4 Ways YOU Can Create Powerful Habits – James Clear

12 Essential Skills Required to Succeed as an Entrepreneur

There are lots of unwritten rules about the right set of skills needed to succeed as an entrepreneur. No doubt, entrepreneurs are filled with a sense of uncertainty on the right set of skills they need to acquire. So, how do successful entrepreneurs know the right skills to integrate into their operations? This is the million dollar question, and it’s time to answer it!

As an aspiring or veteran entrepreneur, here are some of the essential skills you need to succeed as an entrepreneur:

1. Money Management

Let’s face it, you can’t achieve your entrepreneurial goals if you don’t know how to manage your finances. You need to put structures in place to monitor where your income and expenses come from.

Ask yourself if you are spending more than you earn, and also calculate your savings ratio. You need to keep yourself informed of the latest financial investment rules and how to navigate your business through difficult situations.

2. Ambition

Yes, ambition is one of the hardest skills for entrepreneurs. The aim is the skill you need to keep going when situations become dire. It’s the ability to know your destination and not to lose focus.

Successful entrepreneurs have an aggressive nature, and this is what drives them to work hard. More so, their dynamic environment keeps them cautious and always on the alert for windfalls.

3. Willingness to Learn

Learning is a continuous process. Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of restricting their education to their educational institution. Instead, knowledge is a life-long process, and it’s an essential skill for successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, you must be updated with recent events in technology, your environment, and your industry. Remember, even old dogs can learn new tricks!

4. Creativity

You need creative skills to succeed as an entrepreneur. Trying out the same thing over and over will still generate the same result. Therefore, you need to harness your creativity to discover new methods of doing things. Mind you, being creative doesn’t mean you have to do something drastic. Sometimes, it requires simple actions such as talking to people or taking up new skills.

“Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change.” – Barbara Januszkiewicz

5. Productivity

Successful entrepreneurs have learned how to harness their productivity skills by discovered what is productive for them, and adhering to it. More so, successful entrepreneurs increase their productivity by working at energy peak levels. Lastly, utilize the productivity tool that works for you and improves on it throughout your entrepreneurial journey.

6. Social Skills

Some entrepreneurs downplay the importance of social skills. This group of people fail to realize that you improve your chances of success by walking with the right people. Search for entrepreneurs with similar goals and observe how they overcame challenges. Furthermore, study their success strategies; this will help you to perfect your business plans.

7. Management Skills

It’s not enough to learn the skills as mentioned above without improving your management skills. As an entrepreneur, you will need to manage your workers effectively to get the right result. This is the time to learn how to encourage, develop, and support your employees. Learning a management skill will help you to recognize and allocate tasks in tandem with their strengths and weakness.

8. Social Media Proficiency

Here’s one skill that can shape the landscape of your business. Yes, social media is an integral part of your success as an entrepreneur. In the initial phase of your business, you will need to assume the role of a social media manager, and this involves knowing how to navigate and use social media platforms.

9. Perseverance

Every successful entrepreneur has experienced failures and crippling defeats. They were able to survive these dire situations when many others lost their businesses. Successful entrepreneurs persevere through these hard moments by choosing to learn and make calculated decisions from experience.

“It’s perseverance that’s the key. It’s persevering for long enough to achieve your potential.” – Lynn Davies

10. Time Management

Time management is considered a valuable skill by a successful entrepreneur. With time management, you need to have a detailed plan or schedule for your daily tasks. More so, this skill helps you to prioritize tasks and how to tackle the important ones.

Time management helps you to battle procrastination when making crucial and everyday business decisions. Think of time management as one of the hard skills for entrepreneurs. Remember, you will never achieve your goals without gaining mastery over your time.

11. Communication

It doesn’t matter if you run a small business or a large corporation. It is imperative for you to know how to communicate effectively with your clients, mentors, stakeholders, and even your employees.

It’s one skill that’s crucial to your success as an entrepreneur. Why? You won’t succeed if you can’t communicate the values of your brand. So, you need to master all forms of communication. What’s more? You need to show your employees the importance of effective communication.

12. Business Strategy

Having a business strategy is considered an essential skill for successful entrepreneurs. Although most entrepreneurs reached the pinnacle of their careers through sheer will and strength, it’s necessary to have a business strategy. Utilize the skills mentioned above to create a business structure that’ll stand the test of time.

We’ve successfully created a list of skills to succeed as an entrepreneur. No doubt, it’s been an eventful journey. Now, all you need is to integrate these skills into your mode of operations. Practice these skills until it becomes the core of your business operations.

Which one of the above 12 skills do you feel is most important for an entrepreneur? Share your thoughts below!

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3 Ways to Build Your Inner Confidence and Claim the Life You Deserve

You deserve to be successful, happy, and healthy. You deserve to be abundant, financially free, and fulfilled. You deserve to be loved, have deep-connections, and at peace. Yet, you keep creating the same experiences every day and nothing seems to change. Your future, the life you deserve, seems out of reach because you keep predicting your future based on the past.

Then, doubt starts to take over. You go into feelings of fear, stress, and anxiety as you believe the life you deserve will never transpire. I want you to face your doubt, face your fear, and face your limitations. You have the ability to build inner confidence and claim the life you deserve.

Here are 3 ways you can build your inner confidence and get what you deserve:

1. Stop Giving Power to Your Inner Commentator

Your Inner Commentator is like a sports commentator. It is the fear-based voice inside your head that gives you a distorted play by play commentary of your life based on subconscious beliefs. And since 95% of our thoughts are subconscious, we aren’t aware of the stories our Inner Commentator is telling us. It breaks your inner confidence by having you compare yourself to others, questioning your ability, and believing a false narrative.

Your Inner Commentator clouds your ability to judge your social and personal standing in life by engaging your addictive behaviors, and therefore believes your identity lies within drama. When you sense your Inner Commentator trying to take control of your reality shift your mindset by asking, “Is this me, or my Inner Commentator talking.”

2. Be an Observer of Your Thoughts

Building your inner confidence starts by being aware of your thoughts. Thoughts become feelings, emotions, beliefs, patterns and eventually your personal reality. And since your thoughts control your reality, your reality is limited by your thoughts. Thoughts affect the energy of your confidence by attaching to the patterns and programming of your unconfident self. The unconfident self that believes you are limited and doesn’t deserve an amazing life.

Shift your thoughts without putting energy behind them, detach from your ego, and observe these three things:

• What type of automatic programming are my thoughts producing?
• Are my thoughts and emotions clouding my vision of the future?
• Do my thoughts limit me and affect my inner confidence?

The same thoughts lead to the same choices. The same choices lead to the same actions and behaviors. The same behaviors lead to the same experiences.

3. Embrace Uncertainty

It’s easy to be confident when we can forecast our future. When we know the variables that affect our outcomes. However, life isn’t about certainty. Because life is constantly changing we are faced with uncertainty everyday.

We feel safe in a predictable space and are unaware of how living in status quo prevents us from building our inner confidence and achieving everything we want in life. The brain fires in the same sequence and same combinations over and over again when you live in they predictable space. You don’t change your reality.

Increase your ability to build confidence by creating excitement around uncertainty. Challenge yourself to move beyond the status quo and the familiar. Therefore, if you continue to move past what is familiar, you become unconsciously skilled and are creating a new reality with confidence.

Nelson Mandela always asked “What if.” What if you built your inner confidence on the foundations of a new reality? A reality that wasn’t limited, predictable, and fear-based.

Implement these new skills to create an inner confidence where you can claim the life you deserve, unlearn the programs of the past, and align with you are now.

