The Search for Your Inner Peace Requires Commitment

Many people are engaged in a search for inner peace as they seek to escape our high pressure world. To find inner peace, it is helpful to take a look at your life and make some changes. Inner peace isn’t something to be added to your to-do list, rather it’s about finding the time to learn to relax and have time for you.

Here are 7 Ways to Prepare You for Your Search for Inner Peace:

1. Learn to Simplify

Figure out what is really necessary and what isn’t. For example, will the world come to an end if your bed isn’t made every day? Who walks into your bedroom to see it when you’re not there? If you can’t stand not to make your bed, invest in a duvet cover that hides the whole messy bed.

Get a basket for mail and go through it one day a week instead of doing it every day. You’ll save time on this chore overall. Get an online banking service if you haven’t already and set your recurring bills up to pay automatically so you only have to do a quick check or change rather than entering every bill every time. If you can, invest in clothes that don’t have to be dry-cleaned. You won’t have to make so many trips to the dry cleaner and you’ll save money too.

When I worked every day in an office and wore silk blouses or tops with my suits, I found that what needed to be cleaned every week were the tops. I discovered I could wash them in my washing machine on gentle cycle with cold water wash and put them out to dry once a week. I always had fresh silk tops (without that dry cleaning fluid smell) with no stress.

“Stay committed to your decisions, but flexible in your approach.” – Tony Robbins

2. Write Down Your Worries

Make a list of everything that worries you and stream your worries into three columns on three separate sheets of paper— “likely to happen”, “unlikely to happen”, and “ridiculous”. Take the “unlikely” and “ridiculous” sheets and wad them up and throw them away. They don’t deserve your time and attention, as they are at least unlikely to happen. Now, take the “likely to happen” list and make a list of things you can do to minimize the likelihood that they will happen. Work that list of things into your list of goals and start working on them. Now forget about ALL your worries because you’ve discarded the unlikely and done everything you can to minimize the likely.

3. Get Organized

Leave a white or blackboard in your kitchen for everyone in the family to write down items they need from the supermarket, drugstore, dry cleaning trips etc. Make one trip for all these errands, or get a delivery service. Assign someone to run the errand or place the web order as needed. Pick your work outfits on Sunday night and arrange the items in order in your closet, along with the appropriate shoes and accessories.

Make a meal plan for the week and stick to it. If you know that you will eat out two nights during the week, be honest about that and put it on the list. You are more likely to stick to just two nights out if you do this rather than becoming stressed and end up eating out every night. Make a to-do list of anything and everything that needs to be done this week. Do it on your computer and just modify last week’s list to save time. Get up early enough to make sure you have your act together in the morning.

4. Include Recruiting Help

Consider using a grocery delivery service. Most areas have grocery stores that provide this service for a small fee. Recruit your family’s help. Figure out what chores the kids can do and make sure they complete them. This can include helping to prepare dinner or packing their own lunch. There are lots of recipes that are simple and safe enough for kids to assist.

Make them responsible for their rooms and other assigned chores outside of their rooms; and no allowance if they fall down on the job. If you need freshly laundered shirts or blouses every week, send them out. If you can afford it, by all means hire a weekly or bi-weekly cleaning service and gardener.

5. Focus on Your Activities

Write down all your activities and rank them based on how necessary or how much pleasure they give you. And then cut those activities down to a reasonable number. If you work full-time, this is probably two outside activities. If someone else’s activities are messing with your ability to find peace, write down their activities as well.

If you find your children have more than two simultaneous extracurricular activities, it’s time to have them choose their favorites. This will be good training for their adult life when they will have to make these choices just as you are making them now. It also helps them to focus their energy into their chosen areas and to give them a sense of peace as well.

6. Turn off Your Cell Phone

PDA and email when you get home from work and insist that others do also. Very little that happens in life needs your attention right now instead of the next morning. When people find out that you have times when you are unreachable, they will find a way to solve their own problems without disturbing you.

For real emergencies, there is your land line. If you have become a social networking junkie, you must tear yourself away from the computer during off hours. If you don’t, you are giving your kids a terrible example to follow. If it’s not essential to your job to participate, start to limit yourself to one hour per week checking the social networking sites.

“The road to success is through commitment.” – Will Smith

7. Abandon Toxic People

Figure out who the toxic people are and start to limit your exposure to them. This should include anyone who calls too often or talks too long. This can be tough because sometimes they are family members! Evaluate which people in your life make you feel “less than” when you are around them. You really have no use for them and if you are hanging on to these relationships it must be due to your own guilt or lack of self-esteem.

So be brutal when evaluating who should stay and who should go! Then be a lot gentler as you start to pull away. Being around them may be tough, but it’s best to drift away slowly rather than to provoke a confrontation—this will help a lot with your search for inner peace. If the toxic person happens to be your boss or a co-worker you cannot escape, it’s time to make one of those extracurricular activities looking for a new job!

Making changes in these seven areas will help in your search for inner peace. Once you have made some of these life changes, you will find yourself relaxing more and starting to enjoy your life. You will also have the time and space in your life to find inner peace from a spiritual perspective.

