DianaFr

Just out of curiosity - what drives you to practice spirituality to such an extent?

No, they are not I've literally taken multiple courses for coaches on niching and this is what I've learned. Took a while to wrap my brain around it. A niche is a specific group of people you serve with your ideal client being one particular person within that group. You end up creating all your content with that one person in mind. A niche helps you narrow down your client search - if you want to serve, let's say, white collar office workers, you market yourself in places they hang around the most. If you would consider life quality coaching as your niche, you could theoretically target every single person on the planet which would make your marketing efforts futile. Nobody will hear you because nobody will feel specifically addressed by your message. That's the point of a niche - to help people hear you amongst the myriads of messages they receive every day. You achieve that by targeting a specific demographic by talking to them in their language.

Depends on the type of people you socialize with. "You get hooked on parties, mindless talks, and casual sex" - this is a very specific type of demographic. I don't know many things that feel better than being on the same wavelength with another person, sharing insightful moments, maybe working together towards a common goal. "Your mind gets infected with their way of thinking" - the solution for this is to surround yourself with people you respect and who have complementary skills and worldviews so you all foster each other's growth. You realize you can't make it alone and that you even don't want to since it's way more fulfilling to go the distance together. And this is coming from me - a life-long social anxiety sufferer. My condition has taught me to deeply appreciate human contact.

Life quality, mindset, habit, wellness coaching - these are not niches. "I help overworked mothers regain confidence about their bodies" "Is your 9 to 5 sucking all the life out of you? I help you improve your vitality so you never run out of energy for what truly matters" A few silly examples of how a niche of a health expert could sound like. A specific target audience + their pain + their gain. People are never going to buy coaching. It's not food, they don't need it. They will, however, buy a solution to their pain or problem. That's what you have to sell.

I switched from paper notebooks to Remarkable 2. I write a lot and used to have multiple notebooks and a ton of notes which were difficult to manage. I keep a diary for twenty years now and I have a big box with all the notebooks that basically document all my life. Now all my notes are organized in one place plus I can carry all of them with me. I do use software as well, but nothing replaces handwriting for me.

My tips for coach training. 1) Accept the fact - most coaches fail. I think the statistics was that 80% of coaches fail within the first two years (it's the average time before their resources run out). 2) The bar for entry is ridiculously low - anybody can call themselves a coach these days and most of these "coaches" don't even know what coaching is and is not. So your competition will be high and you will likely have to work hard to convince your potential clients why you are not a yet another 'I will help you' artist. 3) Accept that marketing will be at least 50% of how you spend your time as a coach (likely more during the early phases of your business). So you will need good coaching skills and even better marketing skills (there are plenty of great coaches with no clients because they don't know how to sell themselves). I may be wrong, of course, but the way you describe your coaching purpose makes me think that you think people want to buy coaching to get their lives fixed. But they don't. Most people have no idea they need coaching, so they are not going to buy it. They will buy a specific solution to the specific problem that's bothering them. And another thing - your target group should be able to afford your rates. If they can't, you don't have a sustainable business model. 4) Your coach training program should be ICF-approved. 5) Did you mention you were living in UK? I suggest you check out the Animas Center for Coaching. I got my transformational coach qualification from them. This school checked all my boxes both before and after training. They also have a great community support where you can continue to attend trainings for free how much you like. 6) Do think about the business aspect. In addition to coach training, I invested in Marie Forleo B-School. I may be biased, but I highly recommend this program. I also hired a social media coach (since I sucked at it). Just be prepared you may need extra help to get going.

So you have a few quite specific goals to work on! The video project sounds like one that only needs a plan and a take-off. The path tends to show itself as we go, so it doesn't even matter that you don't have the money just yet. You also say that you feel stuck, like you can't do anything. What do you mean?

Okay, we know now that there are not physical restrictions that are holding you back. Then what is? The question is - are you satisfied with your current life and yourself? If you don't change anything, will you like your life 10 years, 20 years from now? If you are generally okay and just looking for approval - you do you. It's certainly not my cup of tea, but, hey, people have different desires and that's fine. If you don't like your life, however, only you can change it. It doesn't mean you can't ask for support, but you gotta show initiative. So what is it that you ultimately want?

