Ever felt unmotivated and simply not in the mood to do anything?
Yeah, me too. Even though I'm always motivated and all ready to take action on my goals, I have times when I feel disconnected with my inner muse. No matter whether you are Seth Godin or Robert Kiyosaki, all of us have our own down times where we don't feel like doing anything. It happens. Our productivity plummets to an all-time personal low as we drag our feet around on things we should be doing. It can be frustrating.
When left unchecked, this lack of motivation can get out of hand. Rather than let your productivity yo-yo based on your mood, you should learn to get in control of the situation and counteract with self-motivation strategies. Below are my 9 strategies to deal with situations of low motivation, and they have been proven to work wonders for myself, my readers and my clients.
One of the biggest reasons why we are not motivated is because we are not connected with our vision. Specifically, the vision of what we are trying to achieve. What are you working so hard for every day? What do you want to get out of this? What is your dream outcome? What are your end goals? What will excite and spur you to move forward?
While I'm busy writing and growing my blog, The Personal Excellence Blog, every day, I never lose sight of my end vision. My vision is to have a reader base of millions, travel around the world to speak to people, launch my books and touch the lives of people everywhere. I may not be there yet, but I know I'll reach there as long as I keep working hard. For example, after 1.5 years, The Personal Excellence Blog is now read by over 100,000 readers a month and I'm an established personal excellence coach and speaker in my country (Singapore). Even just typing about this now is making me feel very inspired by what's ahead. With a big vision, it spurs me to create endlessly, rather than settle for status quo.
Lack of motivation can come from losing sight of the "WHY" - why we do the things we do. We are so busy with work and managing different areas of our life that every day turns into a routine of activities. It becomes a race to get as much done, without consciously evaluating why we are doing all these things.
Why do you live? Why do you do the things you do? Why do you slough away at work? What is it for? What do you want to get out of it? These are all important questions to ask ourselves, and important questions to have answers to. If you don't have the answers, perhaps it's time to seek them out.
Discovering my life purpose in 2006 has given me endless drive in life. I discovered my passion in helping others to achieve excellence and live their best life. This realization has led me to make bold life decisions, such as quitting my regular, well paying job 2 years ago to pursue my passion in personal development. Since then, I have started The Personal Excellence Blog, coached hundreds to achieve excellence in their lives and started The School of Personal Excellence (my training school). This "WHY" drives me every day to reach greater heights and accomplish more.
Your goals should come with deadlines so that you will be spurred into action. After all, by Parkinson's Law, work takes as long as the amount of time we give to it. Not setting a date can cause us to slack off and dwindle on the task. If we set deadlines, we will be triggered to get things done by that date. Specifically when do you want to achieve this? What is your cut-off date? Subsequently, set the deadlines for your weekly and daily tasks too.
Some of my clients told me they don't want to set deadlines as they don't want to stress themselves into achieving the goals. That's a cop-out. Stress from deadlines is only because you attach yourself to the outcome. The deadlines for your goals are meant to be reference points so you can achieve them. You should strive to achieve them, but not beat yourself to a pulp if you don't achieve it. Commit to your deadlines, but don't attach yourself to them.
Sometimes when we feel unmotivated, it's cue for a rest. Just like a car with no fuel needs to be refueled, if we run out of energy, we need rest. I was in a slump before and it took me a couple of months to realize it was because I wasn't resting at all. I was just working day-after-day and my mind and soul rebelled by taking a hiatus. I couldn't get new ideas for my writing and some items on my task list became chores rather than enjoyments.
So, stop doing whatever you are doing and take a breather. What are some of your hobbies? Spend some time doing them. Get away from your computer too. Engage yourself in things that interest you. Go take a walk in the park, hang out with friends, listen to music, rest, watch a movie, etc. Simply relax. It'll give you renewed focus and energy.
Sometimes, lack of motivation is a sign from our subconscious that we're not doing things we love. Do you spend a good portion of your time doing things you don't like? This applies to anything, from hanging out with people you don't like, or doing work you are passionless towards.
You don't need to do things you don't like to do. If you feel dead towards something, then stop doing it. There's no point doing things you don't love. Life is too short to be spending it that way. Create an action plan to get out of things you don't like and move towards things you love. As long as you keep yourself stuck with things you feel dead towards, you will forever be held back by them.
