It is 3 months now since I was able to set aside some time to get onto this blog. The reasons? Enough has happened in that time to provide enough material for 2 or 3 novels. The end result has been my online work has been confined to absolutely urgent essentials and maintenance only. Around me, a real life story has gone on which has involved my own health problem with a massive skin reaction on leg and foot, a jealous knife wielding youth who we were told was after my wife, witches, a 3am drug addict intruder/robber, and an oil from Witches Island which seems to have finally mastered my very painful skin problem.

In the same period we have moved from Palawan to Dumaguete to solve some of the problems that have beset us, only to encounter the night time intruder. Now, at last we are settled in our new home, and I can get back in the old routine and concentrate on writing and publishing. So, now I need to get motivated to the extreme to get things back on track.

After all the negatives that have happened, it would be easy to feel demoralized, but I'm not that sort of person. To restore my business to its former pre-problems level and take it up and beyond is self motivating. Fueling that determination is a wonderful piece of news, only confirmed a few days ago, that will be a major motivation in itself: my wife conceived just after we arrived in Dumaguete.

So, the problems are pretty much over and life goes on. Life itself should be all the motivation anyone needs.

Health and self improvement are topics that go hand in hand. Someone in poor or bad health is sure to experience more resistence in trying to improve themselves, than someone who is fit and healthy.

For somebody who is ambitious, caring for their health is something that should be ongoing. For personal reasons (I suffered very badly because of  the side effects of NSAID's back in the 1970's,) I have cared for my own health as much as possible since 1980. I try to keep up to date with what is happening in the alternative health industry, as well as in mainstream Western medicine.

Most of the news is bad, particularly coming out of the US. One of a long stream of bad news items caught my eye the other day. It concerned the level of pharmaceutical drug pollution in American water. Now, pollution in drinking water comes as no surprise to me. My experience of  water pollution in England showed that, and I have not drunk unfiltered tap water for over 20 years. Also, I would expect the US water supply to be just as polluted as the English water, with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, a residue from too intensive farming.

What is different and shocking about the latest news from the US is the nature of the pollution now tarnishing their water. According to Natural News "Analysis of tap water supplies in major metropolitan areas conducted by the Associated Press has revealed that the water supply in 24 major U.S. cities — serving over 40 million people — are contaminated with trace amounts of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-seizure medications, anti-inflammatory drugs, psychotropic drugs, pain medications and even caffeine".

With over 40% of Americans taking one or more medications every day, I suppose we should not be surprised that some of it gets into the drinking water. But this poses a threat to Americans, as it may well contribute to the downward spiral in health in the country. Unwittingly taking a trickle of a drug cocktail every day will have, so far unknown, consequences. But if I were one of those Americans trying to keep fit, healthy and competitive, I would not be at all happy that I have been subjected to a drug cocktail.

Looking at this on a national and international scale, though,  those countries who do not have such a burden of over medication will gain a slight competitive edge. Personally, though, I would rather see our American competitors have access to a healthy water supply, and freedom from unwanted drugs.

Positive thinking is one of the linchpins of self improvement, although you will always find someone who dismisses the whole concept as nonsense. In practice, I am not one of those dismissive people. I am absolutely sure that thinking postively is an essential element of bettering oneself. Think negatively too often, and your motivation will surely suffer. After all, if you are drowning yourself in negative thoughts, you are hardly likely to feel very motivated, are you?

There may be some people in the world who never have a negative thought. I think that those who are blessed with such an existence have indeed blessed themselves through mastering their spirituality. They are most likely to lead a spiritual existence in a part of Asia, rather than in the West, and have mastered some form of deep meditation. That is not certain, of course, but is most likely. There may be nobody in the world who never succumbs to negative thinking. That would be sad, so I prefer to think that some such people exist.

For the rest of us, even though we may generally have a positive outlook, a drift into negative thoughts is likely to happen every now and then. On balance, positive thinking may be our norm, but there are times when we lapse into a moment, or longer, of self pity and negative thinking. So, how should we deal with that.

My own way to deal with such lapses is to use self reprimand. I find that it is now automatic, drawing on the fundamental knowledge that I have every reason to celebrate the truly important aspects of my life. I have  a wonderful wife who is about the most positive, and the nicest, person I have ever met. If I wake up next to her with the mere hint of a negative thought, I just mutter to myself inwardly: "Don't be so **** silly." The **** can be any of several mild expletives we use in England. If, during the day I start to get negative for whatever reason, to feel a bit down, I do exactly the same thing. I will even say it out loud if I am alone.

I always know that soon I will have the company of my bright and cheerful wife, or our delightful and entertaining 4 year old daughter will breeze into my "office" (which is also her bedroom). How dare I have negative thoughts!

It's a few weeks since my last post and that painful foot has been dominating my life. It is "only" a skin problem, following a severe allergic reaction to a skin ointment after an insect bite. Some insect bite! I had always seemed hated by insects, even the mosquitoes on the tropical island where I live avoided me like the plague. Then along came this tiny almost invisible nik-nik, hiding in the grass as the rainy season started in our new home. The bite came, in an hour or two it had opened into a wound, and within a few hours was an inch diameter open wound. Congrats to the insect, it is obviously quite an achiever, as are his mates who he (or she) has sent along since. As for me, I was struggling with my own daily motivation.