Gosh, if I heard this from my son, I would slap him in the face and throw him out of the house - so that he wastes not a single minute more of his and my time. Do you have a disability or other condition that makes you unable to work? Are you a minor? Did your parents lock you up in their basement to prevent you from going to university? If none of this is about you, I don't see how it could be your parent's fault. I also don't see a good reason for pointing fingers, unless you're actively healing and letting go of self-blame. If you're a sane and physically healthy adult human being not living under extreme conditions, nothing is holding you back from having a car, job and education but you. Sorry, a bit rough, but time to grow up is now.

100%

I can give you some suggestions as a very sensitive and anxious person who are used to working by herself, currently has many committments and just can't afford to blow any of them because of emotions getting the best of her. 1) Use your negative emotions to your advantage. Don't just passively read the news worrying. Do something about it, anything. Find movements, organizations, platforms that deel with helping victims of military conflict and get involved! Even posting about it and getting your word out may be very helpful. Your friends are in danger, people are dying, the war is spreading to more places - of course you can't take it and just live as nothing happened! What is one realistic thing you can do to help this situation? 2) Working alone - no better suggestion that the good old discipline. Give yourself deadlines, have a non-negotiable work schedule, plan your work for the day, week and month, create KPIs and measure them, incorporate rewards etc. 3) Your work must be meaningful to you. You can't expect the circumstances and your mood to always be perfect, but things must be done regardless. For example, I must take care of my child and meet his needs every single day no matter how tired I am or how bad the global situation is. If your work has an impact that's bigger than you, you will keep at it no matter what. 4) Optimize your work conditions and look for support. Find other creators who work by themselves - you can keep each other stay motivated (you even had an offer in this very thread!) If you're sitting all day in your room by yourself, go work at the coffee shop or library occasionally - this will make you more productive. 5) Create space for your feelings. What must you do to vent, make sense of your emotions and clear your mind? Do it regularly as part of your mental/emotional hygene, so it doesn't mess with your responsibilities. 6) Work very hard but rest even harder. Just try to make sure one doesn't interfere with the other.

I personally think that celebrities endorsing a brand has a lot to do with a desire for admiration that we all have. First of all, there can only be brands and celebrities if there are enough people who recognize them as such and "vote" for them with their money, time, energy etc. People tend to idolize celebrities by viewing them as embodiment of qualities they don't see in themselves but desire to have. So if a celebrity endorses a certain product, I might thought - oh, she loves this product and I want to be just like her so I will also get it to resemble her more. Subconsciously I may be buying back a part of myself that I long to have. As for the brand-celebrity match, I think it has to do with identity. Brands have strong and very specific identities. Just like celebrities. Some of them are a perfect match.

Girls love guys for their personalities. Girls love guys who make them laugh and make them feel safe, whatever that means to the particular girl. My question is - what do you mean by love? Is it attention/attraction, a committed romantic love or something in between? Idk, I obviously don't understand much about the current terms of dating, but I think having a wholesome life (friends, hobbies, passions etc.) is something one does by default, not as some strategy for winning attention. If your main motivation with women is to get laid, you will either experience a lot of rejection or you will attract women who are not very high value or are wounded in some way. You can significantly increase your chances of having plenty of sex if you have a long-term relationship you are both actually invested in. Thus, you could consider switching your focus from "girls" to "THE girl". What that means is to actually starting to identify faces and names and personalities from the otherwise faceless pool of girls. Because every girl is a wholesome person as well, just like you.

Haha, what if normies were the ones who hold the truth? This is a thought I've been entertaining for some time since I discovered how my ego was using spiritual development as a way to be superior over others. I'm way more humble now and I'm learning to respect the person regardless of their journey. They're probably way more advanced than me in a number of other areas, so who am I to judge. I'm practicing connection now. It throws half of the spiritual stuff out the window

What being good with women mean to you? Relationships are literally the foundation of human life, including romantic ones. It can only add to your spirituality, as long as you're up for the ride.