For example, after working 2 years at my last job, I reached a state where I completely dreaded work. I was working in brand management and skincare, which was very different from my passion to help others grow. I loved weekends and hated Mondays. I would be hauling myself out of bed and dreading my feet to work during weekdays. Finally, I told myself - this was it. I submitted my resignation letter and left in Sep '08. I never looked back ever since.
Surround yourself in inspirational materials, such as self help books, podcasts, inspirational stories of people, inspirational speeches, motivational quotes and personal development blogs like Dumb Little Man, Zenhabits, Lifehack and Seth Godin's blog. Every morning, I set aside some time to read personal development blogs as well as people who inspire me. In my room, I have motivational quotes plastered on my noticeboard, and I have my vision board of my biggest dreams and goals in life. Just looking at them is a simple reminder why I do the things I do (tip #2).
Here are some inspirational materials you can start off with:
* The Way to Happiness
* Steve Job's famous Standford Commencement Speech
* Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
* Philosopher's Notes is a great podcast resource - it condenses the wisdom of self help books into short podcasts
* 101 Inspiring Quotes of All Time (free ebook with over 300+ quotes - Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time)
One of the best ways to motivate yourself into action is through competition. When you are in lone man's island, it's easy to descend into a mode of stagnancy. However, when in the face of competition, you will push yourself to do better and better. Look at your goals, and see how you can spice things up with competition. Trying to lose weight? Get friends with similar goals to join in and see who can reach the goal the fastest. Want to grow your business? Benchmark yourself with some of the top people in the industry.
As Jim Rohn says, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Do you notice that when you are around positive people, you become more positive afterward, even when you are by yourself? Similarly, when you hang around motivated people, their vibes will rub off you naturally too. It's kind of like diffusion. You will get motivated and be triggered to take action.
When I'm around higher consciousness people, I consequently get more ideas and feel more stirred than usual to act on my goals. This is why I make it a point to surround myself with positive friends. Even my browser favorites are filled up with blogs and writings of positive people. Reading them almost always give me added inspiration.
What are the things you are grateful for in your life? Your family? Your friends? Your health? Your life? What are the things that make you happy to be alive and motivate you to live? There are so many things I'm grateful for that the list is endless. I love being alive. I love living my passion, exercising, nightfall, the morning air, sunrises, my friends, my room, my elmo (a birthday gift when I was 15), living a vegan lifestyle, and many, many more. Being aware of these inspires me live life to the fullest.
List down all the things that you feel grateful for in a document somewhere. Feel the gratitude and love for those things that you have. Chances are, there is at least someone in this world who wants this but is unable to get it. Whenever you feel unmotivated, look at this list. It'll remind you of things worth living for.
Written on 5/13/2010 by Celestine Chua. Celestine writes at The Personal Excellence Blog, where she shares her best advice on how to achieve personal excellence and live your best life. Get her RSS feed here and add her on Twitter @celestinechua.
9 Proven Ways To Charge Up Your Motivation
Posted by SoMeOnE at 6:15 AM Labels: Development, Motivation, Success
7 Superpowers You Act Like You Have But Don't (And How That Messes You Up)
Posted by SoMeOnE at 6:22 AM Labels: Development, Fun
Growing up, I loved comic books. Not only would I read them, but I would spend hours daydreaming about what it would be like if I was a superhero with amazing superpowers. Of course with adulthood comes reality, and so when I grew up I knew it was time to stop dreaming about superpowers.
What is interesting though is how many people - adults - still act as is they have superpowers. They know they don't have them, but they still try to do things that can only happen in comic books.
Here is a list of seven superpowers that, even though they only exist in the comics, we all try to use from time to time. Unfortunately, the more of these we try to do, the less effective we become and the more we just get in our own way.
Comics are great and it can still be fun from time to time to imagine what it would be like to have superpowers. But when you are ready to come back to reality and move your life forward, let go of the wishing and focus on the simple actions you can actually take to get to where you want to go.
Mind control is exactly what it sounds like: the ability to take control of someone's mind. A person with mind control powers can force someone to do things against their will, forget events, and even make them fall in love. Sounds great until you think about what the world would be like if other people had mind control powers and could control you!
Even though mind control doesn't exist, many people still waste an inordinate amount of time wishing they could control what others think and do. If you have ever stressed over how someone would react to some news, or whether people would approve of a project you were working on, or simply whether a stranger likes you, then you know of what I speak.
You can not control other people. They are going to think what they think and do what they do, regardless of what you want. They may like you, they may hate you. They may approve, they may disapprove. The sooner you can stop worrying about and trying to control what others do, the sooner you can get on and live your life.
