, and a certain percentage of like-minded people respond. And ultimately, they are the ones I am writing for: the positive-minded, conscientious, creative, and kind-hearted people that make this world so awesome. We can all use a little boost from time to time, and if I can help provide that, I think I am doing my job as a blogger.”

Chris Marshall from Martial Development

“Don’t publish anything on your blog that you wouldn’t write on a job application; because, someday, your blog might be your job application.”

Halina from Inner Travel Journal

“The Internet is already full of personal development blogs. Who needs another one? Do you? Well I hope you do! I hope you blog because it brings you new insights, it helps you grow, it fills you with excitement and joy. If it does, it will also resonate with others and motivate them to participate in discussions and to spread the word about your work. Happy Blogging!”

Maria Palma from The Good Life

“Share your life experiences with your blog readers. People like stories that they can relate to.”

Liz Strauss from Successful Blog

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to have a beginner’s mind about everything. Beginners are truly curious about the human condition, positive about every new bit of information, and always willing to listen.”

David Zinger from Die Happy Today

“My best advice is not mine but from the Buddha who said: we must be a lamp unto ourselves. Don’t cultivate a Zen Habit, don’t bop like a Boing Boing, don’t copy Copyblogger. In fact, don’t try to be anything other than who you are. Be yourself as much as you can possible be, and then be it a little more, and the power of your authentic voice will enliven your writing and make your content more compelling.”

lexander Kjerulf from Positive Sharing

“Find the fun. Blogging requires openness, generosity, creativity and zest. If blogging is a chore for you, you will never do it well. When, where and how is blogging so much fun for you, that you just can’t help but do it? I blog in a neighborhood café in the early mornings. And you?”

Alex Shalman

“Being a personal development blogger is a huge responsibility. By declaring that you are blogging about personal development, and following through in your articles, you are indirectly implying that you are in it for the people. The possibility that I have created for myself and my life is the possibility of being someone who operates with the greatest good of all in mind. It is important to figure out what your own possibility is, than be, do, and have. The rest will fall into place.”

Ashley Cecil

“My advice to your readers is ask themselves what is it that they have to offer the world via the blogoshere that no one does? Readers can only absorb so much pop-culture gossip and personal interpretations of existing news. Be a unique voice and be consistent about your frequency of posting. If you want professional results from your blog, take it seriously, be innovative, respond to useful feedback and watch your analytics. Oh, and screen your comments.”

Alvin Soon from Life Coaches Blog

“Help one person with your blog. Keep your focus on that, and the rest will follow.”

Adam Kayce from Monk at Work

“Above all, don’t forget why you got into this business in the first place; take care of your self and your own mindset, and the rest will joyously follow.”

When you combine the principles, you get the secondary principles of personal development; Truth combined with Love gives you Oneness, Love and Power combine to give you Courage and Truth with Power gives you Authority. All together, the six principles combine to give you the seventh core principle of personal development: Intelligence.

Steve says that these core principles are universal and cannot be broken down into smaller chunks. I’ve been thinking that if these truly are the core principles of personal development, then their inverse should also be true.

Personal Atrophy for Foolish People

The core principles of personal atrophy, as opposed to personal development, should then be Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness.

When you refuse to face the truth, you deceive yourself and live in falsehood, also known as denial.

The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. When you hate, you’re still polarized, but when you’re apathetic you can’t even get yourself to care enough to hate, much less love.

And when you’re powerless, you can hardly muster any ability to change your life.

The more you direct your life towards Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness, the more you’ll regress in your life instead of improve.

The secondary principles of personal atrophy are Separation, Timidity and Submission.

When you live in denial and can’t be bothered to care, you feel separated from your life, your surroundings and other living beings.

When you’re powerlessness and apathetic, you live life timidly because you don’t believe you have the power to overcome challenges, and you lack the motivation to even try.

Living in denial and powerlessness causes you to live in submission, or passivity. Instead of being the power in your life, you allow yourself to bow down to circumstances.