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-search-for-your-inner-peace-requires-commitment/

7 Things You Can Do To Motivate Yourself After You’ve Experienced Failure

Failure and success are part of our lives. But it is challenging to accept your failures and bring yourself above it. Failure is mere a cornerstone to your success as they can often point the right path to follow. Failures of all types must be handled in the best way possible. But when life brings you down, you have to learn to face your failures and fears to prepare for success. Not sure if you can do it or not?

Here are the best ways that can help you dust failures off yourself and get back to your routines easily:

1. Emotionally Motivating Environment

When you come across your fails, it is natural to feel hurt emotionally. 48% of people admit the negative impact of stress on the professional and personal life. Therefore, it is essential to come out of the emotional state and let yourself heal. No one is expecting you to recover right away.

Take your time and find an emotionally motivating environment that gives you the power to take over your failures. During this phase, you are required to concentrate on whatever good you can find around you. An emotionally healing environment can reduce your stress and make the healing process faster.

2. Plan Your Next Actions

The best way to reverse the negative impacts of failure is to move forward. Decide what you are going to do next. Your next actions should be productive enough to bring back the results that you wanted.  If the effects of failure are irreversible, try to find another way that can help you succeed. Even if you haven’t prepared for the possibilities of encountering failure, there is still time to plan your actions and your approach to managing the current situation. It’ll give your mind a diversion and help you think your way through the failure you have encountered.

“Losers quit when they fail. Winners fail until they succeed.” – Robert Kiyosaki

3. Turn Your Mistakes Into Your Lessons

Failures are the stepping stones to your success. Each failure you encounter brings you one step closer to success and, ultimately, points you the right way to success. It is crucial to learn from the mistakes you have made and never to repeat them. 

And failure holds the potential to teach you that. Mistakes that are responsible for your failure points towards the right way to complete a task. And this is what we need to succeed in our life. From now on, you do not require the direction of anyone as your mistakes are guiding you in the right way.

4. Mistakes Are Natural, Don’t Pity Them

We all make mistakes. Most of the successful entrepreneurs of today have learned many lessons from their failures and became successful later on. There is nothing wrong with failing or making mistakes. Without learning the right way to perform tasks, it is obvious to fail multiple times.

Therefore, remember to get yourself up from the pit of failures or mistakes and focus on what you are going to do next. Despite experiencing what failure feels like, do not fear to face it again. The way to success passes through multiple failures, and by learning the right way to perform operations, you can ensure you achieve the success that lasts long.

5. Find Inspiration

There are a plethora of motivators in today’s world who focus on encouraging personnel to bring out their best. Seek inspiration from them. The internet has brought the entire world on a common platform, and it has become easier than ever to contact anyone from any corner of the globe.

Search for a motivator who relates to your failures and current situation the most. Seek their support. You can also find motivation and inspiration around you from your friends and family. During your tough times, all you need is a shoulder to cry on as they can motivate you to move further and focus on the best aspects of your life.

6. Re-Evaluate and Plan for the Best

What went wrong? The answer to this question can help you evaluate your actions and find the possible mistakes you made that caused your failure. For example, a startup owner launching their ride-hailing business can assess their efforts that precipitated the unexpected failure of their business idea.

Whether they lacked in providing efficient services, or the application was not a fit, and many more can be the reason behind their failure. Similarly, you can find out the mistakes that occurred, or you did that contributed to your failure. This helps you understand the actions that attract failure and plan out your next steps accordingly to never let them happen again.

“Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything.” – Marilyn Monroe

7. Expect the Best Results

Even after failing multiple times, you must keep your hopes high. The fear of failure often causes a trauma that doesn’t let a person get over the failures they receive for their best efforts. But this is the time when you need to visualize your success. Without fearing the failures, you must plan to succeed by keeping the lessons you have learned from your mistakes.

Expecting a tangible outcome for your efforts can help you keep your hopes high and alive. Visualize your success in your mind and plan for the actions you find are suitable for achieving it. The best way to fight your failures is by improving on the efforts and facing it head-on.

Do not let failures affect your self-esteem. Keep your morals high, and do not lose self-confidence. By learning how to overcome these tough situations, you can achieve success and keep your failures at bay. A positive environment, motivators, and the ability to learn from your failures can help you reach the peak of success.

from
https://addicted2success.com/motivation/7-things-you-can-do-to-motivate-yourself-after-youve-experienced-failure/

10 Pieces of Wisdom You Can Find in Popular Young Adult Novels

We rarely find what we’re looking for in the places we expect to find them. Sometimes, when life gets us down, we look to our superiors for help. We barely notice that the guidance we are seeking may just be found in the most unexpected of places. The next time you go to your favorite bookstore, give the young adult section a chance. What you may have a hard time looking for in the business section, you just might find in a coming-of-age novel or in a science-fiction book about feuding interstellar families.

Here are a few golden nuggets of wisdom I have dug up from years and years of reading young adult books:

1. “I am what I am an’ I’m not ashamed. ‘Never be ashamed,’ my ol’ dad used ter say. There’s some who’ll hold it against you but they’re not worth botherin’ with.” – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling

You don’t have to apologize for who you are. The world needs more of those who aren’t afraid to be true to themselves at all times. Yes, some people will look down on you for making choices they wouldn’t make themselves, but at the end of the day, it’s you who gets to make the choice about how to live your life.

