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Over 35 Ways of Controlling Stress: Absolutely Necessary to Control Smoking and Weight!
Summery: Certified Hypnotist M. Vance Romane gives you 35 ways to control stress. These techniques will help you to reduce stress with your own willpower. Stress is one of the mail reasons why people smoke and over eat. Article: * Play Romane’s stress control seminar recordings, and read ...
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60 cigarettes a day! How I quit!
I thought smoking sixty cigarettes a day was just about the limit of human endurance until I started to wake up at night to “enjoy” just one more! I took up smoking when I was fourteen and by the age of sixtee I was a “committed” smoker. Within three years I had managed to ratchet my daily intake of cigarettes to two packs per day, and by the time I was twenty-one, I was up to three packs a day.
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For Real Power - Sharpen Your Listening Skills
Throughout the ages, it’s the notable speakers and orators who have charted the course of history; from Aristotle to Jesus, down through Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Great speakers and their speeches have inspired, moved and motivated individuals, armies and nations. The memorable speeches and the people who delivered them represent mileposts in mankind’s evolution. Is it any wonder that we tend to think of speakers and speech as being all powerful?
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How to Survive One of THOSE days!
Drip …. drip …. drip …. drip …. my eyes slam open! It takes a moment to decide if I’m dreaming or awake. Damn, I’m awake. I glance at the bedside clock … 2:26 a.m. I make a conscious decision to roll over and go back to sleep. Drip …. drip …. drip …. drip …. so much for that.
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Maybe You Shouldn’t Set Goals After All
Surprisingly enough, setting goals may actually hinder your chances of life-long success! Let me begin by saying that goal setting is wickedly effective. In other words, if you desire an outcome, and make it a goal, the odds are extremely likely that you’ll achieve it. And therein lies the problem. Let me explain. If you decide you want to drive your car from your house to the city, that’s a goal. You likely don’t give it a second thought. You just decide and then execute. We all set and achieve hundreds of these kinds of goals every day. These are not the goals I’m referring to.
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Skydiving! Some Fears Are Definitely Worth Facing
The alarm was set for six … as if that was necessary. I was awake long before, in fact, I’m not too sure I even slept. Today is the day I’m going to face a bad fear – which by my definition is simply a fear I want to overcome – a fear of skydiving. With a two hour drive ahead of us, Michele and I were on our way by seven am. The forecast is hot and sunny.
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Ten Secrets to Lose Weight and Influence Friends
Before you start to read these secretive, invaluable tips, please don’t ask silly questions such as; “What is the definition of a secret” or “What could this author possibly know that all of mankind has managed to overlook until now?” It’s questions like those that are designed to do nothing but confuse the issue with facts! So if you’re ready to learn the secrets then grab a drink or something good to eat, get comfortable and read on.
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The Awesome Powers of Lateral Thinking
You are a lateral thinker. In a few moments we're going to see just how good you really are! Lateral thinking is reasoning. If successful, it results in an elegant solution to a seemingly impossible problem. The perfectly ingenious answer will seldom be reached using traditional step-by-step logic or pedantic thinking. Each of us has tapped into our genius from time to time to magically apply lateral thinking to a problem or personal conundrum. Lateral thinking, like any skill, can be greatly enhanced with a little practice and understanding.
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The Natural Fear of Listening
A major barrier to listening to another person, without interruption, is the notion that silence may condone agreement. If someone is talking and we nod or indicate that we’re listening by saying “uh-huh,” a common fear is that the speaker may confuse our failure to object with our agreement. The speaker may even suddenly switch topics under the delusion that you share his view, which lays the setting for a future irresolvable argument.
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Want to be Rich? Acquire a Money Consciousness
If you’re not presently happy with your financial lot in life, I’m going to suggest that your inability to manage money is the culprit. As a kid I was always told; “Look after the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
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***How Habitual Stress Affects Our Body And Effective Ways To Beat It
Stress is an emotional and physical response to exte al factors, and lessening stress is the secret to a longer, healthier, life. We know that stress isn't good for us, and we know that everyone experiences stress every day, but once we're aware of how long-lasting stress impacts our physical body, we realise that it's important to find ways to manage and reduce stress to remain healthy.