You have raised an interesting question... As somebody who has gone through the academic education system, I can definitely agree with you - it can be all the things you mentioned, bullshit, false, biased. It's a system, a very hierarchical one, and it's not exempt from having the weaknesses that such systems tend to possess. But there's also a lot of positives. Community and ability to work side by side with brilliant people, access to research infrastructure and resources, the possibility to lay foundation for an academic career (you get to practice and publish your research in peer-reviewed journals). I personally love the "spirit" of academic environment, the part of it that embodies the true spirit of science beyond the system - it can't really be replicated by working by yourself. I've been through ups and downs academically, and now my take is - don't expect from the system something it is not but focus on things you can and want to take to build something valuable (for yourself, your colleagues, the society, the field of research you choose). It's a very good platform to grow from and experience awesome things with. But there's down side as well, just like any other thing in life. It's up to you, where you put your focus.

You can't really accidentally forget or let go of the perception of temperature. You have temperature receptors built in your body and your brain does the math for you consistently. Also, the system is set up in a way as to preserve the structure of your tissue. Bad things start to happen to your proteins (they literally make up your whole body) even at slight temperature changes. So there's an in-built alarm system as the body strives to preserve homeostasis as much as possible. As for other creatures, yes, nature is quite fascinating, isn't she? I believe tardigrades are considered to be the toughest of them all

I'm not an expert on the topic, but since you do this research for your bachelor thesis, I suggest you use a bit more scientific approach, as that will make the information you gather more usable. You could start by checking out the current theories on brand psychology, consumer psychology, cognition, maybe priming, mental schemes and stuff like that. That should give you an good idea on what a "brand'' is in general and what neural mechanisms are involved. Then go ahead and formulate your hypothesis based on this insight (you will also have identified gaps or controversies in the existing research that you could specifically focus on). Also, your research question is quite broad. It could help to narrow it down a bit and maybe focus on a particular population, or look at the culture context or study a particular brand. That will add much more value and depth to your work. You could then draw up a survey targeting your specific population including questions to test your hypothesis. Or you could do interviews. Or focus groups. Collect data in a controlled way. It should be quite nice at the end

This child could be an opportunity for you to take a look at your own relationship with your parents and consider accepting responsibility for something that is beyond yourself and your individual needs. This is an opportunity for you to mature. The thing is you are responsible for this child. Of course, it’s up to you to decide what you will do with this responsibility.

To be honest, the impression I have about you from how you have described your situation makes me want to suggest that you don’t focus on advice given by other people too much. My instinct says that the way you currently feel has a lot to do with your journey and all the personal insights you are meant to have. It is something that can be approached and discovered from inside by becoming more and more aware of your inner world and the role your negative feelings have. It’s like you consciously know what you want and you do your best to achieve that, but a huge part of you is lost, it’s not taking part in your activities, and there could be a deep longing to find yourself. If I can go against what I said about you not taking advice and still give you one, I would like you to stop reading and start writing instead. To find a way to express your feelings and make sense of them. It could be great if you could find somebody to talk to, somebody who could listen to you without imposing their world view and help you see yourself. Something tells me this could be important to you.

I remember when I was about 20, I was once on my way home from university and this sudden realization hit me – is this really all there is? Is this going to be my life? Is this it? It was a weird feeling because since the age of 16 my dream was to study biology, and now I was doing it, I was studying biology, but did it make me happy? No, it didn’t! Even doing the one thing that absolutely captivated me couldn’t make me happy. I later found out that indeed there was so much more to life than my 20-year-old self could have ever captured, happiness included. So keep asking those big questions and keep looking for what is missing. The point of life is that there is none, unless you take the time to make the point.

Pop culture horoscopes and zodiac sign descriptions are there for fun only. If you want to take astrology more seriously, you should study your natal chart. Your basic personality is best described by your Sun, Moon and Ascendant (their sign and house placement, aspects with others planets, conjunctions with fixed starts, asteroids, etc.). But you also have other planets and points that add even more variety. I used to study Western astrology. What I found especially insightful was personality astrology and natal chart analysis, as well as synastry analysis (composite charts are quite interesting and I find them quite accurate). However, I wasn’t able to find any evidence for planetary transits affecting my life in any specific way (maybe except for the slow moving ones in some occasions). I don’t practice astrology these days any more. But there is definitely something to it. One has to be passionate and in love with astrology. Then it reveals it's true nature and potential.

