Get up earlier. Work harder. Produce more. Advertise more. Achieve more.

Every time I felt unproductive, my first instinct was to increase the pressure.

But today I remembered something that completely changed my life years ago.

The Wrong Place for Ambition

Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. Today I did some Yoga exercises and suddenly the thruth hit me – a truth I had almost forgotten.

The problem isn’t that a lack ambition. It is about something completely different.

Most of us pour our ambition into doing more. We try to optimize every hour, squeeze more work into the day, and constantly measure ourselves against an imaginary ideal.

Ironically, this often moves us further away from the life we actually want.

Every Human Is a Universe – Every Moment Is Precious

Years ago, I had a realization that felt almost impossible to put into words.

Every person is like a universe.

Every Moment is unique.

If you are truly present, it is fairly easy to make the next moment a great moment. A moment with actually “being there” fully attentive, aware or even appreciating.

It has been a milestone- being fully present. It is really easy to make the next moment a great moment- or in a stressfull situation, a better one, a kind one or an empathetic one.

Then the next moment and the next. You realize: the job doesn´t become harder, because it is just that one job.

You change moments, minutes, hours – your day filled with joy, fun, empathy, curiosity, awareness and gratitude.

Eventually, your entire life changes.

The Easiest Way to Build a Great Life

There is a strange paradox.

When I stop trying to create performance and simply make the next moment a good one, everything becomes inspired.

I only have to ask one simple question:

How can I make this next moment a good one?

Sometimes the answer is obvious.

Letting go of a too ambitious goal – Ok! lets keep starting work at 10:15.

Let´s not only count the hours others would rate as “efficient enough”.

Maybe it is giving my full attention to the very moment. To the people who surround me. – I just love my friends. I am also working with awesome people. Kind and funny awesome creative critters they are. You gotta be fully present to see that!

Maybe it’s stroking the cat and enjoying a cup of Pai Mu Tan-Tea.

Noticing that, right now, life is actually pretty fucking beautiful.

If you are also on this path- here´s my note for you

Once we get into that stage of appreciation it seems all so easy. But why is that so? It is a compeltely altered state of being. Once we are in that mode we can´´ t help to enjoy everything and feel wavers of gratefulness wash through our bodies. What if we could stay in that stage all the time?

I know that it is becoming chronic and that it could be the easiest thing ever. We need to make sure that we do not prevent each other from getting there.

Communicate in a certain way

It is so easy to say negative things. But they are getting us nowhere. I just realized that a lot of discord is coming out of not so fruitful conversations. People talk bad shit about others, they complain about stuff and they are grumpy and unsatisfied. I know I need to get rid of these conversations and refrain from doing so, too.

It gets much harder when it comes to advice. Just imagine you have a dream and you decide to commit to that dream. Let´´ s just say you mention that you are going to be making your living by flying. Most of your surroundings will try to “help” by making a realitiy-check on their terms and give you advice. “Don´ tyou think you should rather stick with your old job´? How do you want to make money with that if you haven´ t flown yet?”

That advice might be well- meant, but it is still not the most positive outcome you get there. I am convinced that we can cultivate a communication that is still realistic, but not disempowering our dreams. Maybe we shouldn´ t give advice. Especially in all these cases where we don´ t know better, means almost ALL THE CASES.

Don´ t give advice

You couldn´ t even give advice if you were paragliding teacher and doing your living on that for you don´ t even know all the different possibilities that exist making money with flying. That´ s all we need to know.

We are no fucking expert on shit! We don´ t know! We don´ t know what the other person is capable of. We don´ t know of what is going to be possible tomotrrow.

So how could we react to that? We are still in for communication, right? We don´ t want to be silent and irritate the other person.

Do it in a motivation way

Let the person be empowered by the dream. Enjoy the vison with them. What if it works? How would life be? If you want to be really helpful, ask the person, what the next steps are. What is a tiny little step in the right direction?

Build a vision that is fun to explore. Let the dream be there without blocking it and see what happens.

At the moment I’m really at a funny point of my experience, because I can totally tell that it worked because there’s some areas in my life where I just don’t believe the negative beliefs anymore. But on the other hand I was in such an upward spiral, those days what I was talking about, I mean how long is it ago? 10 years ago ? And I didn’t do any different so how did I manage to really watch my thoughts and contradict them I don’t know so now the challenge is a real hard one for me, because I know how it feels when you’re in the upward spiral and I can totally tell that I’m on the brink of it, but I’m not there yet.

To kickstart this process, I’m setting up a simple alarm as a reminder, about six times a day. Over the next week, I’ll document my experience and share insights in a brief article or post about how this approach is working for me.

In 2024, I’m setting a challenge for myself: to kickstart the upward spiral every day. I plan to employ techniques previously mentioned on this site and seek additional strategies to achieve this. The concept of an upward spiral is familiar to me; I’ve experienced it multiple times. For instance, almost nine years ago, I went through a phase of intense euphoria. While I occasionally re-enter this mode, sustaining it has been challenging. Despite a fulfilling life, complete with health, strong friendships, meaningful relationships, a passion for my hobbies, and the freedom to pursue work that interests me all the time, the reason for my inability to maintain this state eludes me.