This is not to say that you should do whatever the heck you want with no care about anyone else's feelings. We live in a society, and being polite, courteous, and thoughtful are what make us civilized. However, all you can control is your own actions. Focus on what you can do, do your best, and stop worrying about other people's responses.
Body swappers were the heroes and villains who could "switch places" with someone else. They would take over a person's body and usually that person would take over theirs. Every single superhero comic at some point had a story with a "body swapper."
If we can learn anything from the large slate of Hollywood swapping movies (like Vice Versa, Freaky Friday, Like Father, Like Son, etc.) it's that everyone has their problems. When you compare yourself to someone else, it's very easy to focus on your negatives and their positives. It's not until you walk a mile in their shoes (or magically inhabit their body) that you realize that they have as many, if not more, problems as you do.
Stop trying to body swap. Instead, focus on what's currently good in your life. Take a minute to appreciate what you do have going for you. And when you find yourself becoming jealous of others, remember that everyone has problems and skeletons in their closet and those people may very well be jealous of you.
Have you ever had someone screw you over, and you then spent hours trying to figure out exactly "why" they did that? Wouldn't it be great to be able to read their minds and know for certain?
Mind reading is impossible, so we can't know for certain, but that doesn't stop us from making up giant stories about what people's motives and reasoning are. Sadly, these stories are rarely ever right. Even when they are right, they are usually only part of the story.
People are far too complicated for us to be able to easily assign underlying motives and intentions to their actions. When we try to, we usually just make the situation worse. So many people create tremendous stress and problems in their lives by obsessively trying to figure out why people behave the way they do. This is a lost cause.
The key to avoiding this is to criticize observable action, not hidden intent. If you say, "It hurts me when you make fun of my height," that's criticizing an observable action. They can not dispute that a) they made fun of your height and b) it hurt your feelings. If you say, "It hurts me when you try to make me look bad in front of everyone else by teasing me," that's criticizing intent. They can dispute that they were trying to make you look bad and come right back with, "I'm just playing, I'm not trying to make you look bad."
At the end of the day, you have no idea what is going on in someone's head. If you know them really well you might be able to guess, but you still could be wrong. If they are a stranger, you really have no clue. In either case, trying to figure it out is a lost cause. Deal with what you can know and observe, let go of the rest, and you will be a much happier person.
Precognition is the ability to see the future. If you had precognition, you would know exactly what was going to happen in the future and therefore you would not waste countless hours wondering and worrying about it.
Since no one can actually see the future, we are all forced to live with uncertainty. Admittedly, this is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Unfortunately, it is the only thing we can do.
Preparing for the future is one thing. Stressing about the future is entirely another. Planning and visualization are great tools, but wasting time stressing, worrying, and complaining about what "might" happen are life stealers. Sadly, the more time you spend in the present obsessing about the future, the less time you usually spend actually preparing to make the future better.
Plan for the future, but live in the present. The future will happen whether you want it to or not.
Ah, wouldn't life be sweet if we could hop in a DeLorean, go back in time, and fix our past mistakes? Of course, if science fiction has taught us anything it's that messing with the past is a bad idea. No matter how careful you are, the space time continuum is easily disrupted.
Even though time traveling to the past is a) a bad idea and b) impossible, so many of us waste time running over the past in our heads, replaying bad experiences by playing the "if only" game ("if only I had showed up on time!" "If only I said something different!" etc.), and overall just wishing things had been different.
Guess what? No amount of wishing is going to change the past. What's done is done. Observing the past for the purpose of learning from our mistakes is smart. Wallowing in the past and wishing things had gone different is crazy.
The next time you find yourself wallowing in the past, remind yourself that you can't change it and bring your focus back onto what you can do right now, in the present, to make things better.
Have you ever had a moment where you stopped and said, "man, my life sucks"? Probably; we all have. What did you do next? Did you curl up on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and a Law & Order marathon and just spend all day "wishing" your life was better? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it didn't get any better as a result...
Attempting to have reality altering magic is like attempting to time travel, only you actually can change the present! You might not be able to instantly change the present, but you can take actions right now to improve your situation.
Once you're in a downward spiral it becomes so easy to give up and just hope things will get better. Hoping and wishing are not strategies! Stop wishing and break out of the downward spiral by doing something, no matter how small, to change your situation. Even the smallest actions can build momentum that will "alter your reality."