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https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/3-ways-to-build-your-inner-confidence-and-claim-the-life-you-deserve/

Earn More When You Adopt These 7 Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, you’re always on the lookout for the next big moneymaker. But what if I told you that the wealth that you strive for is already at your fingertips? You are your own best asset because by learning how to become your most effective self, you will maximize your earning potential and realize your dreams of entrepreneurship.

In fact, you can earn more if you adopt the 7 habits of successful online entrepreneurs I have listed below:

1. A Mindset Geared Toward Success

Successful entrepreneurs have a mindset geared towards success! In fact, they must have unique qualities in order not just to survive, but to thrive! Entrepreneurs have an optimistic spirit and know that things will turn out for the best in the long run. They are determined to succeed despite all the odds that are stacked against them. Nay-sayers? No problem, they brush away negative comments with a shrug and press forward in their quest to succeed. Finally, they don’t accept a “no”; in fact, they interpret “no” as a “not right now,” and revisit the topic later.

2. Fearlessness

Entrepreneurs have a fearlessness when it comes to taking calculated risks. Don’t take that to mean that they are blind to the consequences! They know the adage “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and accept the responsibility for making things right for themselves and their teams. When others fear trying new things, failing, or being embarrassed, successful entrepreneurs are researching the fearful situation, developing a game plan, and jumping in to take advantage of the opportunity.

“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.” – James Stephens

3. Great Time Management

Successful entrepreneurs have great time management skills. They know that their business is viable only if they respond to customers in a timely manner. They can juggle that responsibility with marketing, accounting functions, and operations work, and never drop a ball! They schedule their time wisely and include slots for phone calls, prospecting, servicing clients, and performing day to day tasks with a very exact plan for each day. Every minute counts!

Indeed, they work long hours that stretch from breakfast meetings to business after hours events. This attention to time management keeps them on task and productive. Inevitably, this helps them earn more money.

4. Use the Tools of the Trade

Successful entrepreneurs know how to harness technology to simplify their lives and aid them in time management. They keep on trend with the latest technological advances and take advantage of them to their full advantage. From iPhones to keep them in touch and upload quick photos to social media, to websites equipped with tools to help them manage their customers, to smart watches to keep them running on time, successful entrepreneurs use all the tools of the trade!

5. Ongoing Learning is a Priority

Successful entrepreneurs know that ongoing learning is a priority that goes hand in hand with running their own businesses. The world today is changing more rapidly than ever. Think about it. Our parents grew up in homes with kitchen telephones mounted on the wall and computers were something that only NASA used. Now, we hold tiny telephone/computer combos in the palm of our hands. We have instant access to ever-changing data on a moment’s notice.

All this advancement comes, however, with a cost. That cost is the price of remaining on top of all these tools, new advancements, and changing information.  A great example of this is Facebook with their ever-evolving algorithms, without keeping abreast of how to make your social media compete, it becomes irrelevant noise. Successful entrepreneurs are always mastering new skills, technologies, and ideas to help them propel their businesses up to the next level.

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” – John Wooden

6. Mastery of Face to Face Networking

While social media and the internet are all great tools, they are trumped by establishing human relationships. Successful entrepreneurs are masters of face to face networking. You’ll find them attending trade shows, conferences, chamber of commerce meetings, and social events. They will strike up a conversation with strangers at a pub or gathering. When other people fear putting themselves out there, the greatest entrepreneur will often be the first one to introduce themselves. For this is where they build the human relationships that drive the business.

7. Resilience

Despite being optimistic and fearless, successful entrepreneurs know firsthand that there are times when they will, figuratively speaking, get knocked down. People will put down their ideas, and competitors will steal their customers or products. Even family members may doubt when the next “payday” is coming.

Even when faced with serious obstacles, money woes, and defeats, these fearless entrepreneurs will bounce back. Oftentimes, this happens over and over again. Yet, they will still plow forward, undaunted by the challenges they encounter. This never give up attitude is what truly sets entrepreneurs apart from the crowd.

The next time you are wondering why other entrepreneurs are more successful than you, look within yourself. All of these qualities are disciplines that are attainable with an adjustment of mindset and attitude. Once you accept the challenge of these disciplines, you’ll see stunning results. In fact, you will quickly see that you can earn more when you adopt the 7 habits of successful online entrepreneurs.

Which one of these 7 habits will you implement this year in your life? Let us know below!

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com

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Tony Robbins Top 10 MUST Read Books to Expand Your Mind

How You Can Use the Power of Gratitude to Your Advantage

The word gratitude has been tossed around, but do you know exactly what it means or how to implement it into your life? Someone has probably told you in your life, “Express more gratitude.” Well, that sounds like a great idea, but if you don’t know what gratitude is, how can you fully express it in your life? It’s a concept that once you grasp, it will change your life.

We live such busy lives that we often forget to express thanks for everything around us. You see, gratitude interchanges with the word thanks. Giving thanks and gratitude are synonymous with each other. When you’re expressing gratitude you’re essentially giving thanks for a certain situation. Gratitude is looking for the good in every situation and expressing appreciation. Your appreciation need not be elaborate, something as simple as taking a second out of your day to say thanks in your mind.

When you wake up in the morning, you can take a second to say thanks for your family or your job. Gratitude helps keep your perspectives in check when you start to get down. It’ll allow you to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing in life. Your gratitude should be expressed to something that doesn’t have monetary value.

It’s normal to get caught up in negative thinking. For example, if something didn’t go right at work or the weather has been terrible, you can begin to think negatively. You will never live a good life with negative thinking. Not that you need to look at the positives in every situation because there will be times when negative thinking is relevant. The goal is to decipher when you should be negative and when you should look towards gratitude to get rid of the negative thinking.

If you’re working at a job and something doesn’t work out, it’s easy to become negative. You forget the fact you have a job which means you’re more well off than most people. Gratitude is looking at your negative situation and seeing the good in it.

Have you ever been around someone who is negative? Did you like being around them? Of course you didn’t! How does it feel when you’re around someone who is positive? Doesn’t it feel good to be around them? Take a look at your negative event and see if you can find anything positive. Gratitude allows you to slow down and fully embrace the moment you’re in.

Now that you know what gratitude is, how can you use it to your advantage?

The first step towards using gratitude to your advantage is keeping a gratitude journal. This is something as simple as using your phone to note the good that has happened during your day. You’ll realize that no matter how bad your day is, there is always something positive within it.

The next negative event you encounter after reading this article, try to find the positive in it. Get in the mindset of looking for the positive in the bad. This shift will change your entire world view.

Try to give at least one compliment out per day. This will also shift your mindset towards looking for the positive in every person you come across. You realize that you’ll feel just as good as the person receiving the compliment. When you give someone a compliment without a covert contract, it will make you feel better.

Once you’ve completed the steps above, try going an entire week saying nothing negative. It’s easy to think of something negative but try to restrain yourself from saying it. By your sheer willpower, you will notice just how many negative thoughts you have per day.

The last step towards expressing gratitude in your life is donating your time or money to a cause you deem worthy. You will learn when you spend money or your time on something other than yourself, it will bring you happiness in your life. Gratitude will never be something you buy but rather something you cultivate on a daily basis.

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward

Gratitude also has health benefits

It’s also been scientifically proven that gratitude can provide health benefits. With technology in our hands, it’s easy to become impatient. The more you practice gratitude in your life, the more patient and understanding you can become. When you’re more patient in your life, you can make better decisions. Wouldn’t we all like to make better decisions?

