Cinnamon Sunrise

We all want to be successful at something, whether it is getting fit, changing the world for the better, finding a job we love, or having great kids. Whatever you want to do, there are certain steps you can take to raise your chances of being successful.

1. Visualise

I’m not a fan of the whole mystical, ‘Law of Attraction’ thing. What I do know is that you can’t work towards something if you don’t know what it is. You have to know exactly what you want as the end result, so that you can plot the best path to it. If you want to write a novel, you have to decide what kind of novel it’s going to be and flesh out at least some of the background. If you want to get fit, you have to decide what you want to be able to do at the end (lift really heavy weights? Swim and run great distances? Lose weight? Have a great immune system?) and then work out a fitness program accordingly.

2. Plot the Path

Once you know what you want, you have to break it down into stages. Writing a novel is daunting. Writing a page is less so. But you only need to write a page after a page to complete a novel. Plan your progress, figure out small stepping stones. If you have a fitness plan, celebrate the first time you manage ten (or one hundred) sit-ups. If you want to start your own business, figure out what you need (business cards, a financial cushion for the first couple of months, promotional literature, etc) and make it happen.

A journey begins with a single step. Just remember you have to keep putting one foot after another.

3. Believe, and make a commitment

If you want to be successful at something, you have to believe in it. You can’t make a happy marriage if you don’t believe in your love. You can’t get fit if you fundamentally believe that your metabolism will prevent you. Commit 100% to what you are doing. That means making it a part of your day to day life. Not, “Oh, I should really try and exercise more”, but “I am going to take action every day towards increasing my level of fitness”. Not “I need to spend more time with my kids” but “I am going to give these hours on these days to my children, and nobody else”.

4. Do it

The hardest part of all. Get started. Write that first page. Attend that first gym session. Take your kids out for a walk in the park. Then do it again. And again. And again.

5. Reward yourself

For every milestone you break, treat yourself. If you finish a chapter, buy yourself your favourite desert. If you manage one hundred push-ups, get yourself a new book, or that nice outfit you’ve been wanting.

Follow these steps, and you will increase your chances of success.

Weddings. Every woman - according to the sitcoms on TV anyway - is supposed to dream about a wedding. A big white ballgown, fantastic hair, billions of relatives, huge cake. A fairytale come true. A happily ever after.

Like many modern dreams, the white wedding is almost completely the invention of advertisers, although it remains steeped in a dark and patriarchal past. In the very early days, a ‘wedding’ was actually a kidnapping, in which the groom and his men (now represented by the best man) took a woman away by force. After a while, social relationships evolved (a little) and rather than use force, a groom could just buy the object of his desire. A wedding marked the handing over of a woman from her father to a husband - it was a sale, a transaction either explicitly about an exchange of money and land, or implicit, where status and power was gained through alliances. Witness the speech giving at a traditional wedding. The father-of-the-bride and the groom. Does the woman speak? Does her mother?

This isn’t to say that couples didn’t fall in love and get married. Love has always existed, and so have commitment ceremonies. But the big white wedding, the traditions we associate with that, are not so benign.

To many families, the only worth a daughter had was what she would fetch in marriage. Education centered around manners and social awareness. During the Victorian age, a teenage girl would debut, dancing and mingling with many men who would essentially size up the available women and then begin a bidding war. The better a woman looked, and the richer her family appeared, the better value she was.

Specific traditions? Take the wedding cake. During the mighty Roman era, a small cake was broken over the bride’s head on the wedding day. The reason? It showed her subsequent loss of virginity, and the grooms domination of her. Why white icing? During the Victorian age, only the rich could afford refined sugar to make truly white icing. Another status symbol - and it was helped by the association of virginity with the colour white.

To an extent, we have broken with tradition. There are many different colours for wedding dresses, and cakes themed to match. The emphasis is on spectacle. Food, flowers, music, alcohol, and lots of guests - with everything coming in at inflated prices by being tagged ‘wedding’. Over the last decade, the average cost of a wedding sky-rocketed by over 70%. The bridal industry is a big industry. It’s now hovering around the $26,000 mark. The credit crunch and increase in cost of living, however, means that people are starting to find reality again.