The Hulk was the one superhero who could literally channel his rage. The Hulk's catch-phrase is, "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!" (yes, the Hulk refers to himself in the third person). Sadly, the Hulk is the only person who could turn his rage into something good. For the rest of us, rage usually just leads to hypertension, heart disease, and regret.
But boy, it sure is tempting to let ourselves explode, right? You have that moment when you feel your anger rising and you start daydreaming about letting it out. But from experience you probably know that when you do, you almost always regret it.
Giving in to rage usually only does two things:
* You do or say something you wish you didn't
* You just make the situation worse, as the other party is now responding to your anger
Channeling rage into exercise, productivity, or any other positive outlet is great. But giving in and acting out of anger is a sure way to just make things worse for everyone.
Instead of blowing up in rage, take a few breaths, remember the big picture, and do your best to let it go. You will almost always be happier in the long run.
Written on 5/5/2010 by Avish Parashar. Avish is the Motivational Smart Ass. As a speaker and on his blog, Avish makes people laugh while sharing with them simple ideas to make their lives easier and more successful. To read more of his ridiculous rantings on self improvement, watch videos of him in action, and download the free "How to Think Quick" MP3, visit http://www.MotivationalSmartAss.com
7 Life Changing Lessons Learned From Walt Disney
Posted by SoMeOnE at 5:27 AM Labels: Development, Motivation, Success
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was a film producer, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, international icon, and philanthropist.
Walt is well-known for his influence in the entertainment industry during the twentieth century. Walt co-founded Walt Disney Productions with his brother Roy O. Disney and became one of the most famous motion picture producers of all time.
The company that he co-founded is now known as “The Walt Disney Company” and has annual revenues of approximately $35 Billion (US).
Walt and members of his staff created a number of the world's most famous fictional characters. This includes Mickey Mouse, whose original voice was Walt himself.
Walt has won 26 Academy Awards and he has earned 59 nominations; he has more awards and nominations than any other individual. Additionally, Walt has won seven Emmy Awards, and he is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, China, Japan, and France.
Clearly there is a ton to learn from Walt Disney. Let's take a look at 7 Life-Changing Lessons from Walt Disney:
In Closing“A man should never neglect his family for business.”
Your family is your first business, and they should never be neglected in pursuit of "a dream." Your family must be part of your dream, and should remain within your focus. Never become so consumed in business affairs that you neglect the individuals whom you need most.“I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it.”
Competition makes you stronger, it makes you better, it keeps you on your toes. Never shrink away from competition; never fail to see the value of competition. Your competitors can provide you with more value than your friends. Learn from the competition, and you will grow.
It’s critical that you embrace competition as well as adversity, Walt Disney said, “All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”“Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”
You must follow your passion, if you’re doing it just for the money, it probably won’t last. Passion is what gives you the strength to overcome the obstacles associated with every dream. Passion is what keeps you going when everyone else is tired…money can't do that for you, only passion; passion is power.“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.”
Walt Disney said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Life is too short to spend it doing the possible. Learn to pursue the impossible, pursue what others say can’t be done, pursue what has never been done before, pursue your dreams, and turn them into a reality.
You must believe in the beauty of your dreams. Walt said, “When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” If you’re going to believe, you might as well believe all the way.“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
I always say that “well done” is better than “well said,” so quit talking and start doing! Quit planning and start practicing; a plan is good, a good plan is even better, but if that plan doesn’t get put into action it’s as useless as a four fingered glove. Learn to get into action, start today, whatever you’ve been postponing …just do it. If you wait for the perfect time, you’ll never accomplish anything.“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
Isaiah wrote, “Without a vision, the people perish.” But I think it’s worth noting that without people, the vision will perish. Never forget that you need people; never forget that your life is about serving others. When you serve others, you serve yourself.“Whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.”
Everyday you should become a little better than you were the day before. If you can become one percent better daily, you can recreate your life every 100 days. Learn to get better daily; look for ways to improve, to be kinder, more intelligent, and more helpful.
Let us remember that Walt Disney said, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Thank you for reading and be sure to pass this article along.
Written on 5/04/2010 by Mr. Self Development who is a motivational author that offers a practical guide to success and wealth; support him by visiting his blog at mrselfdevelopment.com or by subscribing to his feed.
Are you driven in life? Do you love to excel? I believe all of us do. We are born to be the best we can be and to make the best out of our lives.