Gratitude can help you get better sleep because you’re no longer thinking about the negative events that are taking place in your life. The reason many people don’t get good sleep is because they’re thinking about negative events as they fall asleep. This causes them to wake up during the night in angst. Gratitude can soothe your nervous system, allowing you to have a more peaceful sleep.

Most importantly, gratitude can give you happiness that lasts. There are tons of things in this world that can give you short bursts of happiness, but wouldn’t you want that happiness to last longer? Gratitude can sustain your happiness because it’s something over the long term and not something that can go away. There will always be something to express gratitude about if you just open your eyes. By taking the time to express gratitude throughout the day, you will notice an overall positive change to your mental state.

Still think expressing gratitude is a little out there? Hear what these successful people have to say about expressing gratitude.

Alan Burak from renowned investment firm, Never Alone Capital said that the power of gratitude has allowed him to reach his full potential in life, expressing his true love and passion each day. How would it feel to reach your full potential? You probably aren’t even close to becoming the person you were meant to be, but expressing gratitude each day can help you get closer to that person.

Lewis Howes, host of the top 100 business podcast School of Greatness said, “It reminds us how lucky we are to have whatever it is that we have–our breath, sunshine, water to drink, a cool breeze.” In a world where we’re always craving for more, gratitude can help you bring joy in the present moment. It’s been said that the best things in life are free and gratitude exemplifies that fact.

“Gratitude is the key to joy; it turns what we have into being enough.” – Lewis Howes

Ryan Holiday, a New York Times best-selling author and practitioner of stoicism said that with the practice of gratitude, you can be thankful for what you have every day instead of once per year. The way to embrace gratitude into your life on a daily basis means to accept whatever happens to you. You no longer get mad at the bad, but figure out how to deal with it. When you feel happiness, you embrace it for as long as possible because you don’t know when that moment will reappear.

Gratitude can have a profound impact on your life, but you need to keep sticking with it. It’s a lifelong practice you need to keep at. Think about how much your life would change if you felt happier and more fulfilled in each second of the day.

How do you practice gratitude every single day? Let us know in the comments below!

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6 Important Things to Consider When Choosing an Investor

Angel investment is one of the preferred options for starting up your business. Angel investors are successful businessmen, investing their own funds into a potentially rewarding business opportunity. As an entrepreneur, it is crucial for you to choose an investor that can fulfil your specific business needs.

The right investors can add value to your startup, far beyond the capital they bring to your business. You need to be careful in selecting the investors because seed investing is an early stage investment requiring particular skills and experience.

Here are the six important things to consider when screening and choosing the right angel investor for your company:

1. Experience

You should choose investors who have the experience of building, running, or helping startups in the past. They should have a proven record of investing in startups that have been successful in their endeavors. More than their money, their experience is vital, which makes them an invaluable advisor.

Your angel investors should have experience in the same business domain and in-depth knowledge of your industry. If they have achieved success in other domains or industries, they may give opinions on how to grow your business that aren’t applicable in your field. With the requisite experience, they can guide your business through the difficult start-up phase.

2. Trust

Your angel investor should be trustworthy who can keep your company’s confidential information safe without creating problems for you by using that information against you. It is important to choose an investor who gives you not only monetary assistance but also the right guidance and knowledge. A good angel investor is the one who invests in your team along with your business.

3. Risk Taking

The success of your business venture cannot be guaranteed as there are many potential risks that can lead to its failure despite a brilliant idea. It is vital to find an angel investor who is willing to take calculated risks on a rational basis rather than emotional considerations. They shouldn’t be overconfident and they should think differently from the crowd and be willing to learn from mistakes to keep your company going in the right direction.

4. Support

Angel investors who have been a successful entrepreneur can be very helpful to your business. They have it all to guide and support you to develop a successful business and overcome the challenges that your company can face in the initial stage.

Good business angels are very supportive, helping you in problematic situations. They act as a mentor for you to help you achieve your goals by constantly coaching you and supporting you at every step. They provide time and empathy during your tough times.

These investors have an idea about the highs and lows a new business has to go through before it succeeds. They can give you emotional motivation and help you with their expertise and involvement, ensuring success. They will encourage and challenge you at every step of the way and offer you advice when needed to make you grow as an entrepreneur.

5. Expectations

Before you choose an angel investor for your business, you have to ensure that they have realistic expectations about the timeline of the growth of your company and when you achieve your goals. They should even have realistic expectations about how profitable your company will be in the long-term.

Too high expectations can put pressure on your business and make you take risks that can get you off track and not be good for building long-term value of your business. You should select investors who demonstrate flexibility and have reasonable expectations around reporting, communication, and goal-setting.

6. Patience

Angel investors should be patient enough to understand that it takes time to earn profit. They should have the quality of thinking long term and visualizing the bigger picture of your company’s future. Your business angels should be calm and relaxed, and not be the ones who panic and fear to take challenges. It is crucial for them to understand that startups go through highs and lows, and there’s high competition. A good angel investor will remain calm and accept the fact that all new businesses have to struggle in the initial years before they become stable.

When assessing angel investors, you will have to ask them questions about their prior investments, what their expectations are and how much involvement they will take in your business, among other things. You will have to find investors that have the same domain expertise and portfolio companies related to yours.

By considering the above-mentioned points, you will be able to evaluate whether you and the angel investors are aligned and if it is feasible to have a partnership with them in the long-term. Take the help of your network to find the right investors with requisite skills, experience, and funding capacity to get your business global. So, use your due diligence and get the best angel investors on-board!

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3 Reasons Why Getting Clear Is Important for Your Business

Everyone goes through times in their lives where blue skies and sunshine are a rarity. Too many clouds and storms, whether they involve business or personal issues, become the everyday occurrence and keep people from achieving whatever they want to do.

There have been many times on this business journey of my own where fogginess and haze have sent me to the mat. Trying to kick out at a 2-count when being pinned with all of this stuff seems unbearable.

In taking a holistic view (meaning looking at the entire picture) of where I am, what has changed? Clarity. Getting very clear on what I want to do and where I want to focus my creative direction. Yes, I’m a writer, content writer, copywriter, ghostwriter and creative. That’s one element of my own life. Another one involves being a voice for the voiceless in the craniofacial community around the world.

But this is not to simply focus on what I am doing now. This is about clarity, about getting laser-focused on what you want to do. If you have a coach or mentor in your life, then I’ll bet you have heard them say on one or multiple occasions that you have to “get clear” on what you want to offer.

Here are three core reasons clarity is an important factor for your business:

1. You Stand Out From The Crowd

You cannot go anywhere on social media and not see people putting out content. Some may be good; others are meh. It does not matter, though, if it is good or not. What matters is about conversion. Does the content turn into sales? Does it attract and speak to people’s problems?

Not everyone can be a jack-of-all-trades. You become a master-of-none pretty quick. Theories abound about niching down and finding that sweet spot where you can deliver your mastery to those in need. Think of the millions of niches out there: cannabis, fitness, spirituality, relationships, finances, food, and on it goes.

Every one of these niches need people who can come in and put clarity around their products and services. If these businesses are not clear on what they do and solve to those seeking solutions, then they are not going to have clients and eventually will have to shut the doors.

Learning to stand out from the crowd is going to make you a powerful voice in whatever niche or field you are looking to dominate in all the time.

“It’s a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration. Those emotions are poison to any living goal.” – Steve Maraboli

2. You Attract A Lot of Clients

If you wanted to apply one of those ancient universal laws to your business – for instance, like the very popular Law of Attraction – then you would understand what attracts people to you. Nikola Tesla, one of the world’s greatest inventors, once said that if people understood energy and vibration alone and how that works then they’d understand a lot of how things actually work in the world.