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***How Our Brain Makes Us Fat (And What We Can Do About It)
I wonder if you've ever woken up in the morning and been determined to start another diet (and actually stick to it this time), but a co-worker or friend offers you some muffins or other yummy treats that seem absolutely impossible for you to resist? Your good intentions seem to immediately fly out of the window, along with those of everybody else around you, as you all immediately launch yourselves at the sweet, fattening treats, eager to get your sugary 'fix' to help you get through the day.
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Getting Rid of Those Pesky Inner Critics
Hundreds of books have been written about getting rid of these voices because we all know they don’t serve any useful purpose. Even if those who spoke to us originally in this way were trying to be helpful, at this point they exist only to torture us. But I don’t know a single person who has eliminated those voices by any of the techniques in such books. That’s because such messages are deeply entrenched in our psyches—they ain’t going nowhere. That doesn’t mean we have to be at their mercy, however.
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Stuck? Put It on the Back Burner
Archimedes figured out how to determine how much gold there was in a crown while lying in the bath tub. While dozing by the fire, Friedrich August Kekule had a dream of snakes that allowed him to understand the structure of benzene. For both of these scientists, the answer came when they stopped “thinking” about the question and did something else. They put their problem on the back burner and suddenly the answer popped into their minds. Has something like this ever happen to you? You aren’t sure about something.
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The Schoolroom of Love
One of the greatest inspirational writers of the 19th century was a man named Henry Drummond who wrote a best-selling little book called The Greatest Thing In the World. In it, he said, “The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. And the one ete al question for us all is how better can we love.” Learning and teaching in that schoolroom is what inspires me in my personal life and my work. For me, and I’ve learned for many of us, learning to love better begins with the self. Loving ourselves is no small thing.
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This is a SCARF You Don’t Want to Wear
I wrote last time about how our limbic systems are constantly on high alert, ready to activate the stress response at the sign of a threat. That’s a good thing when we’re in physical danger. But unfortunately it also can turn on in traffic jams, layoffs, arguments with our loved ones…you fill in your favorite stressor.
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What Do you Want More Of?
Really. What do you want more of in your life? More peace? More time off? More fun? More inner tranquility? Unless we identify what it is that we truly want, we tend to be so caught up in daily life that we don't even think about what will make us truly happy. Today, ask yourself what you want more of in your life and then live with the question all day: How can I have more ______ in my life? Just ask; don't worry about an answer.
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What Do you Want More Of?
Really. What do you want more of in your life? More peace? More time off? More fun? More inner tranquility? Unless we identify what it is that we truly want, we tend to be so caught up in daily life that we don't even think about what will make us truly happy. Today, ask yourself what you want more of in your life and then live with the question all day: How can I have more ______ in my life? Just ask; don't worry about an answer.
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Who Are You Becoming?
There is a story from the Talmud that goes like this: When Akiba was on his deathbed, he bemoaned to his rabbi that he felt he was a failure. His rabbi moved closer and asked why, and Akiba confessed that he had not lived a life like Moses. The poor man began to cry, admitting that he feared God’s judgment. At this, his rabbi leaned into his ear and whispered gently, `God will not judge Akiba for not being Moses.
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Become a Life-Long Learner
My mother has been telling me she’s too old to change since she was 45; she’s now 85. In a way, she had the privilege of that position because she hasn’t had to support herself. Those of us out there making a living know how much the world is changing and how we must change to keep up, no matter what our age. I just read somewhere that the average American will have nine jobs by the time they’re 32. How many therefore by the time they’re 62? In his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, management consultant Peter F.
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Cultivate Your Witness Self
The other day I got a call from a reporter for a women’s magazine wondering if I knew of any new stress reduction ideas, “you know, beyond breathing and meditation.” It reminded me of our tendency in this culture to grasp for the novel and it even caused me to doubt whether to include this piece in the book.