What is a wedding actually about? If pushed, most people would say it’s about declaring their commitment and love to their partner in front of family and loved ones. Quite how a $2000 dress figures in that I’m not sure.

Of course, it’s also about theatre and ritual. As human beings, we seem to have a deep need for rituals around times of change - and getting married is a change. For many people, throwing themself into the preperation for a wedding is a way of ignoring - or counterbalancing - questions such as: is this the right person for me? Are there problems?

The pressure to get married is lessening. Many people simply live together as partners without ever going through the legal or religious bit. However, there are still some things that require a marriage certificate - including joining, or being joined by, your partner from a different country. In this case, marriage is seen as ‘proof’ that you love each other, and intend to stay with each other, despite the fact that divorce is now relatively simple.

Should you get married? Your choice. I’m getting married on the 9th June, although I am eschewing most of the traditional accompaniments.

How do you know if something is right or wrong? Disagreements on this matter have spawned some of the ugliest confrontations - consider the pro-lifers versus those who support a woman’s right to choose. Consider fundamentalists taking on homosexuals. Consider the arguments about immigration, about war, about stem cell research and recreational drug use.

I think that we have to have a value system. Murder is wrong. Rape is wrong. Kidnapping, blackmail, robbery, all these things damage others and left unchecked would lead to social breakdown. But where do you draw the line? Is murder okay in defense of loved ones? Is it okay in defense of your country? Is it okay in defense of strangers?

Then there is theft. Unmitigated, Mafia-style armed robbery is one thing. A starving man stealing food is another. Is a junkie a criminal, or is the person that hooked him to blame?

Then there are those born or raised without the capacity for empathy. Whether you call is psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder, there are a tiny proportion of people who are incapable of guilt, or of understand why hurting others are wrong. Are they criminals? Or are they disabled? Is it possible to be ‘born evil’?

I’m simplifying the questions (and the problems), but they make for interesting discussion. What responsibility does society have towards rehabilitation, towards ensuring people have access to food and shelter and clean water?

Money is something that baffles me. Not the fact that it is a medium of exchange, but the fact that it can fluctuate in value, that it can earn interest, that it can exist in a virutal form and yet the use of these invisible numbers can shape the world. I also wonder about why money attracts more money, and why the rich/poor divide grows more sharply by the day.

The universe provides everything we need in terms of money, resources, and food - not to mention beauty, wonder and excitement. By rights, with the level of technology we currently possess, there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone to starve or for anyone to have to work long hours and yet still barely make ends meet. There is also no reason for people to accumulate vast mountains of wealth - beyond a certain point it turns absurd, a ridiculous measure of a person. If you have money, then it is easy to make more money. You can just leave it in a high-interest savings account for a start.

At this point in my life money is important to me - not in and of itself, but as a tool by which I can live and eventually become free. Money is used as a motivator, more than anything. There is this world view that says that people won’t work, won’t produce, won’t be valuable, unless you offer them a carrot (money) and a stick (lack of money). Yet from my perspective it seems as though it is the financially free that produce the most good and are the most creative.

I’ve seen The Secret. I’ve read about the Law of Abundance. I understand that there is enough of everything we need to go around - but with one flaw. Money. Money creates lack. Or, maybe, the concept of profit creates lack. As long as huge, multinational corporations - faceless unweildy beasts - try and raise their profit margin by cutting costs there will be lack in the world.

By most people’s standards I am incredibly wealthy. I have a home, clean running water, easy access to a huge variety of food. If I get sick there are well-trained doctors to help advise me and provide me with medicine. If someone commits a crime against me there is a system in place to try and provide me with protection and justice. Sure, all of these systems could be improved, but that’s the nice thing about life. It’s never so good that it can’t get better.