Clarity brings out a new energy from your words and actions. You come from a place of total and unbelievable awareness where you look around one day and go, “Dang, look at all of the people who want my services.”

Trust me. This is one of those lessons that I have to come back to over and over again. People might know who I am and what I do from this or that space. Yet is it really crystal clear enough to a targeted section of people? Um, it’s still a work in progress.

In order, though, to actually move forward in business and have the level of success that I desire, then clarity must come into play. Clarity attracts clients. They solidly know what you do and what you offer. There’s no wishy-washy stuff taking place. Understand this core reason to achieve clarity and watch what happens to your very own business and brand.

3. You Begin To Believe In Yourself

There’s this ongoing idea around “imposter syndrome” that folks on the interweb love to discuss. Showing up online like you are a real go-getter and hotshot, but offline that’s not the same person…that’s a problem.

“Imposter syndrome,” to me, starts happening when a person stretches out of his or her comfort zone and it feels miserable. Instead of getting up at 11 a.m. after working a night shift job, you get up at 8 a.m. to get a head-start on tasks and obligations around what you do. Thoughts like “this will never work out” or “I’m never going to succeed and get out of debt” start swirling around your mind like a bunch of chattering monkeys.

Clarity, though, allows you the benefit of starting to truly believe in yourself. In his famous book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” Norman Vincent Peale writes in the first chapter’s first line “Believe in yourself.” That’s it. Then the book goes on to describe different ways of building up your positive mindset through prayer, faith, action, and other real-life examples. Peale’s work may not appeal to you directly, but the mere thought of believing in yourself and your dreams is appealing.

“Clarity comes from action not thought.” – Marie Forleo

Find yourself getting clear on what you want and where you want to go and begin to truly believe in yourself and your abilities. There are lots of people who definitely need your services and work around the world. There might even be people right in your own town who do, too.

When tackling the issue of clarity for your business, take these three factors into account. Think about them seriously. Take stock around where this can be an effective place for you to succeed every single day.

Look for the sunshine and blue skies in your business. They are there. All you have to do is some sightseeing and all of it will pop out very clearly.

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3 Ways to Rethink Motivation in a Busy World

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of motivation recently. For me, motivation comes at different points during the day. I tend to be most motivated first thing in the morning. I’m not a night owl by any means, but sometimes I wish I could be. Other people are hopeless in the mornings, but they can stay up until the wee hours working on a project that inspires them.

Unfortunately, sometimes motivation doesn’t strike when you need it to. Sometimes you’re not able to arrange your day to align with specific spikes in motivation, and you’re forced to find opportunities to be productive at the corners of the day.

Below, are several ways you can set yourself up for victory, despite a busy schedule or an inability to find the right time to feel motivated:

1. Tee yourself up for a motivation session

I’m not much of a golfer, so the fact that I’m using a golf phrase to preface this tip probably doesn’t make sense. But the point is that sometimes you have to make it easy for yourself to succeed when it’s time to make a leap. You can break a task down into its component parts, and pretty soon it doesn’t seem so difficult.

That’s what motivation is about sometimes. You can take that first step towards getting things progressed. You can set up everything so you just have to jump in with both feet first thing when you have the energy. Sometimes this means creating a to do list for yourself the night before to start tackling first thing in the morning.

Sometimes it can mean drafting an email or creating a template for a phone conversation that you’re planning to have first thing the next day. Whatever you can do to get your head right and set up the right incentives for you to take that swing the very next day when you’re feeling prepared, the better off you will be. Try it next time you’re feeling tired. Take 10 minutes to tee up your next move.

“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.” – Les Brown

2. Fire, then aim

Unfortunately, sometimes teeing up a solution isn’t going far enough. What really works best is to put your head down and try to at least make a start at that “thing” you want to accomplish, that product you want to create, or that goal you want to reach. This can mean putting pen to paper, picking up the phone, typing out that email, or asking for that advice.

Do something, do anything. Whatever it takes, force yourself to make a minuscule action to move the ball forward. If you had a gun to your head or you were forced to do something to avoid losing everything in one moment, what would you do?

Perhaps this is a bit drastic, but by building a sense of urgency in the moment, even when it’s the last thing you want to do, you can find a deep source of motivation within you and set yourself up to tweak your efforts the next day.

Too often you’re overwhelmed and frozen into inaction when you reach for a large goal. This is the point of the “fire, then aim” approach.

3. Rid yourself of self doubt

One of the best ways to set yourself up for victory in the long run is to build your self confidence. If you truly believe in yourself, you will find the motivation to persist and persevere.

If you truly have faith in yourself and your ability to deliver what you set out to deliver, you can do it. The world will align to your dreams. But this won’t happen if you let yourself be talked down by self-doubt and worry about what others will think.

“The moment you feel yourself hesitate on something you know you should do, count 5-4-3-2-1 to activate your prefrontal cortex and interrupt the habit of overthinking, self-doubt, and fear.” – Mel Robbins

Some worry and concern is rational and even important, but for the most part, fear will only hinder your progress. Get the negative voices out of your head by tapping into the inner ego and reminding yourself that you can accomplish what you set out to accomplish.

If you put your mind to something, and you are stubborn in your resistance to listening to other people’s’ opinions of what you do, then you will be hard pressed to not succeed.

The hardest part is the start. Finding ways to make that start even a little bit less painful can make the time that it takes to create something amazing all that much easier.

How do you motivate yourself? Share your ideas below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/motivation/3-ways-to-rethink-motivation-in-a-busy-world/

How YOU Can Create a Powerful 10 Year Life Vision

5 Ways You Can Utilize Information Properly and Think More Efficiently

The mind is a complex system of facets, of which some have yet to be discovered. Still, in spite of all this, there has been enough information to help us gain a rudimentary understanding of it. Thinking is what we all do, although what differs is the efficiency and levels at which we do it.

A lot of things influence the way you think, and most of these factors vary from person to person. However, there are some foundations and basic laws that can help you move from just filtering information and utilizing it to think efficiently.

Below are a few ways you can utilize information properly and think more efficiently:

1. Be quiet and listen

We’re constantly bombarded with information, and the nature of this information determines how we respond. Are you the type of person who doesn’t handle bad or even good news well? If so, learn to take a step back, evaluate things, and look for the way forward. It’s something that stock market traders do all the time, and it works like a charm with practice.

2. Never neglect what your emotions tell you

While a lot of people might not know this, it is true that the conscious thoughts we have only represent a small fraction of the events going on in our heads. At any given point in time, you have the unconscious aspect taking in massive amounts of information, most of which we don’t even know are being processed.

Your brain makes conclusions, good or bad, and starts to generate feelings that rule our emotions in the long-run. So, whenever you have a subtle feeling that points you to a certain course of action or thought, don’t ignore it. At the end of the day, that feeling gets its way somehow, and it’s better you come face-to-face with it and understand its nudges better.

“When you react, you let others control you. When you respond, you are in control.” – Bohdi Sanders

3. Never think while under pressure

Pressure can be good, but a lot of the time, it tends to yield counter-productive results. Regardless of what you’re doing, there are times when you feel pressure. What this pressure does is force you to rely less on the part of your unconsciousness that functions like a trained autopilot system (from all of the training and experiences that you’ve had in the past). Essentially, it forces you to overthink things.

You begin to analyze every aspect of what you’re doing, and you end up using parts of your brain that have no business with the specific activity. So, whenever you take the time out to develop a certain skill, make sure you learn to have faith in your instincts as well.

4. Never focus on one viewpoint

Bluffing is something that professional poker players do almost every time. It’s become an art. However, instead of just bluffing on a whim (which also works at times, by the way), most of them employ a simple trick while playing; they think about how the opposing players would act if they weren’t actually bluffing.