When I was in high school, I wasn't exactly the kind of student teachers would like. I was truant, didn't do my homework and did badly on my examinations. I was lazy and unmotivated in school. However, after a while I realized that this wasn't who I wanted to be. This wasn't the life I saw myself leading. People around me were judging and negative, and I had enough of all of that crap. I had enough of being discriminated against and I decided to turn everything around from then on.
So when I entered University, I began to get my act together. For the 3 years I was in Business School, I was on the Dean's List (an honor roll for the top students in the faculty). I eventually graduated as the top student in my specialization of marketing and was awarded with accolades for being the most outstanding student. When I started working, I entered one of the top companies for marketers, a Fortune 100 company, and led my business portfolios to record breaking results in the few years I worked there.
Then 2 years ago, I left my regular job to pursue my true passion in personal development. I started The Personal Excellence Blog where I share my best advice and help others achieve personal excellence and live their best lives. It has quickly established itself as a trusted and coming-to-age personal development blog, having 3-4k readers a day and being featured by prominent media, including CNN.com.
After years of striving for personal excellence, working with top people in their fields and observing top people in their fields, I realized that there are universal habits that enable people to achieve excellence. As Aristotle would put it, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”.
These habits aren't "ingrained", or "genetic"; they are habits that anyone like you and me can cultivate. Just like Stephen Covey's 7 habits
Closing
This is the same habit as Stephen Covey's 1st habit, and with good reason. Everything starts with the end - the goal or the vision you want to fulfill. If you don't know what the end is, then there's no way of getting there, is there? Imagine getting into a cab. What do you first do when you get into the cab? Maybe you say hi to the taxi driver, then what? You tell the driver where you want to go, so that he can take you there. Similarly, you need to know what is the end you want to reach in order to get there.
Hence, it's critical that you form clear goals of what exactly you want. What do you want? What is the end you envision? What are your personal goals and dreams for yourself? Personally, I have a vision board beside my bed where I have my dreams plastered over it. These dreams include developing The Personal Excellence Blog into one of the top personal development blogs, running my international personal excellence school, speaking to tens and thousands of people in seminars, achieving world peace, finding my soul mate, hitting the best seller's list with my books, and so on. These dreams remind me of what exactly I want and drive me forward every day.
When you do something you love, it's like you have unlimited fuel that keeps you going- day after day. The hunger to excel in it is just greater than if you do anything else. Every day, I'm endlessly driven to build and write at my blog, because it's for a cause I believe in. Helping people grow and live their best life is the one thing I know I want to be doing for the rest of my life.
I have a coaching client who has tried to start 4-5 different ventures before (one at a time), and he was never able to succeed in any of them. Why was this the case? It wasn't that he was stupid, or that he was lazy. Ultimately, the reason was because he wasn't passionate about the things he was pursuing - he was just chasing money. The nature of the business didn't appeal to him emotionally. This is not to say starting businesses because you want to earn money is bad - all I'm saying is it's important that you love what you want to do first and foremost.
What is it you love to do? If you are not sure what your passion is yet, then what is something you are most eager to try at the moment? If you can choose to do anything, what will it be? Your love and interest are fuels that will drive you towards excellence.
I don't know of anyone who has achieved excellent results who hasn't worked hard for them. A big component of excellence is hard work. Sheer, unadulterated hard work. We can streamline processes, choose effective strategies and steps, but ultimately the hard work will still have to come in. Fortunately, if you are doing what you love (step #2), work wouldn't even be work at all.
In the past year since I set up The Personal Excellence Blog, I have spent countless hours, including weekends, building up the blog and writing high quality articles for readers out there. All these have paid off in their own way. I'm not saying you should abandon all social life because that defeats the purpose, but you will have to dedicate yourself to making your business a success. This year in 2010, I intend to increase my efforts even more compared to 2009, and I know it's going to pay off.
Every moment counts. Excellent people know that time is highly valuable. There's this quote by Donald Trump which I read in one of his books, and I absolutely love it. He said that time is more precious than money, because you can earn back money, but you can't get back time. That is absolutely true.
Hence, I'm always making sure that I'm maximizing every moment. If I'm commuting over a distance, I'll pick up a book or listen to a podcast. If I'm out waiting for a friend, I'll take the chance to do something meaningful for the time being. If there are some pockets of time, I'll take out my laptop and do some work.
Note that this habit doesn't mean working like a hog, 24x7. That wouldn't be a true application of this habit. Making use of every moment also refers to knowing when to rest and rejuvenate when it's needed, because this will help us walk the longer mile on the path of excellence.