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Cultivate Your Witness Self - Part 2
If I’ve inspired you in my last blog entry to give meditation a try, here’s a very basic form of mindfulness meditation, adapted from Vipassana Buddhism: Find a quiet place to sit in a chair or on the floor, with your eyes open or closed, whichever is most comfortable to you. Set a timer for the amount of time you plan to sit. Become aware of your breathing, focusing on the sensation of air moving in and out of your body as you breathe. When thoughts come up in your mind, whether worrying, planning, wishing, don't try to ignore or suppress them.
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Cultivating Self Trust
Self trust is a virtue, like patience, that has been all but lost in the exte ally focused society that has increasingly evolved over the past fifty years or so. It is the capacity to know ourselves deeply and to rely on ourselves confidently as the source of our decisions.
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Dancing with Life’s Messiness
If insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, what is thinking the same thing over and over despite evidence to the contrary? I refer to my chronic illusion that some day I Will Get Everything Under Control. In my mind, it’s soon, just not now: after my daughter’s basketball season ends, after the guests go home, after I write this piece.
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Draw To You Want You Want
Last time I wrote about the danger of focusing on the problem rather than the solution. There’s another reason why focusing on the road instead of the hole is important. It’s got to do with what The Secret is about. Say what you will about that massive bestseller, but there is a kernel of truth there as far as I understand. We all have the ability to use our energy in three ways—dynamically, to create the forward momentum of action, receptively, to become aware of what is available around and within us, and magnetically, to draw toward us that which we’re powerfully pulling in.
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Giving from the Heart
It’s holiday time and for many of us, holidays that should be filled with opportunities for true happiness—a sense of togethe ess, a chance to give, and a chance to be grateful—are turned into occasions for fights, disappointments, overspending and fatigue. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Holidays don’t have to be expensive, meaningless or filled with stress.
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Growing in Wisdom and Love
If there is a through line in my life, both personally and as a writer, it is to identify and develop those qualities that help us grow individually and collectively in wisdom and love. That’s ultimately why I’m so interested in self trust. “Wisdom,” Buddhist monk Khandro Rinpoche says, “is innate in us; it is not something that can be bought, heard or received from the outside.” In other words, we must look within to find it. It can’t come from anyone but us. Without self trust, we can never become wise because we will continue to look outside ourselves for the answer.
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How to Commit to Regular Exercise For Good And Enjoy It!
Identify Your Personal Vision for Being Fit So you’ve decided to commit to regular exercise. How come? Your answer to this question is a key to your success. If you were to get exactly what you wanted out of keeping your body moving on a regular basis, what might that be? A healthier body? More energy? Strength? Weight loss? Get really clear on what you are aiming for, and make sure it sounds and feels good to you. This will greatly increase your chances for success. Key: Instead of thinking in future terms, ie “ I want to be fit and strong.
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The Power of a Mantra
sung__mantra400jpgWhen I was a child, dealing with my particular configuration of a dysfunctional family, I remember lying awake in bed night after night, year after year, too afraid to go to sleep. There were some willow trees outside my window I used to watch. No matter how hard the wind blew, and how far they bent, they never broke. I took that image on as my personal courage mantra. For years, whenever things happened that upset me, I would say to myself, “I’m like the willow.
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Watch the Road, Not the Pot Holes
“The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.” --Voltaire Lana Calloway is president of Exhibit Resources, a company that does design, construction, and installation of trade show exhibits. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Lana and many of her clients were forced to cut staff. She notied that coordinating details for trade shows was overwhelming for many clients who had slashed their marketing budgets. So Lana’s company began offering turn-key trade show project management services and her business has since boomed.
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What if There Were Nothing Wrong With You?