2. “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get,” – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

We tend to glorify the fast-paced life a little too much. We quickly go through the motions so that we can get more things done and achieve more goals. It’s easy to forget that, when we’re always rushing about, we get disconnected from the things that matter the most. It’s okay to want to achieve a lot of things. Just don’t forget to slow down and relax knowing you don’t have to be in a rush all the time.

3. “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” – To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

True courage isn’t about puffing your chest. It shows up when you’d rather hide inside your room and stay there till the storm passes, but you step out and do what you have to do anyway.

4. “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Got that?” – The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Ann Brashares

It’s easy to get hung up over a problem. You can spend all your energy looking for solutions, and if you don’t find the right solutions, you can waste away feeling bad for yourself. 

That in itself is the problem. You set yourself back simply by looking at things as problems to be solved. What if these things you call problems were opportunities? What if they were simply experiences of another sort? Or what if they were just moments in the past that are no longer here? Problems stop being problems when you are willing to look at them in a different way.

5. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eyes to see it path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – Dune, Frank Herbert

Fear isn’t something to conquer. Fear isn’t even something to fear. It’s simply something that you must allow yourself to feel so that you can move on from it. Or more accurately, so that fear can move on from you. 

The only reason fear keeps hanging onto you is because you keep refusing to look it in the eye. And for as long as you keep doing that, you keep being a slave to that fear even when there’s no reason to be scared.

6. “Coming back to where you started is not the same as never learning.” – A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

Going back to square one can be one of the most heartbreaking things for someone with a goal. You give yourself fully into achieving your goal, only to realize you’ve been doing the entire thing wrong. You may need to start all over again, this time with much less enthusiasm than you had the first time. But this time you have a wealth of lessons learned from the mistakes you’ve made, and that’s something not even enthusiasm can compensate for.

7. “Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don’t want to play.” – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie

When it’s hard to make a decision, listen to your heart. It always knows what to do. You can endlessly weigh the pros and cons of a choice, but your heart instantly knows the right choice for you. You can tell what that choice is simply by observing your feelings. When you’re nervous but want to do it anyway, go for it. But when you’re totally dreading the idea of doing it, that’s when you know it’s not for you.

8. “You’ll never know where you’re going if you go about what-iffing like that.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

We can ask all the hypothetical questions we want, but at the end of the day, we don’t get anywhere being armchair philosophers. It’s okay to reflect on the things you want to happen in life. What’s not okay is if you’re just going to sit there and think about doing things instead of actually doing them.

9. “‘Atticus, he was real nice.’ ‘Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.’” – To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

It’s about time we drop the idea that humans are savage animals. Aren’t you sick and tired of being deemed nothing more than a bag of flesh and bones with a brain that’s just slightly bigger than most primates? Humans are so much more than that. We have valuable talents and gifts to share with the rest of the world. We simply have to look beyond what the physical eyes can see so we can find them.

10. “I think you gotta be who you want to be until you are whoever it is you’re trying to become. Sometimes half of doing something is pretending that you can.” – Dumplin’ Julie Murphy

It’s not really what you do that matters, it’s who you’re being. When you’re being the person you want to become, you no longer have to worry about what to do. You just end up doing it naturally. 

You might feel like an impostor at first, as though you’ve stolen someone else’s identity. But the more you get used to being that person, the more it becomes easy for you to do the things she does. Remember, you can be whoever you want to be. You only have to choose to be that person every day until you no longer have to choose.  

Out of the 10 quotes above, which one is your favorite and why? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/10-pieces-of-wisdom-you-can-find-in-popular-young-adult-novels/

The Go-To Guide for Creative Problem Solving

Creative problem solving is a skill that is necessary for business leaders. Being able to devise creative solutions to difficult business problems will establish your credibility as an effective leader.

Have you ever dealt with a business problem that just doesn’t seem to have an answer? Sometimes, especially when we’re in crisis mode, a problem presents itself that doesn’t seem to have a solution. Or maybe you have come up with some possible answers, but you just think that you can come up with something better.

In order to become proficient at creative problem solving, it’s important to change your perspective. What can you do to shift your viewpoint, expand your thinking and come up with a creative solution?

1. Approach Every Situation Like It Is a Project

Most professionals are used to doing this for actual projects, but you should consider doing this for day-to-day activities as well. Putting together a project plan gives you peace-of-mind because you will have a broad view of all the activities that are going on. The plan gives you a long-term view of issues before they arise.

Also, if problems come up that you don’t anticipate, you are able to assess the impact on the entire project. What might appear to be a major issue if you are managing “on-the-fly” may not seem as significant to the overall scheme of the project if you are using a project plan. Planning gives you a high-level view of the issue that will help you to calmly assess your options.