Last year, I was stuck indoors from August to December in pain levels ranging from very sore to total agony. For 6 weeks I was unable to walk to the computer, and was using my office chair as a wheelchair. Once there, all I could do was check email and a few stats, and wheel myself back to bed. It was like having third degree burns almost up to my knee. Somehow, though, I had to keep going. My income was at severe risk the longer I went without doing any new work.

While everyone around me thought I was dying, I remained unworried by the condition itself. My wife had seen someone in her home province die with a similar looking leg. I was more concerned about getting back to work. After all, I only needed my brain and fingers, and "work" was literally a few metres away.

For the first three months of those four, motivation each day was quite easy, as I saw my income rise, each month being double the same month in 2006. I began to wonder if I should stay on the bed forever and become a billionaire. At the end of the third month, though, it all came crashing down along with my income.

That  "crash" became a new motivation. One thing I have found about myself is that I thrive in adversity. If something bad happens, whether not being well or something else, it motivates me no end, even though I may mutter a naughty word or two in the process.

I have always found adversity to be a great motivator, throughout my life. Many years ago, a friend remarked that if I fell in a dung heap, I would get up smelling of roses. So, here's to the latest dung heap and its infestations of tropical insects, and more importantly to the fresh smell of roses to come. Why should I need more motivation than that?

For this post, I will break away from the theme of the Global self improvement challenge from English speaking Asia. Why? Quite simply I have a very sore foot that is making it difficult to write any original material. Concentration has gone out of the window and I am in no condition to chase after it!

So, I am just dropping by today to let you have a small gift, a free PDF report called Self Help Tips Shared. This report is just an introduction to the world of self development. It covers such topics as reviewing the past, forming a plan for the future, setting and montitoring goals, embracing change and a whole lot more. I will be bringing such reports to you from time to time, so be sure to subscribe to the blog if you want more.

Here's the link: http://www.routes-to-self-improvement.com/report_selfhelp.pdf

As always, if it helps one person make progress in their lives, then it is all worthwhile.

During some recent research, I was checking out  trends in the self improvement arena. As part of that, I was using Google's useful tool to find out what people were searching on, and how the patterns of behaviour were changing. One result that caught my eye was the trend in searches for "self improvement"; even more, the analysis given by Google of what regions those searches were coming from. I have no way of verifying the accuracy of Google's tool, but I am sure that it is improving all the time.

The screen shot below is from a Google Trends search on self improvement for all regions.

Ignore the period before mid 2006, Google was obviously still developing this tool and gathering data. Since then, the number of searches has been quite steady. Of course, there are many other search terms, under the umbrella of self improvement, that people might use, but I am showing these charts to illustrate a point. That point comes out in the chart below, which Google automatically creates.

This chart shows the top 9 countries for sources of the search term I used: "self improvement." 

You do not need a geography degree to see that the first three countries, Malaysia, India and Singapore, are all in Asia. Another thing they have in common is that they were all British colonies until independence in 1947 (India) and 1957 (Malaysia), with Singapore breaking away from the rest of the Malaysian states shortly after. By then, English had become a second or third language for a large part of the educated population.

Singapore is already a modern economic hub for the region, while Malaysia is determined to follow suit in becoming a fully developed country by 2020. Both have small populations. India has a massive population, but is equally capable of growing its economy for decades to come. Coming from Britain it may be nice to think that the progress of these countries is due to British occupation. That is not so. Singapore and Malaysia were left in poor condition when the British left, so it is the people who remained who take the credit for the progress into modernity since. The same applies to India as it transforms itself into a more modern economy.

Nothing can be proved with these charts, but they do indicate the desire of  people in Malaysia, Singapore and India to better themselves. Competing Western businesses will suffer long term if they ignore their determination, industriousness and patience  in improving their status.

I am sure this is a topic I will be coming back to next time.

The world of self improvement as a market place tends to focus on fame, business, wealth and high profile achievements. Certainly, that is the case in the western world. The on the ground reality, though, is very different. Everybody in the world has the potential to improve their lot, however humble it may be.

One inspiring example I came across last month was Sammy Gitau, a former Kenyan slum dweller who found a Manchester University prospectus on a rubbish tip. That was his inspiration for the dream of studying at the university one day. Many years later, his determination overcame massive odds, and he not only went to Manchester but graduated from the university last year.

Sammy' s example itself can hopefully be an inspiration to others in similar, worse, or only slightly better situations. For billions of people, being able to increase their income by only $50 a month can make the difference between extreme poverty and living rather well. Such people would rightfully delight at their own success at doing so.

Many self development “commentators” and “specialists” in the industrialized nations might well frown at that in a dismissive and snobbish way. However, self development is there for everybody to seize, as Sammy Gitau showed in such a fine way.

As it happened, Sammy came from a very poor background in Africa; but it is not from Africa alone that the Western economies, in the long run, face competition from determined individuals. Asia, of course, has been steadily becoming an economic powerhouse over recent years. It is only the beginning, and it is already having an impact on the self improvement market.

Next time, I will be looking at self improvement trends in Asia, especially India, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.