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.”

1. Know What You Want Out of It

To be successful, you have to define how you’re going to measure it, or you’ll always be chasing after rainbows.

2. Money Goes Second

Profit is a worthwhile and practical goal, but if you don’t make something worthwhile first no one will ever pay for it.

3. Be Original

There really is no use opening another candy store along a street of candy stores. Don’t copy. Stretch. Create original.

4. Make Something Worth a Damn

How does your blog change the world? People visit your site to improve their lives. It doesn’t have to be emotional surgery, a blog about funny cats cheers me up everyday.

5. Find Your Voice

Be you. You might want to write like Steve Pavlina but find you swear like Naomi Dunford. It’s okay. Stay honest. You can’t make a voice, but you can find your own and sing it with all your might.

6. Evolve

You can’t say the same thing today you were saying two years ago. You have to grow, and your site has to grow with you. This is not an option.

7. Live a Life Worth Reading About

A life unlived is not worth reading about. You don’t have to climb Mount Everest to write a kick-ass blog, but you have to make your life – either inner, outer or both – interesting enough to make people interested.

8. Blogging is Publishing

Tricks like SEO are important. But don’t mistake the tools for the craft. Learn the tools of your craft and then make something great with it.

9. Brand Yourself

Don’t be generic. Create your own personal global microbrand. Stand out for you…otherwise what are you working so hard for?

And as a bonus, here’s key number 10.

10. There Are No Rules

Someone can break all these rules and still become a successful blogger. Who knows? The world is big enough. Listen but don’t be a slave to advice. There are no guarantees. Find your own path by walking.

Which 20% of my efforts are producing 80% of my results that I need to focus more on?

And which 80% of my efforts producing 20% of my results can I eliminate from my life?

The 80/20 Principle, also known as the Pareto Principle, discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, says that for many events, 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.

While Tim isn’t the first person to apply the 80/20 Principle to life, work and productivity, The 4-Hour Workweek makes an extremely powerful case for it – and is one of the reasons why its in the top 3 of must-read productivity books I recommend (the other 2 are First Things First and Getting Things Done).

How I Eliminated 29% of My Information Overload

Tim recommends cutting down the amount of unnecessary info that flows into your life for two main reasons: information consumes both time and attention that you could be spending elsewhere.

I couldn’t find the answer to Tim’s questions above, so I decided if I couldn’t find a more effective way to maximize my results first, I could at least shed some extra weight. So I decided to free up as much time and attention as I could.

If you know me, you’ll know I’m a big fan of streamlining and decluttering life and environment. I’m also a big fan of knowledge, which explains the 64 RSS subscriptions in my RSS reader!

Taking an honest look at my feeds; I asked myself which of my feeds I got the most value from, to focus on the 80% value from the 20% input, and which I got the least value from to cut down the 20% value from the 80% input, through my reading experience over the last few months. Being as ruthless as I could, I managed to streamline my subscriptions from 64 to 45. Not ideal, but I still managed to reduce 29% of my information load!

Reduce and simplify. Photo by Nathan.

(An unexpected surprise: I actually deleted the granddaddy of all problogging blogs from my subscription list, Darren Rowse’s Problogger. I’ve found that I’ve been getting more value from these 2 blogs about pro-blogging; Performancing and Successful Blog, instead.)

If You Work Smarter You Get to Work Less, Work Dumber & You Have to Work More

I also started thinking about Life Coaches Blog and my restarting a blog project. I’ve been honest from the start; I began this blog to create a positive impact, I also did it to make a profit – wanting one day to make enough profits to do this full-time so I can create even more positive content.

I’ve been toying around with starting another blog for the last year. But what always stopped me was the fact that Life Coaches Blog was already keeping me busy, together with my full-time job and life, and I wasn’t sure I would have enough time for a new project.

But in the last few weeks I decided to say; ‘screw it, if I never do it I’ll never know’, and started a new project – only to have this realization hit me like a rock: was I still suffering from my old belief about money that in order to make more money, I had to work even harder?

I realized that if I were to start a new blog now, with all the demands on my time, I’d still be stuck in the old cycle of trading money for time, instead of the more profitable formula of trading money for value.

That got me thinking about the 80/20 Principle as it applied to Life Coaches Blog. Which 20% of my efforts got me 80% of my results? And then it hit me: marketing my blog actually got me better results than focusing on my writing.

Don’t get me wrong, writing quality content is essential – it’s what people come to your blog for in the first place. But its ultimately useless to write the best content in the world when nobody will ever see it!

Focus on Creating Value Not Creating More Effort

The goal wasn’t to haul more and more work onto my plate, it was to eliminate the unnecessary 80% of effort and maximize on the key 20% of value. I realized that a key way to do that would be to keep actively encouraging reader submitted articles.

That solution dovetails very nicely into the future of Life Coaches Blog I envisioned in May of this year: to have Life Coaches Blog not just be about me but also about other guest bloggers’ articles.

That way, I can get the extra time to work on and improve Life Coaches Blog itself. Ultimately everyone benefits; the readers get more perspectives on how to change their lives, contributors get a bigger audience and I get to maximize my efforts and work on making a better Life Coaches Blog.

This exercise in lifestyle design following The 4-Hour Workweek is turning up some interesting results indeed.

Doing the exercises in chapter 7; ’7 Tools for Making a Great First Impression’ on creating a powerful company name and dynamic tag lines; I thought it was interesting how the following words kept popping up: ‘focus’ & ‘important’.

After writing them down a few times, I found myself writing this down:

All personal development tools should center around your mission, what’s important to you and helping you optimize your life around that.

Even though I hadn’t intended to go deep into my beliefs, this exercise brought out the central idea I have about what’s really important in personal development.

So much of personal development helps you get things done faster and makes you feel better about it. But if you don’t know what your mission is in life, your purpose and your destination, what’s really important to you…then it’s like fine-tuning a Ferrari and pointing it in the wrong direction.

It’s the folly of placing the urgent before the important and like Tony Robbins says in this must-listen audio, the mistake of placing achievement before fulfillment.

What’s really important to you?

Is it love? Achievement? Time with family? Money – or the feelings that money give you?

Doing this exercise has given me some clarity and some exciting new ideas about Life Coaches Blog and personal development. Stay tuned.

So what’s real? I’m a 28 year old guy with a lifelong passion for personal growth. I’m figuring it out as I go along as much as you are. Do you like to improve your life too? Great. Here are some things I’ve found that worked for me. If it helps, awesome – if not, there are lots of other resources that I recommend.

Check it out.