2. An Important Aspect to Creative Problem Solving Is “Don’t Panic”

Some positive self-talk will go a long way towards helping you find a good solution. Rather than thinking, “I don’t know what to do” rephrase the statement to something like, “I know there’s a better solution to this issue; I just haven’t come up with it yet.” 

Continue along this train of thought until you can say to yourself, “the answer is coming to me now.” The energy of this self-talk will attract new solutions and facilitate creative problem solving.

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” – Albert Einstein

3. Hold a Short Project Team Meeting with Everyone Who Is Involved

I say short, because long, drawn-out meetings tend to quash creative thinking. Explain to the team what you are dealing with and ask for suggestions. Include every level of the team from managerial to administrative. If you don’t get a lot of viable solutions in the meeting, ask the meeting attendees to think about it and send you a follow-up email with their suggestions.

4. Bring in Someone Else Who Is Not Involved to Offer a Different Perspective

This is a good time to bring in your boss, who may have dealt with the problem before. Or it could be a colleague who doesn’t have experience in your area, but who has proven success at creative problem solving with other types of problems. Explain the problem in terms that someone who does not have your experience can understand and ask for their opinion.

5. To Access Creative Thinking and to Stimulate Creative Problem Solving, Take a Break from the Problem

No matter what type of crisis you might be experiencing, find a way to get away from the location where the problem exists. If you have the luxury of time, take the weekend and really relax. 

Creative problem solving is a very creative process. Do something you enjoy, even if it’s for 20 minutes. Listen to some music you enjoy without distraction, take a walk outside, or do something recreational that completely takes your mind off of the problem. You might think this is slacking off when you should be working hard to resolve the issue, but actually, the time you spend away from the issue will open you up to new possibilities and is just as important as the time you spend working on it.

6. After You Have Gathered All Possible Solutions, Evaluate Them by Listing Them

Then make three columns next to the various solutions titled “issues, risks and rewards”. Have the project team fill out the various columns. Laying it out in this manner will help you identify the most attractive solution very quickly. It might be that the perfect solution is a combination of more than one solution. White-boarding the various scenarios makes the best pathway easier to identify.

“There’s no use talking about the problem unless you talk about the solution.” –  Betty Williams

7. Don’t Get Discouraged

Remember, you are the best person to make the decision in this particular situation because you have unique knowledge and you are the closest to the situation. So have the confidence that you will come up with the best possible solution! In this case, you should be rational and pay attention to everything. If you cannot cope with your problems or make a decision, just ask somebody to help you. It can be a stranger as well as your close friend.

What do you think is the best method to creatively solve a problem? Share your thoughts and experience with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-go-to-guide-for-creative-problem-solving/

A 10 Step Action Plan for Instant Motivation

If you need immediate help, try these ten tips over the next ten days and then observe how your life changes. Write down the changes in a personal notebook. Continue with what works and discard what doesn’t.

Here are my 10 tips for instant motivation:

1. Your self-motivation program starts the night before

Try to get to bed early. If you are tired or sleepy throughout the day (even if it’s from boredom) remember that an hour of sleep before midnight is worth more than an hour of sleep after midnight. So rearrange your schedule to go to bed earlier.

2. Plan the next day the night before

In your personal motivation notebook, write down what you plan to do tomorrow. With each activity, make sure it is framed in a positive way. For example: Instead of “prepare monthly report” write down “prepare monthly report—knock my boss’s socks off.” You get the idea. At the end of your list write down “something great happens that I don’t know about.”

3. Reflect and visualise the things on your list prior to bed

It’s okay to feel this way—just put any fears or guilt about feeling this way out of your mind by refusing to give such thoughts energy. Keep concentrating on how great your list feels. Your self-motivation program is kicking in already.

4. Write down what has been causing you to lose motivation at the end of your daily plan

Go ahead and write them down, it doesn’t matter how big or complex they seem to be. Now it’s time for some well needed sleep. Just before falling asleep, tell yourself that you are going to gain new insight into the list of issues or problems you just wrote down.

“A well spent day brings happy sleep.” – Leonardo da Vinci

5. Fall asleep to some music that concentrates on the higher music octaves

This will open up the higher centers of your mind and prepare your subconscious mind for problem solving.

6. You should lie in bed the next morning for a few minutes

Read over your daily plan and once again, imagine how good it will feel when things go your way. Now get up and get ready for the day feeling very self-motivated.

7. Eat something for breakfast that has a decent amount of protein in it

If you are a coffee drinker, think about giving it up. Feeling nervous or jittery will definitely interfere with your self-motivation. Here’s a good tip: Don’t give it up cold turkey, that’s too hard. Instead, make every other cup you drink a cup of decaf. Pretty soon you won’t be able to taste (or feel) the difference. You will cut your caffeine consumption in half immediately. 

After about a month of this, you can start drinking decaf exclusively. If you are a heavy coffee drinker, you’ll find that you will now only want 1-2 cups per day and the detox process was painless. Eventually you won’t even want the decaf and you can substitute fruit juice or water.

8. Listen to uplifting music on the way to work

You should have music to start your day that makes you feel good. This is designed to open your energy centers and help you to think clearly. If you go to lunch later in your car, play some more of this type of music. Do not listen to the news or any talk shows on the way to work—the problems of the world are not yours to solve. Managing your day and being self-motivated is.