Given the training we’ve had in listening to everyone but ourselves and believing we are broken and bad, how do we begin? We start by understanding that the capacity to trust ourselves is not a fixed state we either have or don’t, like straight hair or violet eyes. Rather it is a quality of heart and mind we can cultivate. Like a muscle, it grows or shrinks with practice.
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You are a One of a Kind Miracle
I am larger and better tha I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness. --Walt Whitman The other day, I was driving down a country road in upstate New York when a giant billboard for a car dealership caught my eye. It had a picture of a smiling infant and the words “YOU WERE BORN…PREAPPROVED.” Tears sprang to my eyes. How would the world be different if I, if you, could claim this basic trust as our birthright? How much pain would we have avoided, how much feeling odd and different, how much loneliness and fear? How less overwhelmed and more joyful would we be?
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Your One and Only Precious Life
The first step to create a life of meaning is to truly see your life as the precious, limited time opportunity it actually is. You can make it a beautiful mansion. Here’s how Philip Adams puts it, “Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” I have a client in his early forties who dealt with a serious illness last year that incapacitated him for months.
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BBLLISS Meditation
Find yourself in fear a lot these days? This is a five minute meditation created by my colleague in Professional Thinking Partners Dawna Markova. It strengthens the creative, problem solving part of our brain, the neocortex’s, ability to intervene during times when the amygdala (the primitive brain) is kicking into survival mode. It helps you get off the train of overwhelming, fearful thoughts and experience what’s going on for you in a different way—at the level of sensation and breath rather than story.
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Bouncing Back
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” said the CEO on the other end of my phone line. “They just offered me a contract extension and three months later they’re telling me I’m out. I’m in shock.” Whether you have just received the news you no longer have a job or are dealing with any other change you didn’t ask for, chances are you’re dealing with a set of difficult feelings.
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Circle into Action
The other day I got a fan letter about AdaptAbility from Daniel Hawthorne, a guy who described himself as having “high functioning autism” which makes dealing with any change, especially unexpected, difficult. In addition to telling me that he found my book very helpful, he shared a technique of how to cope that he read in Stephen Covey’s first book. When a change hits, draw two circles, one inside the other. In the smaller one, write down what you have control over in the situation. In the larger one, write down the things you can influence.
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Climb On My Back
During the eulogy for Senator Ted Kennedy by his oldest son, Ted Kennedy, Jr., the son offered this story: “When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with bone cancer, and a few months after I lost my leg there was a heavy snowfall over my childhood home outside of Washington, D.C. My father went to the garage to get the old Flexible Flyer and asked me if I wanted to go sledding down the steep driveway. . . .
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Cultivate Both/And Thinking
As I’ve written about before, our brains are not always our friends. They have various habits that can really get in our way. One is what’s called bifurcating, the tendency to think in either/or: either I am happy or I’m sad; either I am trying hard or I’m giving up; either I am a success or a failure. But human beings—and reality itself—is much more multifaceted than this mind tendency would have us be. We can be in more than one emotional state or hold opposing thoughts at the same time, and our actions can spring from a variety of conflicting motivations.
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Evaluate Progress
Pamela Busch owns a restaurant in San Francisco. Like everyone else, she felt the pinch of the economic downtu as people stopped going out to eat. She decided to adapt by offering a three-course tasting menu at a set price. Great. Her desired outcome is to stay in business. She’s accepted the fact that change is needed, thought through her options, created a plan of action, and put her plan in place. What’s next? Paying close attention to whether her plan is getting her the results she wants.
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Hope Helps Us Cope
In Greek mythology, when Pandora opened the box and let out all the troubles that have since plagued the world, she also let out a tiny fairy who said, “Yes, it is true that you have unleashed all manner of afflictions upon the world, but you have also let me out. I am Hope and will always be there to bring hope to humans, whenever they are in trouble.” This myth goes to the heart of the truth that it’s difficult to endure hardships without hope.