Living a life of excellence means being a proponent of action. Many people often say "The sky is the limit". My personal philosophy is the sky isn't the limit; we are the limit. Whatever we do or don't do will determine how much we can grow or achieve. If we want to grow and achieve great results, we need to take the equivalent actions to reach the results we want.
For example, many people agree that having press and media feature their business can greatly benefit them, but they believe it only happens when you are prominent enough. While that's usually true, I refuse to let that stop me. I took proactive steps to reach out to the press, writing my own press release and creating a strong story angle so the press would want to feature me. To date, I've been featured in the press for almost 20 times. To read more about how to be featured by the press, you can check out my guest post at Problogger: How To Get Featured By the Press (Repeatedly) Even If Your Blog is New.
Learning never stops. There is always something we can do to become better. We may have great skills and knowledge today, but no matter how great they may be, our skills need to be continuously developed. Excellent people are always learning, reading, exposing themselves to new knowledge, new people, new contexts and developing their skills. If you have played role-playing games or RPGs before, you would know that the characters need to be leveled up to get stronger and progress to the next level. Likewise, we need to always be leveling ourselves up to achieve excellence.
No matter how much we try to improve, we will have blind spots. Blind spots are things about ourselves that we don't know about, and we can't improve on things that we are blind to. Asking for feedback is one of the fastest and most effective ways to improve.
For everything I do, I make it a point to gather feedback. For example, when I was in my previous job, I would often ask my manager and peers for feedback on how I could improve. With my friends, sometimes I would have a random feedback session with them on how I can do things better. As I run The Personal Excellence Blog, I would invite my readers to send in their feedback, either through comments, emails or private messages. Sometimes the feedback is predictable, sometimes it's not and many times it leads to an epiphany on some level.
... Wait, you didn't think that there would just be 7 habits in achieving excellence, did you?
There's 1 final habit to become a highly excellent person - that is, to strive for #1 in what you do. No one's going to achieve excellence if they aim for average, or mediocrity. Excellence comes from aiming for the top - being #1. This #1 should be better than whoever is #1 at the moment, because it will spur you on to work even harder. You will only achieve great results when you set high standards for yourself.
For example, I aim for The Personal Excellence Blog to be the top personal development blog, both in terms of the quality of content and traffic. Whenever I write my articles, I make sure I'm giving the best value that can ever be offered in that topic. Because of this, readers recognize the value of my articles and have spread the word to their friends and family. This has helped the blog to grow quickly and establish itself as a trusted and coming-of-age blog in personal excellence.
These habits have helped me to achieve excellence in my life, and as long as all of us practice them, we will achieve excellent results. Feel free to share your comments - I'll love to hear what you have to say. If you have any questions, I'll love to answer them where possible too. I don't claim to have the answers, but I'll most certainly offer my perspective and help where I can.Written on 4/24/2010 by Celestine Chua. Celes writes at The Personal Excellence Blog, where she shares her best advice on achieving personal excellence. Her blog is read by thousands a day and has been featured by CNN, Today, and other prominent media. Get her RSS feed here and add her on Twitter @celestinechua.
A 360-Degree Approach to Improving Self-Confidence
Posted by SoMeOnE at 5:23 AM Labels: Development, Fear, Lifehacks
I know that when I’m not feeling particularly confident in one area of my life, the other areas begin to suffer too. When my job becomes stressful and tiresome, for example, so do my relationships and personal health.
However, I don’t think I’m alone. Many of my friends tell me they also feel a connection between self-confidence and their personal level of happiness. After all, we all want to feel good about ourselves. We want to realize the incredible potential we possess and to really feel worthy, be loved, and have nice things.
But to hold your head high and feel strong on a consistent basis takes focus. It also takes the commitment to look at your life from a holistic point-of-view. When one element of your life is out-of-alignment, then self-confidence is not operating at maximum strength.
A 360-degree approach to improving self-confidence may be the best solution because of the synergies that exist between the different parts of your life. When you begin to understand how these parts connect to one another then you begin to see the beautiful picture that is being created – the picture of your confident life.
Health and well-being
To feel strong, your body must first be strong. Fatigue, a lousy diet, and lack of exercise, all contribute to poor health and a weak body. Good health, however, does not happen overnight. Consider these simple, but healthy quick-wins to kick-start your lagging confidence as well as your metabolism:
Finances
The feeling of paying the bills on-time while putting a little money away is a good one. For some, a sense of confidence grows at the same rate as one’s bank account. But money, in a cruel twist of irony, can often determine what we think our true value is.