“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” – Benjamin Franklin

9. Now you’re on the job and ready to face the day

Suddenly your phone rings and a huge problem comes up that is unexpected and nowhere on your daily plan. What to do? Take a minute to jot down the problem in your personal notebook and do what you did the night before: i.e. “my best customer didn’t get their shipment on time—and I knocked my boss’s socks off by solving the problem.” 

Take a minute to feel how good it feels to have solved the problem. Now proceed to deal with the problem–you can do it because you’re self-motivated! As you go through your day and perform each item on your daily plan, check off each item as they are finished.

10. At the end of your day, do the steps outlined in steps 1-5 again, but add something to it

As you make your plan for the next day, add one more step. Feel how great it feels to have ticked off the items in your daily plan and tell yourself, “I’m the best and most qualified person on earth who could have accomplished this.” Now get busy planning your next day.

Something else to consider, if your environment is cluttered and unorganized, you are going to find it difficult to follow this plan. If this is your situation, you need to spend the time it takes to clean your home, office or other workplace.

Which step in of the 10-step plan for instant motivation resonated most with you and why? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/motivation/a-10-step-action-plan-for-instant-motivation/

What Les Misérables Taught Me About Our Values

Who am I? The ultimate question many of us try to answer. When I think of values, I think of Victor Hugo’s 1862 book, “Les’ Miserables”. In Hugo’s book, Jean Valjean, is used as a protagonist to highlight the power in redemptive love and compassion. Valjean goes into prison for stealing a loaf of bread, entering as a simple and decent man. His time in jail seems to have an unrepairable effect, where he emerges from the chain gang as a tough, bitter criminal who hates society for what it has done to him.

When Valjean comes across Bishop M. Myriel, Valjean greets the bishop with hatred and abuse. Myriel however, becomes the first person in decades to treat Valjean with respect and compassion. The meeting with Myriel changes Valjean’s character forever, where Myriel promises to help Valjean to become an honest man.

Once Valjean opens up, he becomes proof of redemptive love and compassion. Through hard work and a new vision to turn a derelict town into a flourishing manufacturing village, Valjean is taught the value of philanthropy. When he takes care of Cossette, he learns the value of love and compassion, where he passes it onto others. Becoming aware of what Valjean values has him become a person of clarity. Hardened by prison and rescued by kindness, Valjean is molded by his life experiences and encounters. This is all of us.

What Les Miserables teaches us about our values is that they’re important to us. Learning and identifying them becomes a vital part of creating clarity in our lives, where we can be better decision-makers and find a life of fulfillment.

Our values are what motivates us to get up in the morning. They’re the choices you make and why you behave the way you do. Examples of values can be wealth, success, health and friendship. For example, If you’re often working out at the gym, you value your health. Working out is not a value, it’s merely a symptom of the value. To understand our values, we have to understand what led us to behave how we behave. This is the starting point for understanding our motivators.

Benefits of values

As mentioned, understanding our values is important to gain clarity in our lives and make better decisions suited to ourselves. Once understood, we can prioritise effectively, make decisions and changes that lead us to success and happiness in the areas of life we want to pursue.

Why does prioritising matter?

The decisions we make are often inconsistent. When we understand our values, our motivation to make consistent decisions are much higher because we know what’s important to us. Time is our most limited resource. You’re reading this right now, which means you’re consuming time on this topic. One way or another, you’re looking to maximise your life and you’re maximising your time with this book.

Happiness. If we want to achieve happiness and success, understanding what we value is a sure-fire way of gaining clarity on our goals so we can prioritise and make consistent decisions, getting there faster.

Explore your values

Our values are like a compass within, helping us explore and navigate through life experiences and transitions. To explore our values, it takes self-reflection. Self-reflection is the process of understanding who you are, what you’re doing and why you think and act the way you do. We self-reflect all the time, mostly without knowing it.

Any athlete would think about what areas of their respected sport they need to work on and what they’re doing wrong. Even business owners would stop and assess if they’re on the right track. These are all parts of self-reflection, and it’s no different to self-reflecting on our values.

So how can we explore them?

Exercise 1: Brainstorm

Get a piece of paper and write down ‘What’s Important To Me’, then circle it. Answer the question.

To answer the question, it requires some thinking. If they’re long sentences you’re thinking of, encapsulate them into one or two words. For example; if you think about travelling, write down ‘life adventure’. If you think about going to the gym, write down ‘health’. If you want to make it to the top of your company, write down ‘career’. Think about the experiences gone by. Have you had children? Do you want children? Have you been wanting to do something for a long time, but haven’t found the time? Think of what inspires you and write it all down in one or two words.

Exercise 2: Find The Top Values

You may have written down 5, 10, 15 or more values down which matter the most to you. Draw out the top 5. Read over each one and see what kind of feeling you have. Do any of them make you feel passionate or positive in a different way than others? Think about when you have taken action on these values and ask yourself if you live those out. You then should have the top 5 things that are important to you.