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It's Not Personal
What’s happening right now is not because you’re bad or wrong or incompetent. It’s because the world is transforming at breakneck speed and each and every one of us must adapt to those changes as quickly and efficiently as possible. No one’s exempt.Age doesn’t get you off the hook. Nor does how hard you’ve worked until now, or what your expectations of your life have been. Or what you’ve sacrificed for or invested in.
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More Resilience This Minute
Research by psychology professors Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun shows that not only do we have the ability to grow through the challenges of our life, what they call post-traumatic growth, but the benefits of doing so include improved relationships, new possibilities for our lives, a greater appreciation for life, a greater sense of personal strength, and spiritual development. Not bad rewards, I’d say. So how do we cultivate resilience?
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The Business Case for Hope
Think hope is not something we need in the hard business world? Think again. In these challenging times, says psychologist and hope researcher Shane J. Lopez, it’s a crucial business skill. Here’s why. When we’re faced with challenges, as I describe in AdaptAbility, it is crucial that we think as innovatively and creatively as possible so that we generate possibilities, connect to our resources, reach out to others, and respond with all of our individual and collective brain power.
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What Helps You Expand Your Thinking?
So many of us think about creativity in the context of being an artist or musician. However I prefer the definition that resiliency expert Frederic Flach uses. Creativity is “a response to a situation that calls for a novel but adaptive solution, one that serves to accomplish a goal.” That’s why, when dealing with the challenges of our times, the best thing we can do is grow our creative capacity. We need to come up with thoughts and solutions that are different from ones we’ve used in the past. Otherwise we will be responding in habitual ways that may not serve us now.
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You’re More Resilient Than You Think
“I can’t handle this,” Susan cried, contemplating her daughter’s dwindling college fund. I know how she feels. When I think of the changes I’ve had to deal with in my life—having to lie flat in bed for a year due to back pain, going through a devastating breakup, dealing with the financial meltdown of my company, not to mention all the ups and downs of the life of an entrepreneur--there have been many times when I honestly doubted my ability to live through another second. And yet here I am, and so are you.
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Your Future is Built on a Bedrock that is Unchanging
Tom Heuerman is an organizational consultant who recently wrote about the qualities of sustainable organizations: they “continually adapt to the exte al environment…. [and] have a core identity of purpose (why they exist) and values (guiding principles) that provide stability and continuity as all else changes over time.” What struck me is how much what applies to organizations also applies to individuals. As businesswomen, our work life springs from the same unchanging bedrock. Perhaps bedrock is not the only apt metaphor.
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Getting The Pounds Off For Good
Whether it’s because of a doctor’s warning, an important birthday, or just because you’re fed up, at some point you vow to lose weight. But by the time the rosy blush of good intentions wears off, your promise gets pushed aside. Not because you don’t still long to lose ...
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Managing Paper In Your LIfe
Do you remember the days when computers were just getting started and we were looking forward to becoming a paperless society? It just didn't happen, in fact we have just as much if not more paper now than before computers.
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Ten Things To Do Instead of Binge Eating
While we all reach for food for many different reasons, there are big consequences associated with binge eating. Various health problems and obesity are just a few bad things that can happen to a person that binges regularly. Below are some suggestions of what you can do the next time you ...While we all reach for food for many different reasons, there are big consequences associated with binge eating. Various health problems and obesity are just a few bad things that can happen to a person that binges regularly.
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Helpful Steps for Self Motivation
f you're in a slump right now, you know exactly what I mean. No matter how many successes you've had in the past, it all seems irrelevant now. It seems like no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, you won't be able to achieve your goals; and even if you do, you're not sure that accomplishing them will make you feel any better.r
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Visualize Your Goals daily
Visualize Your Goals daily Visualization – said to be a very important ingredient in reaching your goals in life. As Napoleon Hill said in his famous book “Think and Grow Rich” whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe he can achieve Once you know what I is you want to achieve you just need to close your eyes and visualize it – make it real – add colour – add sound – be the Director of your own movie. Research suggests that those who practice the art of visualization achieve better and greater results over those who do not.
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The CEO and the Yellow Notepad...how it Changed Everything!