In most cases, the brain tends to search the world for filters in order to confirm the beliefs that it holds. However, the problem with this is that it tends to limit you. At the end of the day, you could be dealing with facts that are just not wrong.

“What’s true of the poker game is true of life. Most people are suckers and don’t realise it.” – Michael Faust

5. What do you love doing?

According to studies, a lot of people tend to have moments of insight and solutions to problems when they’re not even aware of the fact that the problem is being analyzed by the brain. These are usually moments when you take a stroll, listen to your favorite track, brew your favorite coffee, take showers, and read blogs; when you feel relaxed and comfortable.

This is because insightful thoughts are usually generated by an influx of neural activities that occur in the right hemisphere of the brain. The best time to plug into the mind is when you’re stress-free, so make sure that you engage in activities that relax you more often.

How do you go about maneuvering around and making decisions in a world constantly bombarding you with information? Let us know your thoughts and advice below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/5-ways-you-can-utilize-information-properly-and-think-more-efficiently/

10 Simple Yet Effective Ways to Bring Out the Successful YouTuber in You

YouTube is a social media platform that has turned many a normal person into a celebrity. With over 1.9 billion logged-in users visiting YouTube every month, it is a hugely popular platform that is being actively used by people who are leveraging its reach and popularity for reputation building, increasing visibility, creating and driving brand reach and last but not the least, earning money.

We keep hearing success stories of YouTube influencers who were nobodies when they started out and today run some of the most popular channels on YouTube and are considered reputed influencers in their niche.

There is absolutely no doubt that if done right, a presence on YouTube can be a massive boost for your brand (if you are a business) and ensure visibility of stratospheric proportions (if you are an individual).

But, at the end of it all, most people want to get onboard YouTube for the money. If your channel is popular enough, it can be a regular source of income for you. So, how do you become a successful YouTuber and establish a popular YouTube channel?

Here are ten great tips to help you on your way:

1. Identify your YouTube Goals

What do you want to achieve out of YouTube? Straight off the block, this is the question you must answer. YouTube can help build your brand, both business and personal, if that’s your goal. It will help improve your reputation and differentiate yourself from the competition. It could also become a revenue generation medium for you.

There are many reasons you might want to start a YouTube channel, and you need to zero in on the right one. Identifying your core goal or set of goals will help you plan your YouTube journey effectively.

2. Identify the Right Niche for Your Channel

Making videos is a resource-intensive activity. It also needs a rare degree of passion to make videos because you are going to put a truckload of effort into it. So, make sure to zero in on the right niche for your channel, meaning the kind of video content you are going to post. If you are an individual, the content must align with your interest, preferences, skill sets and knowledge.

If you are a business, it must align with your business’s services or domain. Think very carefully whether you will be able to keep making videos about a specific topic, subject or domain regularly. This will help you choose the right ‘content type’ for your channel.

3. Trust Yourself

There are some YouTubers who give up because they think they are not cut out to be successful YouTubers. There is absolutely no doubt, you will be wracked by self-doubt when you start, especially if your videos aren’t finding enough traction. The key here is to have confidence in your ability and pursuing your end goal indefatigably.

Don’t give up because of setbacks; some of the top YouTubers started off slowly and built their audience steadily. When it comes to YouTube, it is important to understand that success won’t come easily or quickly.

4. Be Prepared for Criticism

As a YouTuber, you have the ability to showcase your knowledge and skillsets to the world, but this also sets you up for criticism. There are people who are going to like your videos and there are those who won’t and will go a step further and criticize it through the comments section.

And very often, this criticism isn’t constructive and its only aim is to make fun of you and your video. Can you handle this criticism? You must if you want to be a successful YouTuber. Try developing a thick skin and don’t allow even the most virulent criticism to affect you.

5. Respond to Comments

Make it a habit to respond to comments, irrespective of whether these appreciate or criticize your video. Your response tells your viewer that you care and are prepared to listen to their views. This helps you build a relationship with your viewers who can then turn into channel subscribers. Don’t think YouTube videos are one-way traffic wherein you make a video, a viewer sees it and forgets about it. A video is a means of driving interaction and engagement.

6. Follow other YouTubers

You might have some great content ideas for your channel, but you must also keep track of what other YouTubers are doing. There is always a chance that you will get some inspiration from their videos as to how to make a video more interesting, get the lowdown on audience engagement tactics and find technical aspects as well including camera work, audio etc.

7. Attend Meetups

There are plenty of YouTube meetups, conventions and conferences happening all over the world; it is imperative that you attend YouTube events happening in your region. This way you will be able to meet fellow YouTubers in the region, and who knows, you might also meet YouTubers, you follow and want to emulate. If you get the opportunity to discuss notes or get tips, do so. This will help refine your channel content

8. Keep Measuring Your Performance

Start measuring your YouTube performance from the word go. You need to keep track of various performance metrics to know how well you have done. A metric like ‘views’ is super important but so is ‘watch time’. ouTube judges the performance of your channel on various metrics and uses these to rank your videos in search results. There are plenty of tools that can help you track and measure YouTube performance based on various parameters.

9. Don’t Judge Yourself Too Harshly

Don’t set impossible standards for yourself. You are going to make mistakes and learn from them. No video is perfect and don’t think you can start making amazingly successful videos from day one. So, judge yourself, but don’t go overboard. Don’t compare your work with people who have many years of YouTube experience behind them; this would be counterproductive and play havoc with your confidence levels.

10. Keep at It

If you want to bring out the successful YouTuber in you, you must keep at it. Plan a video publishing schedule and stick to it, irrespective of whether your videos are doing well or not. Remember, once you set cadence, you will get better at your videos, and this will drive more engagement.

A successful YouTuber is no different from a successful person. You need to work hard, learn from mistakes, and more importantly learn from others. And you must make use of all this learning to create better and more more engaging videos.

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/10-simple-yet-effective-ways-to-bring-out-the-successful-youtuber-in-you/

8 Things You Can Do to Rise Above Failure and Attain Success

Highly successful people have tasted failure more than success. Whether its Nikola Tesla or Michael Jordan, everyone had his/her fair share of failures before rising to the pinnacle of success. Yet, most people I know are averse to the idea of failure.

When ambition fuels your desires, you become so conscious about avoiding failure that you forget to learn how to cope with it when you actually experience it. So, when you come face-to-face with adversity, it often overwhelms you.

This brings us to the question, how can you train yourself to overcome these difficulties and use them to your advantage? Here’s how:

1. Acceptance is important to overcome failure

When the going gets tough, one of the most frustrating things you may get to hear is “stay positive.” The idea of positive thinking has been misconstrued, misused, and abused continuously. Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you all the time. Anyone who preaches that is either lying or crazy.

Use positive thinking to learn, grow, and evolve from the experiences we gather in life. Positive thinking simply means that if you are faced with a setback, you work hard to overcome the challenges. When you experience hardships, it is alright to feel upset and disappointed. Our objective, however, is not to stay down.

2. Be honest with yourself

The most crucial part of dealing with a failure involves pausing for a couple of minutes and pondering over what happened. You need to be completely honest with yourself on why it happened.

It is easy to pull out the Smartphone, turn on the laptop or find other forms of distraction. Most people would do anything to distract themselves and keep their eyes shut to the mistakes they have made.

However, if you don’t confront, you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then you are setting yourself up for failure again. Albert Einstein famously stated that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. If you don’t derive a lesson out of mistakes and failures in life, then you are doomed to keep repeating them, whether you realise it or not.

