Neophobia is the irrational fear of new things or experiences. We all have this tendency. No matter how much you think of yourself as a total risk-taker and lover of new things, you will feel this tendency in some areas of your life, I guarantee it.

The reason I can guarantee it, is that we are all subject to two other tendencies:

• We only do what we think is possible to do. The possibility of some actions is simply so out of reach of our imagination, that we will not even consider it. Before laser assisted eye surgery to correct short-sightedness and other refractive eye defects, I am sure that many thought they would have to wear glasses or contact lenses for the rest of their lives.

You might have heard of the “Law of Attraction” aka the “teachings of Abraham”. For those of you who haven’t, this is the executive summary: Whatever you focus your thoughts intensely on, you will attract into your life. So given this law, all you have to do to get rich is some focused thinking about getting rich and how you would live your life of affluence - money will then automatically be attracted to your life, sounds nice doesn’t it?

Well, that is actually what the proponents of the Law of Attraction will tell you. I just happen to think that it is a huge scam.

Yeah, I know - I’ve been neglecting my blog. I have not felt very inspired to write articles, and true to my own philosophy of not writing without something to say, I have focused my efforts elsewhere.

A couple of days ago I attended a teambuilding event at Ebeltoft Zoo arranged by my employer. Ebeltoft Zoo is an animal park where the animals are given large spaces to live in instead of cages and they have a special focus on saving endangered species. It was a great event and I really enjoyed the nice natural surroundings and experienced the many different animals. Nature has incredible variety! It must be a personally very rewarding experience to work in such a place and the staff there told us many interesting and funny stories about the animals.

I came across an article by Steve Pavlina about abstinence from watching TV and it is actually something I have personal experience with. When I was 15 I went to a boarding school for one year and it was a very educational experience. We lived in small houses with space enough for 8 boys and girls - or in my case just boys, as I was unfortunate enough to be placed in the only house that was all boys. Although the house had a TV we could use, there were so many social activities that it was hardly ever in use. I lived at the school for one year and saw practically no TV at all. It made me realize a few interesting points about watching television.

An article about the structure of the brain might not at first sound like it has much to do with personal development; rather, you would perhaps think it is intended for neuroscientists or researchers in artificial intelligence. If that is what you think, this article will hopefully be an eye-opener for you as the structure of the brain has everything to do with personal development.

When you hear that large corporations do not pay their taxes due to some loophole in tax law, do you feel that it would be ok for you to cheat on your taxes too? When you are at a place where there is litter everywhere, do you still make sure that your waste is put properly in the trash can or do you throw it on the ground like everybody else? When scientists warn that the human effects on the climate can have dire consequences do you try to behave in a more environmentally friendly way, or do you think that it is no use as long as nobody else do the same? We all know the “politically correct” answers to these questions but your own personal view on questions like these might be influenced by a common psychological effect, that of implicit peer pressure.

Have you noticed your breathing lately? When you read that question you probably just became quite aware of your breathing. Perhaps it can now even be a bit difficult for you to refrain from watching each breath you take. The same effect can be experienced when you walk down the street in deep thoughts and suddenly you wonder how your walk looks to others. The result of your thoughts is a conscious focus on putting one foot in front of another that makes it quite difficult to walk naturally. This may lead you to believe that breathing is something that is not to be messed with and will perform best when you simply ignore it. If you hold such a belief you are really missing out on a big opportunity to improve the quality of your life.

With the limited amount of time we are given on this earth, the individual moments become important in the quest for maximizing the quality of your life. There are as many opinions on what constitutes a quality life as there are people but even if you have a firm idea of how you want to live your life, it is still important that you get the execution right. Through time management, one tries to spend the individual moments that life is made of in the best possible way, so skills in the area of time management is an important life-skill.

You are faced with risk in every thing you do and at every moment in time. There is nothing you can do about it but try to manage it. Taking a stand and consciously deciding to improve your life through personal development is a case where you stop living entirely in reaction to your circumstances and use your actions to try and control those circumstances. This will reduce the randomness of your circumstances and in a sense this is a kind of risk management. When you decide that you will only eat healthy food and actually implement this idea, you reduce the risk of attracting a lot of diseases and health problems - and similarly in the areas of finances, spirituality and relationships a focus on personal development can simultaneously reduce the amount of risk in your life.