Feeling empowered over money, or at least the management of money, is the first step to capturing some financial self-confidence.
Relationships
My self-confidence soars when I know I’m making a difference in the lives of my wife, children and friends. Connection, communication and intimacy are all taken to the next level by my soaring confidence.
Nothing is as important as the people I choose to share a life. To keep my confidence strong, I often remind myself of the following:
Career
You spend a lot of time at work. Long hours, difficult projects and missed opportunities can often lead to a lack of self-confidence. However, you can crack the code to your career and get your confidence back on track, too with these reminders:
360 Degrees of Self-Confidence
Good health, a viable financial position, strong relationships and an effective career game plan will all conspire together and deliver a much-needed dose of self-confidence. By blending these elements together and relying on your ability to maintain a focus to each one will give you what you need to improve your self-confidence and complete that beautiful picture of a confident you.
Written on 3/12/2010 by Alex Blackwell. Alex writes for The BridgeMaker, an honestly-written blog about faith, inspiration and personal change. To receive twice-weekly articles subscribe here.
Harness Your Subconscious Wisdom by Asking The Right Questions
Posted by SoMeOnE at 6:57 AM Labels: Brain, Development
"What is the meaning of life?"
Ha, gotcha! That is just one of many, many questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with this article.
Now how about these questions:
- Why does this always happen to me?
- Why do I always screw up?
- What's wrong with me?
Your subconscious is a non-critical, non-judgmental targeting machine
Think of your subconscious as GPS navigation for your car. You put in your destination and the navigation leads you there. It doesn't criticize your destination; it doesn't ask questions. It simply takes your input and provides you with the best way to achieve it.
Your subconscious works exactly the same way. It's non-critical and non-judgmental, which means it takes everything you feed it at face value.
So what happens when you ask questions like "Why does this always happen to me?" and "What's wrong with me?"
Your subconscious will feed you plenty of reasons why bad things always happen to you, and dozens of things that are wrong with you! Some people always ask themselves negative questions and then wonder why they end up sabotaging themselves and feeling like crap.
That would be like a person consistently telling their car navigation to go to Middle of Nowhere, Utah. And when they got there, they would get angry and yell, "Why did you take me here? I wanted to end up in Miami!"
How you feel and what you achieve of comes down to where you direct your mind. And questions are by far the most common and most powerful tool for directing your mind. So let's see how to use them more effectively.
How presuppositions direct your mind
Most questions contain presuppositions. A presupposition is a "fact" that's embedded in the question, which you will have to accept as true in order to answer the question.
For example, if you ask "Why is John always mean to me?", it assumes John is always mean to you.
(I also heard a fun example from a psychologist recently: "Which is happier, a knife or a fork?" He vehemently argued a knife is happier, because it's more versatile and useful. I disagree. A fork has three smiles and a knife has only one. Of course a fork is happier! (Either way, the question presupposes that either a knife or a fork is happier than the other.))
Similarly, a lot of questions that people ask themselves contain negative presuppositions.
"Why can't I ever get this right?" presupposes you can't get it right. In fact, it presupposes you can't ever get it right!
"What's wrong with me?" presupposes there is something wrong with you.
And so on.
And your subconscious automatically accepts these presuppositions when you ask it a question. Remember - non-critical and non-judgmental.
Luckily, you can replace those negative presuppositions with empowering presuppositions!
Examples of empowering questions
Instead of asking "Why do I always screw up?", how about you ask "How can I most easily do this?"
This question presupposes:
- It can be done
- You can do it
- There are several possible ways to do it
- It will be easy
To help you drive the concept of empowering questions deep into your subconscious, take a few moments to answer these:
- What are you grateful for in your life?
- What great things happened to you in the past week?
- Where in your life could you benefit from more empowering questions?
- How will your life continue improving when you use empowering questions?
Notice the effect? Good! And it's all done just by asking yourself the right questions.
To finish off, I'll leave you with one more question:
What empowering questions could you ask yourself RIGHT NOW to start moving towards the life of your dreams?
 | Written on 3/6/2010 by Vlad Dolezal. Vlad writes Fun Life Development, a blog about making personal development fun. Check it out to discover ways to improve your life that don't feel like a hard job. Alternately, you can follow Vlad on twitter. |