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

3. Don’t beat yourself up over a temporary setback

When you have experienced a setback, many of you may succumb to the feeling that you’ll always keep failing. It is easy to convince yourself that you are indeed a failure. Don’t let such destructive ideas or thoughts creep into your head. Instead, keep reminding yourself that just because you failed today, it doesn’t mean you’d fail the next time as well.

It is also important that you treat your failure as a passing phase. When you keep moving forward, focus on the right things, and keep learning. Perceiving the setback as a temporary phase rather than something permanent is vital to developing an optimistic attitude in life.

4. Focus on nurturing and improving yourself

Failures don’t discriminate, and it comes to everyone at some point. The trick lies in learning to deal with it and what you do about it that makes all the difference. In many cases, failure happens because a person wasn’t prepared, didn’t invest time on planning or was ill-equipped. It can also be because Lady Luck decided not to shower her favours.

Except for the last one, the rest of the issues can be fixed. Prepare a list of all the things that you think resulted in your failure. Start working on them one at a time. Do everything in your capacity to rectify, improve, resolve, and develop.

5. Find inspiration and support in abundance

Interacting with someone close can be more helpful than you think. You can also learn from people who have been through similar situations and have achieved what you hope to. Gain insights on how they managed to sail through the setbacks or low-points before and during the moment of success.

Or you can gain the motivation or enthusiasm by listening to someone else from an audiobook or podcast for maybe 30-60 minutes. It doesn’t have to be focused on your current setbacks.  Change your mood and mindset back towards optimism again.

6. Adopt a constructive approach and learn from the adverse situation

Consider it as valuable feedback and take home something you can implement in the process of overcoming your failure. The following are some of the questions you need to ask yourself:

• What is the lesson for me?
• How can I rectify myself to avoid making the same mistake and do better next time?
• What can I do to enjoy guaranteed success?

You don’t need to rush through the process. Some of the answers may be immediate, while others might take an hour, a day or even a week to pop up. The significant thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective. Also, you need to be constructive about things rather than getting stuck with denial, negativity and apathy.

7. Stop mulling over and move on

Processing the situation and accepting it is the ideal way to deal with failures. Any individual who has experienced failures will know that it is quite easy to stay stuck in the loop of similar thoughts. In fact, this may go around and around for weeks or even months.

Now, in order to be free from this trap, the one habit that might help you is the set of questions like the ones shared above. You can also create a rough plan for how you wish to move forward from here. So, take some time to sit down and write them down.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

8. Purge out all the negativity

Another impactful way to handle the emotional meltdown and the thoughts that emerge from experiencing failure is to purge out all the negativity. In order to let everything out, you need to confide in someone close to you. There are two ways to go about it: Engaging in a conversation with someone will allow you to see it from a different perspective. The person you talk to can assist you in grounding yourself in reality again and motivate you to look for a way forward.

Or you can simply vent about it while the other person who is listening can sort things out for you. He/she can help you accept what happened and boost your spirit by instilling a sense of hope.

The significant thing to remember is that while you can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, you can devise smart ways to handle them. If you persevere, you can easily discover opportunities that have been waiting for you on the other side. Now, as you become more efficient at dealing with the failures, you will allow yourself to see the positive side in even the toughest of scenarios.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/8-things-you-can-do-to-rise-above-failure-and-attain-success/

How Stress Can Actually Improve the Quality of Your Life

Naturally, those of us who experience less stress in our lives are more likely to succeed. So, it’s important that you learn how to reduce your daily level of stress, right? Maybe not. Recent research has shown the common wisdom about stress might be dangerously inaccurate. Psychologists tracked the health of 30,000 adults in the United States over an 8-year period. Participants were asked two important questions:

1.    “How much stress have you experienced in the last year?”
2.    “Do you believe stress is harmful to your health?”

The researchers found that people who experienced high levels of stress were 43% more likely to die in the study’s 8-year period. Doesn’t that prove stress is in fact bad for your health? Not exactly, stress was only harmful to the people who believed stress was harmful.

Those people who experienced high amounts of stress but didn’t believe it was harmful to their health were less likely to die than all other groups in the study. They were even less likely to die than the people who experienced low levels of stress (but believed stress is harmful.)

Put simply, people who believe that stress is not harmful live longer lives than those who believe it is. This study showed that it might not be stress that damages our health, but our beliefs about stress that damages our health.

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

Breakthroughs In Stress Research

At first, this might be hard to believe. Kelly McGonigal elegantly explains this phenomenon in The Upside of Stress, “Stress mindsets are powerful because they affect not just how you think but also how you act. When you view stress as harmful, it is something to be avoided. Feeling stressed becomes a signal to try to escape or reduce the stress. And indeed, people who endorse a stress-is-harmful mindset are more likely to say that they cope with stress by trying to avoid it.”

People who believe stress is negative are more likely to avoid it by smoking, binge-eating, or watching too much TV. Afterwards, their physical health pays the price. Fortunately, research has shown that your beliefs about stress can be changed – and changing them has powerful benefits.

A study by Jeremy Jameson and colleagues had people endure a grueling social stress test. Participants were asked to give a 5-minute impromptu speech about their personal weaknesses to a panel of judges. To make this situation even more stressful, the judges were instructed to give negative feedback to the participant giving the speech. This study wasn’t just about sadistically putting people through social pressure, it was testing whether a mindset intervention could change how people react to stress.

Before giving the impromptu speech, participants were shown one of two videos:

• The first video opened with the message, “Most people think that stress is negative… but research shows that stress is even more debilitating than you expect.”
• The second video opened with, “Most people think that stress is negative… but actually research shows that it is enhancing.”
  

Participants who were shown the video that gave examples of how stress can be enhancing were less stressed out during the interview, felt more confident while speaking, and gave better interviews (as rated both by themselves and the judges). Even more impressively, although normally a stress response causes a person’s blood vessels to constrict, the blood vessels of participants who saw the pro-stress video remained relaxed.

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.” – David Allen

The Power Of Your Stress Mindset

So, a 3-minute video was able to change the way people responded to a stressful situation, not just psychologically, but physiologically. When we think stress is something we must avoid, stress becomes a negative feedback loop. We experience stress, we think it’s a bad thing, and then our stress makes us even more stressed (and on and on).

But, when we think stress is just a natural part of life, or even a good thing, we are able to embrace it instead of being controlled by it. This not only allows us to perform better in stressful situations, it also enables us to make healthier decisions (because we won’t attempt to avoid stress with unhealthy coping behaviors).

How do you handle stress? Comment below!

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/how-stress-can-actually-improve-the-quality-of-your-life/

The Truth About the Law of Attraction

When we want something, we generally imagine the form it will take when it manifests. If we’re not careful, however, we can find ourselves attached more to the imagined form than the actual desired outcome. This is like placing an online order and expecting it to come in a blue box shipped by UPS. If we then receive a red box delivered by FedEx, we might not realize that it’s what we ordered, and never even open it!

For example, most of us say that we want money, but when money comes in the form of a free coffee or a gift or a discount, we don’t see it for what it is. We overlook it, and maybe we even say “No, thanks” and decline the gift which is, in one way or another, still money. In doing so, we fail to appreciate the value of the discount, the gift, or the freebie. If it isn’t cash being handed to us, we don’t see it as a manifestation of our desire.

The law of attraction is a funny thing.

It is much more complex and much more intricate than what it seems to be and yet, at the same time, it’s so very simple: We always get what we want. We always receive more of the energy at which we vibrate. Always.