Use your values to make decisions

If you never sit down to think about what’s important to you, then you’re making decisions based on whatever information is in front of you. This can cause a lot of regret and pain in the future. Life is complex and we are often presented moments in our personal and professional lives where we’re required to make a decision without as much information we need. We assume that we need more knowledge about something to make a decision, but more often than not, we need a clear understanding of our values.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/what-les-miserables-taught-me-about-our-values/

7 Ways You Can Increase Your Concentration Right Away

In today’s world, an overabundance of information and a large number of distractions is making it increasingly difficult to concentrate on performing the necessary tasks. In this article, I propose 7 simple methods that will train your ability to concentrate, while not taking you from your usual activities.

1. Plan and visualize several mission-critical tasks every day

Make it a part of your morning routine. From the entire array of tasks, select 1-3 of the most important, during which you need to give all your best. It’s necessary to train your focus on the most critical and essential tasks. The desire to do a large number of functions simultaneously lowers the concentration and quality of the work done.

And to make this process more efficient, highlight not only these three tasks but also visualize them. Imagine how you will do it, what the result will be, what emotions you will experience. It will load your subconscious, and it will work on their implementation all day.

2. Find your peak hours

The concentration of attention depends not only on your efforts but also on genetics. The productivity of the brain is mainly responsible for the biological clock. Your body has gaps when it works at its best. There are other periods when you feel weak and lack motivation.

Observe yourself for several weeks, setting the most important tasks at different times of the day. Keep in mind that your productivity also changes during the week. Some days will seem more productive than all others. Celebrate such days and hours. Over time, you will receive a ready-made schedule for the most critical and complex cases requiring high concentration.

“The best advice I ever came across on the subject of concentration is: Where ever you are, be there.” – Jim Rohn

3. Train your attention just like muscles

It is possible to work non-stop on one task for more than an hour; for this, it is necessary to train this skill. Everything is similar to sports. At first, it seems impossible for a person to run a marathon, and after daily practice, he smoothly overcomes this distance.

You can do the same with your brain. First, make your work cycle short, as, for example, in the well-known Pomodoro technique: 20 minutes of work, 5 minutes of rest. Over time, increase this limit by 1-2 minutes. Soon you will be able to work productively for an entire hour, devoting minimum time to rest.

Keep in mind that you should focus on one thing. Constant switching of attention (the notorious multitasking), on the contrary, only weakens your focus.

4. Practice Mindfulness

The practice of mindfulness (or awareness) means nothing more than focusing on the current moment. And it’s not important what exactly you are focusing on right now: work, walk, talking with a loved one, a trip to public transport or even your breath. The keyword is concentration.

Once you decide to practice mindfulness, you should forget about everything else; about the past and the future, and live in the present moment. Feel the surrounding smells, carefully listen to every word of your interlocutor, consider the chaotic pattern of asphalt at the trolleybus stop. Just focus on what you are doing at this moment. The unique charm of this method is that you can engage in mindfulness anywhere, anytime.

5. Practice meditation

Another method that directly affects the brain’s ability to concentrate on meditation. It’s confirmed by numerous studies, which showed that the constant practice of meditation significantly increases the amount of attention.

In a 2010 Katherine MacLean study, 60 participants completed a 3-month meditation practice under the guidance of experienced mentors. Throughout their studies, they periodically tested for cognitive abilities. Scientists have found that almost all participants have learned to maintain concentration much longer.

The subjects rechecked after five months. The improvements remained the same, especially for those participants who continued to meditate every day after the experiment.

6. Exercise

Physical activity has a similar effect, like meditation. In other experiments, scientists suggested that high school students solve problems associated with concentration in the normal state, after a 20-minute rest and after a 20-minute walk on a treadmill. Scientists also recorded the neuroelectric activity of the brain. As a result, it found that the walking group demonstrated the best performance. Both tests and EEG data confirmed this.

“Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man.” – Bruce Lee

7. Take time to relax

To become a champion in weightlifting, you need to train a lot, eat a lot and relax a lot. Take away at least one component, and, at best, you will not achieve results, and at worst, you will get health problems from exhaustion.

If you want to become a champion in concentration, this is the same for you. You cannot remain concentrated all the time. The more you work, the less you relax, the weaker your brain, and its ability to focus on something. Conversely, just 5 minutes of rest after an hour of work allows you to recharge the batteries and again move forward with high productivity.

But only if the rest was right. You must completely switch from the current task to something else. If you have been sitting at a computer for an hour, do physical activity for the next 5 minutes – even if it is just a walk.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/7-ways-you-can-increase-your-concentration-right-away/

The Power of the Mind: How to Use It Successfully

James Allen once said “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you”. Mind Power is a fascinating topic and those that take the time to read and explore how their thoughts affect their actions and essentially, their life – can use this crucial information in changing or focusing their thoughts and beliefs in order to change their life.

The basic premise is that our thoughts create our actions. This is true in all areas of our life – our mental health, our physical health, our beliefs and attitudes. Take the example of Stress.

What is Stress?