Yet I simply cannot get my head around why and how there is still poverty in the world. Clean water, basic education, and staple foods are not luxury items. There has to be a base level of human rights. We are a co-operative species. We evolved to use teamwork, to use our brains, to share and to trade. Not to exploit and to starve.

There has to be a workable alternative to capitalism.

Choices can be overwhelming. Many of us, faced with the truly infinite amount of possibilities around us, allow ourselves to follow the easiest path. Usually this path is the one encouraged by family and society - we might go to University to study a subject in order to get a high-paid job. We might go into the family business. We might allow ourselves to become part of an arranged marriage. We might end up getting a random office job and working 9-5, simply because we don’t know what else to do and there’s bills to pay.

Choice is overwhelming because we are scared of making the wrong decision. What if we really want to go to college to study theatre - only to find we later hate it? We will have wasted time and resources. We also may know what we want to do, but not know how to make it happen - for example, we may want to get a career in the Theatre, but not know how to do that and continue to pay bills.

Assess, research and then choose

Assessing every choice you make means you ask yourself the hard questions. You say; can I do this? Will I be happy doing this? Will this benefit me in accordance to what I will expend on it?

For example: you get caught up in a whirlwind romance. You’re in love, and then your partner pops the question out of nowhere. Excited, you say yes. Later, in the cold light of day, you wonder if that was right. But you convince yourself it must have been right, and throw yourself into the wedding preparations. The marriage costs thousands of dollars, but one year later you have divorced.

This is a situation that is surprisingly common, as people simply can’t face telling people they are getting married and then breaking it off. Facing your future spouse is hard, explaining things to parents or friends who have gotten ready for the wedding is hard too. So you decide any doubts are ‘pre-wedding jitters’.

Whenever a big question comes up, like whether to get married, or what subject you study at college, you need to ask yourself can you do it? Can you commit to this person? Do you know everything about them you need to know? Will you be happy with them - not just going for dates, but buying groceries together, waking up to go to work next to them, making financial decisions together?

Will all that time, emotion and money you expend on them be paid back? Will they help you grow as a person, will they support you through difficult periods? Or will they hold you back from fulfilling yourself, do they expect things you don’t want to fulfill, are they going to abandon you at the first sign of trouble?

Those are the questions. If you can’t answer them, you need to research. In terms of college, this may mean taking a couple of optional courses or reading some books on it. In terms of marriage, this might be asking to live together for a year before agreeing a date to see if you are compatible.

And then, finally, you make your choice. This means that you knowingly commit yourself to something, rather than drift into it because that is the way the wind blows.

Make a Plan

Once you’ve made your choice, you need to immediately set yourself to make it a success. If you are going to college, you need to ensure you get the maximum amount of knowledge and experience from the time you are there. That means preparing yourself mentally, deciding how you are going to study and when, ensuring all administration tasks are completed on time, possibly taking some time to save up some money and doing some pre-college studying. Read any suggested reading material, and when you move into your quarters put up your goal for college somewhere prominent. It is very easy to succumb to the party-and-socialize aspect of college and let your studying slip. Socializing is important, clearly, and networking with future people in your field is one of the benefits of going to college - but you need to stay focused.

For something like deciding to move into theatre for your career, it might involve saving up a cushion to cover your bills for six months to a year before quitting, or getting experience with amateur dramatic groups or youth theatre before trying out for larger roles. It might involve moving to a location more suitable. Once you have a plan, informed by your research, you will feel much more confident setting out.

Knowing who you are

Part of making solid choices that are right for you is knowing who you are as a person, and where your strengths lie. If you know full well that you need access to your support structure, in terms of your family and long lasting friends, then choosing to move hundreds of miles away to attend college might not be a good choice. If, on the other hand, you value your independence and can’t wait to strike out on your own, choosing the college up the road for financial reasons might not be a good call.

Accept the risk

Sometimes we don’t know if we made the right choice until afterwards. We can do all the research, understand ourselves deeply, and still cock something up. In this case, you need to understand that it is not failure but a learning curve. Take what you can from it, and move on as quickly as possible. This may mean ending a marriage, dropping out of college (or changing your course), making new friends, quitting a new job, or changing careers again. These are disruptive, sure, but overall they make you a stronger person.