@charlie cho Haha, this is so obvious, isn't it? Yes, this wound is still pretty raw. I didn’t intend to come across as pessimistic as that. What I wanted to say is that before you can apply your high consciousness values in your work as a scientist and really make a difference, you could be asked to deal with a whole range of practical issues which may turn out to be bigger than you. Please, don’t be disheartened by my inability to make it. There are many others who succeed and thrive as scientists. If you are fired up and have a vision for this thing, I would do nothing but encourage you to go for it all in. Maybe don’t expect your career to be in a certain way, because you never know how things my turn out. Other than that you will still gain a lot, if only you will be willing to invest yourself. Definitely! If you do it seriously, you will have a great opportunity to develop a whole range of personal qualities way beyond your actual subject. This can be a bit tricky. Of course, you need good and broad background knowledge in order to see your work in a bigger perspective. But if you want to really contribute, you have a better chance to do that in a specific niche you’re an expert of. But it takes time and a lot of learning from many disciplines to become a good expert in one. Certainly. Anything that can help you become better and embody your ideals. Not necessarily. Being good at memorizing things is of course very helpful, especially when it comes to things like chemistry or human anatomy, for example. But is that a deal breaker if you’re not? No. It all comes down to knowing your strengths and the way you learn best and then utilizing those strengths as much as possible. But most likely some level of rote learning will be necessary. There’s a huge difference, in my opinion. Studying theory from books is like reading about how to have fun or how chocolate tastes. Doing experiments is like having a bite of that chocolate and having that fun yourself. Through engagement, you can see how things actually work yourself and you can start to interact with them in your own way. But I may be very biased on this. I hated reading theory, it made me sleepy and tired. But I loved working in lab and spent there as much time as I could. I assume there are people who prefer other way around. You should not invest in buying your own equipment. It needs to be properly calibrated and maintained in order to give reliable results. You should enrol in college and get access to their facilities. Before you can do that, keep studying books.

@Leo Gura This is where I totally agree with you. There is just this one thing that bugs me. On one hand there is improvement of society, the bigger meaning behind one’s work. But on the other hand, there is the personal journey and all the limitations that must be dealt with on a personal level. And there must be a healthy balance, since you need to be somewhat well on a personal level in order to endure hardships of changing society. I remember reading somewhere (I believe it was one of physics professors who said that) that if you have pushed the wall the whole day but the wall hasn’t moved an inch, you have not done any work. This really struck me. And I have ever since pondered what the right balance between ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ should be. When ‘hard’ means ‘just keep pushing and you will eventually get there’ and when it means ‘better stop, you not gonna achieve anything’. How do you know the difference.

One of the main problems with being a good scientist is the fact that you need a serious infrastructure to do science in the first place. You don’t just decide to be a good scientist and start doing science at home from your laptop. You need to enter an educational system and earn at least a master’s degree in your chosen field. Then you can start to look for PhD opportunities and do a more serious hands-on research. You need to secure funding for your PhD and your research at a certain institution. You need to make sure you publish at respectable enough journals to earn your PhD degree. Then you can apply for a funding as a post doc. After that, if you’re lucky enough to secure a permanent position at a university, your ability to do research will depend on your ability to attract money for your research which will depend on your ability to publish at high impact journals. And by the way, if you started right after highschool and had no significant delays, you are already in your late thirties when you have finally finished your educational journey and become a full-fledged scientist. At least, that’s how an average scientific career looks in my field. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete my PhD thesis because of lack of funding. My field (molecular biology, genetic engineering, cell biology and biotechnology) is insanely expensive and you need to have fancy equipment and expensive reagents to conduct your lab experiments. The science funding in my country is close to non-existent, and on top of that my professor retired, our research group were split apart and I eventually left six years after I started my PhD. I was already 30 at the time and too tired to start it all over somewhere else. What I want to say with my story is that sometimes your ideals and good intentions to become a good scientist are crashed against a system which doesn’t necessarily hold any value for you or your ideals. It’s super hard to speak about enlightment when yet another one of your research proposals has been turned down for funding, your supervisor doesn’t give a sh*t about you, you cannot get your results published because you can’t buy reagents to do the additional tests required by the journal, and you have just received a notice for salary suspension since there is no more money in your group’s salary fund. Yes, I’m complaining here, but in moments like these your high-consciousness world-changing intentions go out the window and you start asking yourself why the heck am I doing all this. Maybe I was extremely unlucky and never meant to become a scientist, but becoming a scientist can be H-A-R-D. The practical aspects of it are sometimes totally incompatible with high-consciousness work.