The CEO and the Yellow Notepad...how it Changed Everything! It was just a Yellow, Legal sized Notepad,nbut it made this millionaire CEO's sales forcenmore productive, less stressed and nhappier, at work and at home. How could a simple yellow notepad have such power? Here is the story: The ...
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The Importance of Visualization in Your Life
"Positive Visualization" What is Positive Visualization? It can be summarized in this one statement; "We were created in the image of our creator, thereforenwe are creators." Think about this statement very carefully. Everything that you, or anyone else has done since the beginning ...
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Live in ‘the Now’ this very minute
As someone once said to me “when in the room – be in the room” In other words pay attention be where you are- if at work don’t spend your time thinking about home and if at home don’t spend your time thinking about work. All you have is now – you cannot live for the morrow or re-live yesterday so you might as well make the most of what you have today. It is said that yesterday is gone forever and tomorrow is a promissory note so all you have is today – that is now.
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***The Power of Positive Habits
Did you know that habits are incredibly powerful tools for personal growth and success? Think about the habits you have now and how they affect virtually every aspect of your life. Your weight and health are determined by your eating habits. Your relationships with people are determined by ...
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7 helpful tips for self-motivation
You can list down as many dreams as you can! You may be dreaming of fulfilling your greatest desire, getting the best education that can be obtained by money, or buying the car of your dreams. However, all will be futile if you cannot push yourself to strive hard to succeed in your goals. ...
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The Importance of Time Management in Your Life
The Importance of Time Management in Your Life Time is something that you can never take back. What’s done is done. Nothing in history can be changed. The most we can do about anything that has already been done is to take counter measures to prevent the damage from spreading. However, there ...
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Time Management Tips to Win
Time Management Tips to Win Time management is critical to boost good organization of one’s personal utilization of schedule. Managing the early morning routine, for example, could be one way of effective time management if things are executed in a smooth and convenient manner. The problem ...
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How to Get Rid of Those Bad Habits and Live a Fuller, Better Life
Some people have bad habits they can't easily break. Bad habits are things that could hinder your advancement and self-growth. Do you want to break free of your bad habit? A short verse Sow an act, reap a habit; Sow a habit, reap a character; Sow a character, reap a destiny. Do you want to live fully and effectively without unnecessary baggage? Then read the tips below to get rid of any bad habits that could help 1. Decide to quit, and make it firm. The decision should come from you - from deep within you. It should not be because somebody told you so.
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Powerful Tips to Achieve Your Goals
. Identify Your Rationale. In order for your goal to achieved it must be backed up with motivation, you need to take to heart its significance to you. Identify the reason and purpose of your goal. List out all the benefits you expect as a result of getting there. 2. Plan Your Goals. One of the main reasons why goals fail is that there is no detailed plan to accomplish the goal.r
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The Power of Positive Habits
Did you know that habits are incredibly powerful tools for personal growth and success? Let me ask you a question. When is the last time you made a conscious decision to add a new habit to your life? If you are like most people you probably answered...never! The reason for this is that most ...
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Self Discipline in Positive Thinking and Self Talk
Building up self-discipline and thinking positively is sometimes hard to do. We all need discipline in order to be successful with all the challenges and problems of daily life. We should consider building up our self-discipline with positive thinking and self-talk. In order to be successful, we need to be strong and use our positive thinking skills to keep our self-discipline in control. We need to be in control of our lives in order to succeed in the world today.
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One Habit At A Time: Don't Be A Rebel With Too Many Causes
Mildred: "What're you rebelling against, Johnny?" Johnny: "Whaddya got?"nn- The Wild One (1954)nn**** Ah, the impetuousness of youth. You can take on the whole world and everyone thinks you’re perfectly normal. You're just going through a 'wild phase.' Not so for us adults. We’re ...
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How to Get and Stay Motivated: Creating Compelling Reasons
Wish you had more motivation? Do you set ambitious goals, start off with a bang , and then fizzle out long before the job is done?