Therefore, I’m not only challenging myself but also extending this challenge to you, especially if you’ve experienced or been close to an upward spiral. This challenge is particularly relevant for those who have already discovered their purpose, yet wonder why it hasn’t been the springboard to constant joy and passion they expected. Through this journey, I hope to either consistently inhabit the ‘Appreciation Mode‘ I detailed in another chapter or at least identify additional factors holding me back. Stay tuned, and let me know if you’re on board.

MakeBelief is a theory of positive emotions and flourishing. Our mission is to help individuals unlock their best selves and live life to the fullest by harnessing the power of positivity. It can be said in one sentence:

It is about the ratio of postive and negative thoughts you display during the day.

Esther Rittner

We offer a range of strategies designed to tip the scales in favor of positivity, ultimately leading to an upward spiral of wellbeing. When you reach the tipping point, you’ll find yourself in a state we call Appreciation-Mode, or A-mode, where gratitude and happiness become second nature.

If you think happiness as a sustained state exists, you know there´ s a door to go through. If you got the key you perceive yourself as an expert to the upward spiral. Display a door and maybe even door and key, to show others where you are at right now. Our “Door and Key” community is an exclusive gathering of like-minded individuals who are passionate about this secret.

The MakeBelief community holds a groundbreaking secret that could transform your life in ways you never imagined.

All the years I did not see the connection, but now it is obvious: a daily meditation routine is essential for me. If you want to control your thoughts, you need to be there! Fully aware.

Awareness is the key and is essential to use the stragegies in a specific amount to elicit A-mode.

It is very easy. You add positive thoughts every time you detect a negative thought. I called that the “Carrots vs. Donuts- Strategy” It is highly trainable and very easy if used frequently. There were years in my life, I did that easily, almost without effort. I guess, if you are not facing life events, you get into that upward-spiral much easier, than if you have many interuptions in your life, that are severe and essential for your self-worth.

So what makes the mind wander and not stick to the strategy? What happend when I felt uncapable to use it stubbornly and consequently? Why did I not go through with it all the time.

Awareness gets sucked up by anger and fear

If you are in a stage where you are angry about something or fearing something thoughts go south. Especially if you are in extreme fear you can not focus anymore. It is like a fast current that takes you somewhere you don´ t want to be. Even if you are a skilled meditation practitioner it might be very hard to get out of that stream of thought.

Now I figured out, that if I mediate every day again, the waters of thoughts get quiet and very clear structured. I might only talk for myself, but it seems that mediation only three times a week is not enough to get into A-mode.

Get into A- Mode and then…

Once you are in A-mode, there´ s no need to put in effort in any way anymore. Appreciation-mode is a constant state of gratefulness and appreciation and therefore feels like a constant mindfulness mediation of loving kindness.

The last years I have been struggeling a lot to set up my homepage and working with wordpress. I really wanted to do it on my own, but I remember it was so hard sometimes and I didn´t know what I was doing. But after it felt like this for quite a while, I experience an amazing shift.

“It´s too easy”

Lately I caught myself a couple of times detecting a problem and solving it straight away. I am in that stage now, where it becomes truly easy. I don´t even know when that happend. But I can easily apply changes and everything is just workung the way I want it.

It seems like all the energy I put in there is now paying off. It seems like the energy that I invested is now eliciting ease. It is as if you had to push a cart up the hill and once you reach the peak it just gets rolling.

I just had an interesting idea: what if any energy you put somewhere is paying off? What if there is no waste of energy there? I like the idea of every single minute I invested, every article I read, every energy I put in the thought of improving the lives of others just amasses to this huge energy outbreak one day.

It often feels to me that I am very close to the peak. I can feel it is still harsh and going uphill. But then there will be a peak and a huge amount of energy will be released. I take this as an experiment and I will put much more energy in interesting stuff, stuff I want to learn and stuff I am passionate about. Putting energy in there is thrilling, too especially when I know, there will be the time where I just lean back and watch the avalanche.

It is happening again

The same situation is suddenly so different. It is happening to me again. I am getting more and more into a very sustaining, postive mode. Seems like I am back in the upward spiral. Everything is easier and I am highly motivated. The little disturbances don´t bother me.

For example, I have been visiting a friend to help me replace a broken bulb of a car headlight. For he was checking on a lot of stuff, we did this and that and he overlooked something that wasn´t in place. When I wanted to drive back home, the motor wasn´t running poperly and something else (a sensor) was broken.

My mood was still very good, and it was obvious that this won´t bother me. I was rather interpreting this positive, for it was clear, I am gong to visit my friends next week again to replace the sensor. This just made me smile, because they have a sauna and I love that.