However, if we’re acting from the energy of “I don’t deserve it” or “I don’t think I’m worthy,” then whatever it is that we receive will be negated and essentially unseen. On the other hand, if we are open, observant, and maintaining an abundance mindset, we will receive our request on numerous levels and from plentiful sources!

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

This is because we “place our order” not only through our words, but through our actions, our beliefs, and our thoughts.

Last month, I was open to receiving a new client. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I’d set my intention: I was going to get a new client. That night, out of nowhere, I got a message from an old student of mine. She was looking to hire me again as her coach for the upcoming college entrance exams in the U.S. But wait! I didn’t want an entrance exam client.

What I actually wanted was to get life and business coaching clients. This student was my “red box from Fed Ex.” I wanted to decline at first, but as I was about to reply, something made me stop. I asked myself, “Why am I rejecting this?”

This student is an amazing client. She pays on time. She’s not needy. She does her part. Best of all? She doesn’t short-change me. So I said yes, because I realized that the Universe was simply responding to the essence of my desire.

You see, my “Big Why” in everything I do has always been to facilitate an accelerated personal and business growth for my clients, and this student fit the bill in every way. She wanted the personal growth, she was ready to go all in and she reached out to me.

It didn’t look like the package I was expecting so I didn’t recognize it at first—and I nearly turned it away—but she was the perfect answer to my request.

Serving people like her has always been a driving force in my life.

The Universe knows that. It also knew that I wanted a client asap so that I could re-invest the money into my business, so it responded in the most ideal way… but in an unexpected form. And I came so close to missing it!

How many times have I missed other opportunities like this? How many times have I dismissed a “red box” because it wasn’t “blue?” I’ll never know. But I do know that, had I not stopped myself from sending a “No, thanks,” I would have felt as though the Universe wasn’t listening.

That’s the thing: the Universe is always listening.

The more open we are in receiving, the more we thrive. The more open our energy is, the greater the possibilities. Don’t just return that red box to the post office and keep waiting on a blue one. Ask yourself, first and foremost, if what you’re receiving at the moment matches up with your underlying desire.

See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it.” – Rhonda Byrne

The key is to be willing to receive anything and everything. How? Keep on reading1

1. Get clear on your “underlying desire.”

Identify exactly what it is that you really want—in my case, it was an ideal client (underlying) as opposed to a coaching client (surface)—and focus on that. Clear out all the mental noise and static that clouds your awareness.

2. Be flexible

Keep your eyes and mind open for anything that fits the description. When you ask for money, recognize that free coffee for what it is: $3 you were going to spend anyway, that can now remain in your pocket. Every penny on the ground, every coupon, it’s all money.

3. Keep an attitude of gratitude.

The more you appreciate what you have, the more that comes your way. Your grateful mindset opens the energetic door for more to flow your way, because “where attention goes, energy flows.” The more you focus on the things you want, the more you will draw them into your experience.

Remember, that the Universe responds to our requests in whatever way fits best within the big picture.

It’s a picture so big that we couldn’t possibly begin to see how it comes together. Trust it. Know that when you ask, you will receive. It may not come in the form you anticipate, but always in a form that responds to your underlying desire. You just have to be ready to see it.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/the-truth-about-the-law-of-attraction/

7 Simple Ways to Master Your Emotions When Making Decisions

A lot of people have big regrets when lying on their deathbed. These regrets are often related to bad decisions or decisions not taken. Thus, as it turns out, decision-making is dependent on great self-confidence. A person who has confidence in their decisions has an easier time making them.

Emotions also play a big role in all of this. This is a debate that has confronted two great thinkers. According to Descartes, “decisions are the product of the rational mind.” In other words, decision-making is essentially based on facts and mathematics.

But this thesis was refuted and proven to be wrong by Antonio Damasio in one of his works called “The Error of Descartes”. This was partly based on the story of Elliott, a kid that was very smart, who had above average rational capabilities, but incapable of making a decision, after a surgery to remove a brain tumor on the surface of his frontal lobes. After all his work in that matter, he concludes that a person who is incapable of emotion is incapable of making the most rational decisions.

The management of emotions is therefore completely inherent to good decision making, especially when making the most important decisions. To this end, here are 7 tips to put into practice to really master your emotions thus making the best decisions possible and never regreting them.

1. Take a step back

You must learn to take the time to identify and understand your emotions. Since physical reactions are emotionally related, also take the time to detect the reactions you have to some of your emotions. To be able to take the distance necessary to make decisions, it’s important to refer to your prefrontal cortex. This is the area of ​​the brain responsible for reasoning. To do so you need to put yourself in a stress-free environment for a few minutes.

“Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent and committed decision.” – Tony Robbins

2. Breathe

The best way to do this is to learn to breathe deeply. This will allow activating your prefrontal cortex again, therefore, to have better control of your emotions so you do not react to them, let alone to the event that causes these emotions. Do this exercise for at least 15 minutes. It’s amazing how you can train yourself never to react, no matter what the situation. Ideally, let at least 24 hours go by before responding to a situation that would normally cause tension.

3. Pay attention

Once you are in the prefrontal cortex, put one hand on your abdomen, at the level of your intestines, and the other hand on your heart, and take the time to listen. These two parts of the body are the two major centers of vibrations and emotions. This is why it’s important to listen and pay attention to them.

The purpose of this exercise is to become aware of your gut and heart. What you need to remember is that the only person you need to trust is yourself. By practicing this exercise, one thing will become very clear: what the emotion you feel seeks to convey to you about the decision you have to make.

Since everything is energy, first make sure that the vibration of the decision you are about to make and that of your heart and gut are in sync. You will then know whether to go ahead with your decision or reject it based on whether you feel serenity or heaviness.

4. Discern untruths

It is important to know whether your nervousness is the result of an untruth you’ve told yourself. These can corrupt the vibrations that should help you make the right decision. You have to throw out all of these untruths and come to the decision-making without any filter. Stop thinking that you’re unlucky, that you’re in a bad situation, that your life is a failure, or that you are a victim.

5. Become aware of your emotions instead of avoiding them

To become aware of your emotions, you must learn to coach yourself. Ask yourself questions: How did you feel the last time you had to ask these types of questions? What did you get in return? Rename what you felt and the result you obtained from what you decided to do. You will thus be much better at assimilating, understanding, and welcoming your emotions.

6. Be as present as possible

There is no point in focusing on the big events surrounding the decision you want to make. Concentrate instead on the present moment, without analyzing the events. Judge based on emotions rather than the event. By being more present, you will be better able to listen to your emotions and feel them.

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” – John C. Maxwell

7. Make your emotions your allies

Each of your emotions speaks to you through the physical and physiological reactions that they generate in you. Look to the weight of their impact on you as an indicator. Only by listening to them, using them, and managing them can you manage your emotions.

Habit comes with practice. With time, these 7 points will become much more natural and will become automatic. You will make better decisions for yourself.  This is one of the best ways to not end up with one of the big regrets.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/7-simple-ways-to-master-your-emotions-when-making-decisions/

Why You Should Prefer Emails to Phone Calls if You Want to Be More Productive

“Email” and “productivity” rarely go together in a sentence. Emails have been declared as one of our largest time wasters. A McKinsey report stated that people spend around 2.6 hours each day responding to emails. That’s 13 hours a week, 52 hours a month and over 60 days a year! Imagine what you could’ve achieved in 60 days!

Emails also negatively affect our cognitive resources. When we think of responding to them while doing other important tasks, it takes up to 23 minutes and 15 seconds after being disrupted to return to full attention to a current task. Imagine how much our cognition and productivity gets fractured when we get distracted over and over again.