The six principles of personal atrophy in their totality become foolishness. Whereas moving towards Truth, Love and Power is a more intelligent way to live your life, moving towards Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness is a foolish way to spend it.

Personal Development Vs. Personal Atrophy

I’m not looking to add on to Steve’s book here, I think he did a pretty good job of it already.

I offer the principles of personal atrophy as food for thought, and whereas the seven core principles of personal development are a good gauge to aim for, the seven core principles of personal atrophy can serve as warning signs to tell you where you don’t want to go.

P.S. By the way, I didn’t consult The Steve when I made this…I wonder if I nailed it. What do you think?

P.P.S. After emailing The Steve, I changed ‘Fear’ to ‘Timidity’; Steve reminded me that Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but acting in spite of it. I also changed ‘Weakness’ to ‘Submission’, which also makes sense as the opposite of Authority.

P.P.P.S. After thinking more and more about it, I think Steve nailed it in his book. Especially since the inverse principles seem to hold true as well.

With each passing day, I can see more clearly how cooked food is used as a drug to create a certain kind of feeling in our bodies. We keep eating it because we’re addicted to it, not because it’s healthy for us. We confuse those addictive cravings for the experience of genuine hunger. Instead of making conscious food choices, we let our addictions dictate what we eat, how much, and how often.

I experienced a glimpse of this during day two of my own short live foods fast:

I feel fine, and didn’t feel too hungry during the day actually. There were times I wanted to eat, but not because I was hungry – I was just craving for taste and the feeling of having a full stomach. There were times I walked past the fridge too and just wanted to open it and pick something up out of habit. Makes you think how much a person eats in a day is based on how hungry he really is!

I’m definitely not comparing one day of a liquid diet to his ten. But I remember how I felt back then; as if I wanted to eat out of habit, not out of hunger. An usually unconscious choice, like eating simply because it was lunch time, became conscious and I realized what I was craving wasn’t the satisfaction of a physical need, but simply the sensations of eating.

Like Steve alludes to, I realized I had been filling a void at times with food, and now had no idea how to fill it without. I’m not saying that eating out of habit is a bad thing per se, but I do think it’s a bad thing to perform the same habits again and again without being conscious of them.

In a way, it’s akin to how I feel when I come home after a while spent overseas. All those little habits that I do at home everyday and feel as if I couldn’t do without disappear in a foreign land. And when I come home, I realize the world didn’t fall apart just because I stopped reading my RSS feeds or watching my favorite TV series. And I didn’t end up any less happy either.

That was all fine and good, but if I was to be honest with myself, the ability to make some extra cash from Life Coaches Blog was a big motivator for me to keep this site running. And not only that, the monthly Adsense cheques were a great way to measure progress – the better I was running Life Coaches Blog, the more money I’d get. All that went out the window the day I switched the ads off.

The solution came when I was writing in my journal (a great way to clear your head and beat the blues). I wasn’t even thinking about Life Coaches Blog, but how I could contribute more to the causes that matter to me.

Life Coaches Blog used to be one of the ways I’d contribute, as I’d dedicated 20% of all my profits previously to Conservation International, a group that helps protect the environment and has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator. And then I started to think, since I couldn’t make profits on Life Coaches Blog for myself, what if I donated 100% of all its profits to CI?

So that’s what I’ve decided to do. From today on, you’ll see that the ads are back, but I’m not going to make a single cent personally from them. All the profits are going straight to Conservation International, and I’m even going to foot the bill for the domain from my own pocket. I’m going to keep Conservation International’s receipts and Adsense’s mailings, so anyone who wants to see proof of donations need only ask.

That’s the new mission.

To help, life coach extraordinaire Anthony Robbins has launched The Power of Crisis, a website about real people overcoming and transforming challenges.

There’s a lot of good advice there, check out Tony’s recorded audio message there, and also Kathy’s story (see the videos on the right). She was born deaf, labeled mentally challenged, but taught herself to speak. Watch her story and I challenge you not to be moved!

Tony has also appeared recently on the Today Show to talk about how to deal with the current financial challenges.

And here he is answering viewers’ questions.