Stress is defined as the body’s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. The stress can be from starting a new job, the loss of a loved one, having financial challenges in your life, taking care of a loved one that is unwell, being in an unhealthy relationship, etc. All these situations involve some kind of physical action, mental thought or emotional feeling that we experience. When this stress is not managed well, it can lead to serious health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

This is a good example as it simply shows how having a specific thought can end up leading to a physical condition. The power the mind – when used incorrectly, can lead to serious consequences. Your thoughts will manifest itself in your life. This is true whether you are paying attention to your thoughts or not.

Placebo Effect

A good example of this is the placebo effect. This term refers to the case where people are given placebos in clinical trials often experiencing the effects caused by the actual medication itself. They believe that they are taking the medication and thus they start to feel the effects of that medication. However, in reality, their placebo may have simply been a pill made of 100% sugar. This is a good illustration on how our thoughts create our reality and the power of the mind and how it can affect your physical well-being.

Positive vs Negative Attitude

There are more and more studies that have shown how mind power affects your health. Patients undergoing the same medical surgery, but with different attitudes, having dramatically different results. Patients with a positive attitude going into the surgery – often had a more successful recovery than those patients that went in with a negative attitude.

This is another example of how our thoughts affect our physical health. Once again, Mind Power and its effect on how your body will heal. Learning to use the power of your mind is important and essential in order to live a good life.

How Do You Use the Power of the mind?

There are some simple steps/techniques that you need to focus on:

1. Have a clear goal – it should be clear and precise 
2. Focus your mental actions and your physical actions on achieving that goal

Be Clear and Specific with Your Goal

You want a job/business – what kind of job? Full time, part time? What hours do you want to work? What salary or profit do you want to make? Be specific. Saying a ‘lot of money’ is not being specific. Exactly how much do you want to make – 60 thousand? 100 thousand dollars?

The more specific you are – the clearer the message is to your subconscious mind and the more likely you are going to attract the type of job/business that you desire. Remember, in order for Mind Power to work for you – you need to be clear and specific. Now it does not stop with simply the thought process.

Take Action

Look out for opportunities – do not dismiss any small opportunity that comes your way. Be alert for these signs – and take action. Perhaps your friend mentions that he saw an opening in the paper for an interesting position, perhaps your old manager emails you to see how you’ve been – these could very well be the disguised opportunities. Be on alert so that you recognize them and take the action you need to do achieve your goal.

We Can Do This

You don’t need a college or university degree to make this happen. This is simply working with the power of your mind so that you can achieve anything you set your mind to – big or small goals. It works – it’s been proven to work. Why not get on board and start making the changes you need to in order to live the best life possible?

This is how mind power works and when you work with mind power correctly you begin to create the changes you want. Mind power works and it can work for you so work with your mind power every day. Apply mind power correctly and you’ll enjoy greater success.

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-power-of-the-mind-how-to-use-it-successfully/

5 Simple Hacks to Help You Develop the Habit That Will Transform Your Life

It’s excruciating when we know what’s killing us but we can’t do anything about it because as you know, it is not easy to pull the brake on a high way. According to Napoleon Hill, “remember this always – the best (and one might say the only) way in which old habits may be removed is to form new habits to counteract and replace the undesirable ones”.

Meaning the desire to kill a habit is not all we need, rather, we need something to counter it. Therefore, before you think about getting rid of that habit, find another habit to replace it. Because it’s the emptiness we feel when we try to kill a habit that keeps pulling us back to it.

So after making the decision to kill an old habit, and you’ve found a new one to take its place, here’s how you can easily get the new habit to take precedence;

1. Add enthusiasm to it

After defining the new habit that will take you to that place where you wish to be, to that height you wish to reach, that goal you desire to achieve, the next thing to do is to add enthusiasm to it. By adding enthusiasm, we can feel the emotions around having that goal come to pass, and dwell on them.

Write down how it will feel at the end of the day when you’ve finally achieved that thing. Then start expressing the emotions. If you can’t feel and see yourself being happy with the result, chances are, you’re not going to want to do what you have to do.

“Depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we repeatedly do.” – Sean Covey

2. Focus all your attention on it

Before anyone can truly focus their mind on anything, they have to remove that thing which is on the way. And the one thing on the way is that old habit. When the thought of doing that thing which you used to do comes, remind yourself that the old habit is not going to take you where you want and this new habit is going to bring you more joy and help you live better. So when the thought of the old habit comes around, remind yourself of this new habit and concentrate all your attention on it.

3. Think about the new habit more often

Similar to the second point, the more you think about the new habit, the more you feel inclined to do what you have to do, or get where you want to go. This is the part where using timed affirmations comes in handy. Write down your new habit and read or remind yourself of it morning, afternoon and night or as much as you can. While reminding yourself about this new habit, think about the end goal, because that’s what will make the new habit seem less stressful.

4. Don’t go looking back

Sometimes, we tell ourselves “we’re just going to take a look, and we won’t do anything”. The more you take a look, the more you realize how much you miss it and more prone to doing it “maybe just once”.

So cut all ties with that old habit. Don’t keep any friends that still engage in that habit. Don’t be in the circle, avoid even talking to them when they’re performing that habit. The more you try the new habit the stronger you become, but the resistance to get back becomes weaker if you still pay attention to it.