Worse is to try and stick out something that is negatively affecting you. Trying to complete a course of study that you hate and feels irrelevant to you is pointless. You’re not going to go into a career that utilizes those skills, so switch early rather than wait until you’re close to failing. Trying to hold together a marriage that has long since ceased to give you any support or love is a waste of your time and energy.

This doesn’t mean that the first bad night you have you quit and go back to your old life - but if something is making you systematically miserable then it’s probably not good for you.

In the past hundred years or so, women have caused and experienced unprecedented social change. Whereas in previous years they were extremely limited in terms of their public power, they now have choices, experiences and opportunities. Many women are now playing multiple ‘roles’ - in addition to being a mother, a wife, and a daughter, they are also career women or running small businesses, writing, engaging in community work, active within politics, studying and many more things.

Steve Pavlina recently wrote a post in which he outlined his concept of what it meant to become a man. At the end he challenged his readers to write the opposing post - how to be a woman. Initially, I felt fairly excluded. What is there to stop any woman from meeting any of the points he makes? The answer is none, except possibly inclination. After some thought, however, I decided that there are some fundamental value decisions that women may have a different perspective on.

1. Take control, accept responsibility

Women tend to be raised to believe that group consensus matters. They will seek approval from their family and friend before major choices. They may give way to people they perceive as having more authority. All of this can be very positive at times - but it’s important to understand that ultimately your life is your responsibility. The choices you make should reflect your values, not those of the people around you. If you want to trek across three continents on your own, then you should. Yes, it will be dangerous, and yes you may face dangers that are overwhelming, but that’s life and that’s how we grow.

To put this in perspective, when I was 18 I traveled to the USA (I’m English) to meet and stay with friends I had only spoken to online. I repeated this when I was 20, but in Europe. That first trip I made was the first time I had ever flown, and I made a transatlantic flight by myself with no guarantee of who I was meeting. It was very scary, but I would never take that experience back. I learned more about myself in those two weeks than I had done in the entire previous year.

2. It’s okay not to do everything

There are women who manage to balance a very successful career with bringing up several children and being a loving wife. Usually they succeed, however, because they love what they do. If you hate kids then don’t have them. If you hate corporate life then don’t try and be a high-powered business woman. There is absolutely nothing wrong with focusing on your children and bringing them up well - and your kids will thank you for it.

I once heard a child say to his mother “We are not your children. Your business is your children”. Don’t do two things badly - do the thing you really want to do well.

3. It’s okay to do everything

Long gone are the days when women, once pregnant, were consigned to a house. Now you have incredible opportunities. Most employers should offer flexible working options, so that you can work and raise your children. Equally, men are much more open to the idea that they are equally responsible for bringing up children and doing household chores.

Additional income from a second working adult can spell the difference between no investments and future wealth. Equally, a job means you can maintain independent friends, income and hobbies.

There are also plenty of options for the home business owner. The internet is an incredibly powerful tool - use it wisely.

4. Be honest, not manipulative

Women tend to be better at manipulating people. They are often more aware of social nuance, and can ‘read’ hidden fears and desires much more astutely than some men. Used wisely, this can smooth over potential conflict, and allow people to communicate more effectively. Used badly, this can result in manipulation. Taking advantage of people and their vulnerabilities for your own personal gain is never okay. Sometimes expressing yourself honestly is the best path, even if it does lead to conflict.

5. Speak out

Women were silenced for thousands of years. Their writing was consigned to the literary pulp bin. They were not educated for fear their brains couldn’t take it. But they still managed to produce classic works, they still managed to make significant social changes, and they still managed to get and use power effectively. Right now we are the most educated and the most powerful that we have ever been.