Constant emailing also drains us mentally. And at the end of a day, we realize that we’ve achieved nothing worth mentioning. With a phone call, you can sort issues and solve problems quickly, right? In theory, you’re right. But we live in a practical world where many variables come into play.

Below are three variables that make phone calls adversely affect our productivity, and why emails are a better alternative:

1. Wasting Time

Most “five-minute conversations” can quickly turn into 35-minute calls because people ramble about irrelevant aspects. This derailment, several times a day, severely limits the limited time and energy you have for important tasks.

Emails, on the other hand, force writers to streamline their thoughts and stick to the point. Emails can save you plenty of time and energy because you avoid lengthy phone calls. The constant strife to keep your own emails short and crisp also makes you a clearer thinker, which rewards you in other aspects of your life.

“It’s better to waste money, than it is to waste time. You can always get more money.” – Hal Sparks

2. Inaccurate Responses

An unexpected phone call can catch me caught off guard on a topic. I might respond emotionally or give an answer that doesn’t do justice to what I want to share. In a world dominated by panic buttons and fire-fighting, these don’t just stress me out but the caller as well.

Emails give me flexibility to prepare a coherent response and share it when I’m satisfied. If I feel a surge of emotion, I can sleep over the thought and share a better (more rational) response the next day. Many page-long email responses to emails that upset me have turned into a simple “thank you for your email” the next day.

3. Constant Back-and-Forth

Phone calls often are ineffective to solve business problems. Accounting for multiple people, their views, their timelines… One phone call can quickly turn into three.

Emails are quicker and more effective than even conference calls. They let you communicate with multiple people at the same time. You can share information, assign tasks and give status updates while being as specific as possible.

You must be wondering, “What about back-and-forth emails then? Why do we waste precious time on them?” Yes, email has earned a bad rap. But it’s not because of the medium; it’s because we handle it ineffectively.

A Better Approach to Emailing

For most people, constantly refreshing the inbox is part of the daily to-do list. It keeps them busy and gives them a kick of dopamine – the feel-good chemical.

Ironically, this quest to remain busy makes people compromise on taking action that can move them forward. Using emails prudently, rewards you with plenty of energy and mind space to focus on tasks that truly matter.

Here are three steps that benefited me without succumbing to the side effects of email:

1. Checking Them Less

I check emails just 3 times a day – at 9:30 AM, 12:00 PM, and 4:30 PM. If you don’t have the luxury to do the same, you can start by checking your emails for ten minutes at the end of each hour. Most senders expect a response in a little over an hour. So they won’t mind a slightly delayed response. This gives you 45 undisturbed minutes each hour to work on your core tasks.

2. Responding Quickly

People delay responding to emails at least 37% of the time, which turns finding emails and responding to them into additional tasks that cost time and lead to attention residue. Most emails take under two minutes to respond. When you can respond to an email, do so instead of putting it off. This won’t just put your mind at peace, it’ll also reduce the number of “did-you-see-this” follow-up emails in your inbox.

“I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I’m really good at email.” – Elon Musk

3. The If-Then Technique

The If-Then technique helps you address multiple scenarios at once. For instance, an email that says, “Can we meet at 3:00 PM?” becomes, “Can we meet at 3:00 PM? If not, please advise three other times that work for you.”

This technique is also effective when you want to suggest ideas or provide instructions on alternative steps. For example, “Here’s Plan A. If it doesn’t work, connect with [name] and ask for [specific information]. If you don’t get what you need, inform me.”

I’ll admit. This sounds like more work in the current moment, but it drastically cuts down the number of trail mails, confused correspondences, and fire-fighting instances that occur due to miscommunication.

The If-Then formula is the single most effective technique I’ve learned from The 4-Hour Workweek. All of this doesn’t mean that you abandon phone calls, In fact, it’s better to use the phone for sensitive topics or if an email conversation gets dragged. But remain mindful to not let phone calls waste your time.

If you want to pursue a meaningful life, place a premium on your time. Do things that create time for you to pursue meaningful actions and avoid doing what pulls you away from them. In the knowledge economy, this is the key to success.

Do you prefer email or talking on the phone? Share your thoughts below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/why-you-should-prefer-emails-to-phone-calls-if-you-want-to-be-more-productive/

4 Questions You Need to Answer Before You Reach the Level of Success You So Desperately Crave

It’s normal that every person in the world wants to reach success and happiness. Yet, everyone defines both of these things differently. For some, success is making a whole bunch of money while for others this can be to become a good parent. Happiness is defined differently as well. Some people need to own a jet, boat and 3 cars to be truly happy, while others are happy just to be able to wake up in the morning.

It doesn’t matter how you define success and happiness, the truth is, you want to achieve them both. But, to be able to reach success and happiness, you need to answer 4 questions for yourself.

Here are the 4 questions you need to answer before you can achieve success and happiness:

1. Where Are You?

No, not geographically. It doesn’t matter where you live. What matters is where are you in life. Where are you in your way to success and happiness. Let’s say you are lost in the woods. You know exactly where you want to go, but you don’t know where you are. Even a map doesn’t help you with that.

The same is true in life. You may have a goal, but until you truly define where you are in the moment, you can’t move toward this goal. So, step 1 on your way to success and happiness is to define where you are right now.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn

2. Where Do You Want to Go?

When you define where you are in life, then you can think of where you want to be.

There’s this saying:  When you don´t know your final destination, you´ll end up somewhere you didn’t want to be. Until you don’t know clearly where you want to be in life and who you want to become, your life doesn’t have a true purpose.

Without purpose, there´s no motivation. Without motivation, there´s no energy. And without energy, you´re not living, you´re just existing. I am sure you know someone who looks like a walking corpse everytime you see them. Do you think this person lives a successful and happy life? Most likely not.

So, step 2 on your way to success and happiness is to clearly define your goal. What do you want to accomplish and who do you want to become?

3. Why Do You Want It?

Okay, you know the basics. You know where you are and where you want to be. But, as Rocky Balboa said, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.” And as you already know, life usually doesn’t go according to your plan. There will be hard times and to overcome those and not give up, you need to know WHY you do what you do.

You need to know WHY you want to accomplish your goals. When you answer this for yourself, you don’t struggle so much to motivate yourself. You will be motivated every minute of every day.

So, as a step 3, sit down and think of WHY you want to accomplish your goals. What’s the big purpose?

“We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.” – Tony Robbins

4. How Are You Going to Get There?

And finally, how are you going to get there? What’s your plan? You may know where you are, where you want to be and why you want to do it, but until you truly understand how you are going to get there, there won’t be much success and happiness in your life.

For example, you want to become a bodybuilder. You want to do it because you want to have big muscles and you want to look fit. But, you have no idea how to work out, how to build muscle and how to lose fat. Do you think, you´re going to be happy? No. As Tony Robbins says, “true happiness comes from progress.”

To make progress, you need to have a specific plan; how to get from point A (where you are) to point B (where you want to be). So, as a step 4, sit down and make a specific plan for how you’re going to get what you want in life.

In order to reach success and happiness, there are 4 questions you need to answer for yourself. Without answering them, you´re not going to  get ahead in life, you´re just bouncing around. Success and happiness never come from just bouncing around in life.

Good news is, that these questions are really simple. It won’t take much time to answer them. Just be aware of where you are and where you want to be. Don´t forget to understand why you are pursuing your dream and finally, how are you going to get what you want.

Answer these 4 simple questions today and you won’t struggle with finding success and happiness in life anymore.

Which one of the above 4 questions resonated most with you and why? Share your thoughts and ideas below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/4-questions-you-need-to-answer-before-you-reach-the-level-of-success-you-so-desperately-crave/