Engage with thrilling things

In moments like this it is so obvious: you get into a postive mode and the uplifted feeling is just carrying you through whatever happens. I also found out, that once the mood is really great and I feed my mind with things I am really interested in in that moment, I tend to get completely thrilled. On my way there I was listening to an interview with a nutritional psychiatrist on the platform Impact theory . It is such a great interview and I just got more and more excited about those news and my motivation was over the top for doing some more research on nutrition and I was planning to change my diet and fantasizing about that.

I am aware, that in normal mood things like that are entertaining and interesting to listen. But when I am in that very postive state (A-mode) it is fun and thrilling and lifts my mood even more. I get so excited about stuff, I am feeding my mind constantly and learn very rapidly. And it is fun!

Get into good mood and then…

It is true: get in the good mood and then do other stuff. You´ll be in extraordinary positive mood and everything you look at will just give you more to appreciate. And this is nothing you can see from the outside. Of course you can see, this person is motivated and thriving. But that´s just the byproduct. The means to becoming motivated is finding positive feelings and being thrilled about something and you will find more and more thrils and satisfaction.

You can´t start feeling better, when you are looking at the downside

This is very important to know: if you are spending your time focusing on the negative, it will impact your mood and the next following thoughts. I know you are right that it is horrible. I know you want to fugure out what actually happend. But this is getting you to a place where you can´t find the solutions. You´ve got to stop it!

But is it possible to stop a negaitve thought?

Many times it is not. Some weeks ago I had to make the experience how it feels, when fear and thoughts that accompany feelings of fear entirely uncontrollable. I couldn´t believe it. Before that I thought of myself as an expert of meditation- but suddenly nothing was working anymore. I lost grip of everything I knew before.

It is about the ratio postive to negative thoughts.

Now I am recovering very fast – it is so thrilling- and this is why:

I refrain from thinking about the past situation. I switch to other topics and do anything to get back into feelings like “everything is fine”, “nothing needs to be changed” and “there´s nothing you have to solve right now”.

Create your world

These days you hear it at lot: some people say you can actually create your world. Although it is still perceived as esotericism by some it is not like that at all. Our reality is not what we always believed it is. The truth is, we got much more influence on what is happening than we were taught.

When you wish for something, you will get it. It is amazing and it works like that. It´s a bit like the bible says: ask and it is given. It is so easy. So what is keeping us back?

The mechanism

“No” you might reply now. “I wanted so many things I didn´t get. That is not true!” But that is just because you did not know how.

You need that positive feeling of appreciation and trust when you think about it and then you get it. Always! The neurological expression is the heart coherence (I already mentioned it in the post Straight flush for positive thinking). Whenever you feel appreciation, joy, love you´ll have a certain pattern of brainwaves and that is all you need to know.

With meditation and exercises you can also get into that state and it seems to have too much impact for us to really get it straight away. Dr. Joe Dispenza who is using that is even said to cure cancer and Parkinson. You can create your body even more than we thought.

Creating the physical world

If you believe that, you still might think: “Ok, influencing your own body might work, that is still kind of logical, but influencing matter? Really? Isn´t that far fetched?”

I´d say: not at all. The latest fiindings in physics are so thrilling that it is crysal clear for me. Of course it is still just a handful of scientist prefering the following explanations. But it is the only available answer for me until today that integrates quantum theory. Check on Tom Campbell and his MBT (My big toe) theory for that.

I am giving you a very intuitive summary here, just that you can check for yourself. I´ll name the essence and implications only, because not everybody is into physics so much that I could go deeper.

Former natural sciences

What we´ve learned in school about natural sciences is based on the following assumptions: Time is linear, so there´s causality. Consciousness derived from matter. So there was this evolution and then the human being derived from other beings and at a certain time we developped some kind of consciousness.

Everybody was talking about it but nobody took it too seriously: Physicists found out that time is not really linear. And also quantum mechanics finds that the result is different whether somebody is looking at it or not. To be honest: If you don´t ever doubt the assumptions in the former paragraph you haven´t payed attention! This is not working if we thought everything was just matter and stable. It is not working! Now physicists even go “oh” and “ah” and “how amazing”. But it is not really amazing. It just seems like magic because our model of the world doesn´t fit!

A model that might fit

Tom Campell (MBT) and others figured out something that is surely to mention. If you´d chose the assumption that life could be a virtual reality you can explain all the findings in quantum mechanics. Still people are denying that. C´mon folks, it doesn´t mean it is a virtual reality, it means that findings are explained best by this model. We might never be truly capable of understanding what reality or existence truly is. But I think that is the closest you can get today.

You create your world

Taking that into account, it is possible that your thinking and your expectations have far more impact than we ever thought. Tom Campbell says, we are just interpreting data streams into reality, so the more ambiguity there is the more impact we have.

Just try it

You might still not be concinved, but the truth is: the old model is not bearable anymore. Consciousness is very likey to have a big impact. So why not giving it a try? Get yourself into really positive mood, meditate, appreciate, love, celebrate and then visualize goals and wishes and see what happens. Don´t believe anybody who is saying this is not scientific. Any science is still lacking to explain quantum effects. It is eqally non-scientific to deny that kind of impact.