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Why "Staying Focused" is Easier Said Than Done
What you pay attention to can make a huge difference in your life. It can affect how you feel, what you think, and what you can accomplish. In a very real sense, you are what you pay attention to. A colleague shared with me a great story about the value of controlling attention. An old Cherokee Indian is teaching his grandson about life. "A battle is going on inside each of us," he tells his grandson. "It is a terrible fight between two strong wolves. One wolf is evil. The other is good.” The grandson thinks about this for a minute.
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How to Get All the Willpower You Need to Succeed
Willpower is one of those concepts that everyone assumes they understand. Yet most people are wrong about what it really is, where it comes from, and how much of it they have. Being wrong about willpower does more than place you at risk of losing points on a psychology quiz. It prevents you from taking advantage of the ability you have to “manufacture” as much willpower as you need. So, what is willpower? Willpower is basically a measure of your ability to do what you intend to do when you don’t feel like doing it.
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How to Defeat Procrastination and Get More Done
Let’s face it, procrastination sucks. It’s exhausting, stressful, and it can do a number on your self-esteem. Even though you eventually finish most of the unpleasant tasks you put off, you pay dearly for having postponed them. It takes lots of extra energy to avoid doing something you know you must do. The famous psychologist, William James, put it best when he said, "Nothing is as fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task."
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It's Not Exactly Your Fault: The Surprising Truth About Why You Don't Follow Through
I have some good news for you. You're off the hook. Poor follow through is not exactly your fault. You've been relying on faulty equipment. Poor follow through is caused primarily by the mixed up way the normal mind is designed. Although we humans are endowed with impressive intelligence that allows us to figure out what we should do to make our lives as good as they can possibly be, surprisingly, there's no built-in mechanism that guarantees that our intelligence will actually control our behavior.
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How (And Why) To Do A Reality Check Before Buying Your Next Self-Improvement Program
The promises they make give you goose bumps. "Just follow these simple steps," one self-improvement program insists, "and we guarantee you’ll achieve happiness and success beyond your wildest dreams.” How can you resist? You’d have to be an idiot to not invest your time, money and hope to get incredible benefits like these. So, you invest. But if you're like most people, there's a good chance you'll end up with disappointing results. No problem. There are plenty of other self-improvement programs out there ready to whisper sweet nothings in your ear.
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Why Wishful Thinking Won't Help You Lose Weight
An exciting new diet can certainly nourish your optimism. But it won’t change reality. The truth is, a new diet is nothing more than a fresh set of restrictions that you probably won’t stick to any better than you stuck to the many (once fresh) sets of restrictions that came before it. "Not sticking" is the real problem. And like it or not, until you figure out how to stick to a diet – any diet - you have a much better chance of losing hope than losing weight.
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How to Use Willpower Engineering to Control Spending
Personal finance experts often offer excellent budgeting advice while ignoring psychological realities that make their advice essentially useless. The truth is, we humans have an enormous capacity for NOT doing what we know we should do. And failing to take that truth into account is like teaching someone how to shoot a bow and arrow as if gravity doesn't exist!
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Whither Your Resolutions? To fulfill those New Year’s Resolutions, you need to Harness Your HabitForce
It’s late January 2010. Do you know where your New Year’s Resolutions are? I know we’re only a few weeks into the New Year, but I’m betting that most people reading this article – yes that means YOU! -- have already begun to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. If you’re thinking about throwing in the towel on your resolutions, hold on a minute. Help is on the way. If you’re sincere about wanting to make some changes in your life—perhaps lose weight, get fit, or quit smoking—the first thing you need to do is learn how to harness your HabitForce.
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*** Are You for Real?
What is authenticity and why is it important to leadership? Leadership isn’t something we do in response to our circumstances. It’s a way of being. You don’t DO leadership. You ARE a leader. Leadership comes from within. It is an ongoing and consistent expression of who we are that inspires ...