We have also been ruled by a hierarchy of rich, white men for thousands of years. When they act according to their interests it is not in the best interest of everyone else. We finally are starting to see diversity in the people who make decisions that affect us all. The more diverse the experiences that make up a group, the more adaptable that group is. The more varied the skill set, the more varied the knowledge, the more resources a group has. Every group of people has a unique history, a unique perspective, and unique guidance to offer.

If you have something to say, then say it. Ask questions in class. Suggest improvements to your boss. Reveal corruption and crime to other people so that collectively we can deal with it. Be an example to other women - that we matter, that our problems are important, and that our suggestions are valuable.

6. Listen and learn

Part of speaking out involves listening. Dismissing male experience and male problems is as wrong as men dismissing female experience and female problems. Right now we are at a turning point of human social evolution. Everything the individual does impacts the larger social organism. Equally, the larger social organism impacts every individual. If China pollutes the skies, then we all feel the impact. If America declares war on a particular country, then every country has to deal with the aftermath - whether it is the refugees, or the economical downturn.

Therefore, someone else’s problem is our problem too. If we don’t help them create a solution that benefits everyone, then we may end up negatively impacted by their personal solution. On a smaller scale, if someone is abused as a child and does not receive help and attention from the people around them, they are very likely to abuse others when older.

In medical terms, prevention is better than cure.

7. Don’t wait for someone else

Traditionally, it was men who began courting and who proposed, and it was men who made major financial and life changing decisions within the family unit. But do you honestly want to sit around waiting for someone else to make up their mind to ask the question? If you want something, you have to take action to get it. That means popping the question. It means deciding where your money goes. It means working out what is important to you, and taking steps to achieve it.

It all comes back to equal opportunity - and equal responsibility.

8. Be fluid

Women are cyclical. Their hormones change, their moods and focus change. Our cycles are not something we should fight and struggle against, as that is tantamount to struggling against your own body. Equally, our cycles should not be allowed to rule our lives. We have to make the decisions to understand our bodies and what they need. We need to take advantage of the different parts of our cycle.

I am only just starting to understand my own mood and focus changes, but already the difference it has made is amazing. Instead of struggling to complete tasks that I ’should’ do, I do the tasks that are related to my focus. I’ve noticed that during the first half of the cycle I am very sociable, very outward orientated, and very goal focused. During the second half I draw inwards, I become more concerned with myself, my immediate environment, and my health.

Now clearly I can’t quit working for two weeks out of every four, but what I can do is ensure that difficult and time-consuming tasks are completed in the first half of my cycle, and that easier or more personal projects are completed in the second half.

Listen to your body. It knows what it needs.

9. Eat Well

I’ve rarely met a woman who didn’t have some sort of issue with food. From fad diets to binging and detoxing, from hyper-controlled portion sizes to complete chaos. Food is a very fundamental part of our health and our social lives. The media in particular is very fickle when it comes to how it talks about women and their body shapes.

We all know that being undernourished is unhealthy and that being obese is unhealthy. There are a vast range of ideal weights however, and we all have one that is appropriate for us. Far more important than our weight is our happiness, our confidence and our personality.

Food is here to be enjoyed. It is here to be colorful, interesting and to replenish us. Half a celery stick and a piece of lettuce is not enough. It is much better to eat lots of varied foods, and exercise than it is to restrict calorie intake and remain sedentary.

Aim for optimum health, not optimum weight.

10. Accept your sexuality and love your body

You are beautiful. You are a sexual being. Enjoy sex, don’t do anything you don’t want to do, experiment, and don’t be afraid to take control once in a while. Sex is a wonderful thing, but it takes a bit of work and experimentation to understand it. Masturbation is a great way to gain confidence and knowledge before inviting someone else in. It’s okay to have one night stands as long as everyone is honest with each other, and everyone stays safe (use condoms!) It’s okay to wait for the one person you are sure about, even if it takes a while, as long as you are making yourself happy meanwhile. It’s okay to have fantasies. It’s okay to be single. It’s okay to be in relationship as long as you feel loved and safe.

Got comments? Disagree? Every woman is unique, and so is every man. So feel free to share your thoughts - they are all valuable!