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Making Happiness a Habit
"What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." Leo Buscaglian Do you know someone who always seems happy? Always makes the best of every ...
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Obstacle or Opportunity: Overcoming Six Challenges to Change
Why is change so hard? We say we want to change a particular behavior. We know we will benefit from the change. Yet, we continue to do what we’ve always done and we continue to get the same results we’ve always gotten. And, the longer we do it, the more frustrated and disappointed in ...
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Pay Yourself First: Putting Balance Back in Your Life
Balance. We all strive for it. We want to feel at peace, and yet we live in perpetual production mode, trying to get everything on our “to do” list accomplished while yearning for ‘something more’. We tell ourselves we’ll slow down as soon as… (fill in the blank). To make matters worse, when we ...
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Practicing Good Time Management Habits During a Job Transition
Most of us like routine. Life is just a little easier when the way we spend our time is dictated by exte al demands. When we have a job, we have a built in routine. We know just when to get up in the morning, how much time we have to get ready, when we need to leave to get to work at a ...
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You've Got Spinach in Your Teeth
Ever been in a conversation with someone who has a little piece of spinach between their front teeth? There it is, glaring at you with every syllable she speaks yet she has no idea it’s there. You keep thinking, I wish she’d get that piece of spinach out of her teeth. If she only knew how ...
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Ebenezer Scrooge: Self-Help Guru
How The “Ebenezer Effect” Could Change Your Life This time of year, it’s worth considering several valuable lessons we can learn from Charles Dickens’ memorable miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge comes face-to-face with the effects of his lifetime of negative habits and ...
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Five-Step Cure For This Deadly Public Speaking Affliction: ADD—Authenticity Deficit Disorder
Many public speakers, from corporate executives to candidates running for president, suffer from ADD—Authenticity Deficit Disorder. This truly is unfortunate (for speakers and audiences alike) because more than just about anything else, audiences today crave a high degree of authenticity from ...
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Go Ahead, Be A Scrooge!
This time of year, it’s worth considering several valuable lessons we can learn from Charles Dickens’ memorable miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge comes face-to-face with the effects of his lifetime of negative habits and attitudes when a series of ghosts show ...
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Personal Change You Can Believe In! ™
Hundreds of success coaches offer very good advice and valuable insights about how to become more productive, prosperous, and successful. But the standard approach to personal change simply doesn’t work for many people. They leap from one coach to another, one method to another, one book to ...
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Things To Do While Watching TV; That Will Help You To Organize Your Life
You can do all of those small chores and be finished in no time at all, instead of counting days to get a job done. Stop saying that you don't have any time to get your work done, now you can count how many TV shows it will take, for you to reach your goal! How many times have you said, "I don't have time to get all of the 'little' jobs done around the house?" Just think of all of the things that you can do, while watching your favorite TV show!
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66 Ways to Lessen Stress and Feel Happier
Hang out with positive people Avoid negative people Hang up pictures of loved ones Call a friendr Call a relative you haven't been in touch with for a long time just to say "Hi, I was thinking about you!" Smile at someoner Acknowledge a complete stranger with a greetings, good morning, etc Whenever you hear an ambulance or police siren, silently wish everyone wellr Sing!
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7 Secrets To Why People Buy
People like to buy but they don't like to be sold! n Have you ever walked into a store with the intention to purchase something and when the sales person walks up and asks "can I help you?" we respond "No thanks, just looking" as we walk away and avoid eye contact. So how do you sell someone ...
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7-Key Questions To Ask Before Marketing Your Product Or Service
When creating a new company, naming a product, or rolling out a service, the way that you brand the benefits can often make more of an impact than conveying any actual features. A good brand can motivate a target market in a desired way, in fact branding is often defined as a set of beliefs ...
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11 Essential Self-Checking Questions For Goal Achievers
Managing your goals essentially boils down to personal management, how you manage your "self" over a period of time. How you manage yourself over a period of time is what's known as time management, which is the essence of life management. Life management is about taking control over your ...
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