“Your habits will determine your future.” – Jack Canfield

5. Have mini goals for the day, week and month

The more visible it seems that we’re moving toward a course, the more determined and motivated they become. And that’s why you should set mini-goals that will help you feel that you’re making progress. Because if you don’t feel you’re making progress, then there’d be more reasons to go back to the old habit.

Let’s say you want to form the habit of reading a book. Set little goals such as, read 2 pages every day, 10 pages at the end of the week and 40 pages at the end of the month. This way if you feel demotivated on the third day, you’d realize you’re 70% there which will force you to do more.

As you repeatedly perform these acts, with time, you won’t have to consciously remind yourself that you have to perform them rather, your body will force you every time to carry them out without stress.

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/5-simple-hacks-to-help-you-develop-the-habit-that-will-transform-your-life/

6 Ways Traveling Will Make You A Better Entrepreneur

Twelve years ago, I flew to Turkey to meet with a potential client who had specifically told me not to bother boarding the plane. My boss dropped the trip in my lap just days before I had to show up because he wasn’t able to close the deal himself. Even though the client said he wasn’t going to work with us and I shouldn’t waste my time, I flew to meet him, made a great pitch, created a genuine connection with him—and got him to sign an agreement to work with my company. It ended up being a seven-figure win for my company.

There are plenty of lessons to take from that story, but the biggest one for me is the power of travel. Whether you’re making a personal connection, decompressing on a vacation or getting inspiration from a journey, getting outside of your office and your home town can make all the difference in the world when it comes to your business’ bottom line.

As an international vacation concierge, I not only professionally plan unforgettable vacations for clients but I also have personal knowledge when it comes to the benefits of those getaways. 

Here are 6 ways your next trip can make you a spectacularly successful businessperson:

1. It will enhance your problem-solving skills

Whether you’re in Paris trying to figure out if you can walk from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower or you’re desperate to figure out what’s on the menu at a restaurant in Tokyo, you’ll be flexing parts of your brain that you don’t usually. 

Maybe you have to get creative when you’re trying to speak to locals who don’t speak English or you’ve rented a car and you’re driving on the “wrong” side of the road. You’ll sharpen your problem-solving skills and they’ll translate well when you’re trying to handle tough problems at work once you head back home.

2. You could get some business inspiration

We all know that people live very differently in other parts of the world, but seeing is believing. Traveling abroad might help you notice a product in a store that gives you an idea about something that could be brought to the states. 

You might also believe that your product would be great for another country, but then find out it’s not. This is the story of Melinda and Bill Gates pre-wedding trip to Africa that inspired them for their philanthropic work at their foundation.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine 

3. You’ll get recharged

Research shows that there are extensive emotional, physical, and mental health benefits when it comes to international travel in particular. So settle in for a longer plane ride. 

Despite the bad news you’ve been hearing about the Coronavirus, studies show that travel can actually enhance your immune system by exposing you to new and different environments. Travel also reduces stress and when done right, can help you make friends or even business associates that can last a lifetime. If you’re feeling burnt out at work, it might be time to pack a suitcase.

4. It can improve your networking skills

When you get out of your comfort zone at home, you won’t be able to stick to your daily routines and have a circle of people you know you can lean on. You’ll have to start leaning on others for help. You’ll be asking strangers for directions to the train station, recommendations on good places to eat and even suggestions for fun things to do while you’re in town. 

All of this can enhance your ability to communicate and work with others, particularly if you tend to keep to your desk and leave your office door shut.

5. You’ll rekindle your inner child

So many times, we forget about our passions outside of work as we are tied up in our jobs. We forget about the times we danced through the night at a club, spent an entire afternoon painting or used to completely lose track of time reading French philosophy and Russian literature. 

Jump on the opportunity to learn how to dance the Tango in Buenos Aires, take a language class while you’re visiting Sicily, take a French pastry class in Nice or just read things just for fun while you’re on vacation. You’ll not only feel that excitement again, but you’ll be a more interesting person when you return to the office. You’ll have something more than sightseeing and the strength of the dollar to talk about when you’re at your next client dinner or board meeting.

“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it’s lethal.” – Paulo Coelho 

6. You’ll realign with your priorities

Slowing down allows you to appreciate what matters to you. You might realize that your fancy sports car doesn’t mean as much to you as waking up early for the sunrise and being able to enjoy an amazing cup of coffee before heading out the door. That might mean that the new client you took on isn’t worth all the time and energy that you thought they were or that promotion you’re gunning for is the wrong one. 

I’m not saying that vacations will make you lazy, but they could make you more innovative and help you figure out how to work smarter, not harder. After all, someone’s got to pay for your next trip to Bangkok to try some amazing street food or your next scenic drive on Highway number 1.

Where is your favorite place you’ve traveled too? Share it with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/entrepreneur-profile/6-ways-traveling-will-make-you-a-better-entrepreneur/

5 Stress Reduction Tips for the Always-Working Business Professional

Stress, along with taxes, is one of the few guarantees in the life of any business owner, entrepreneur, or executive. With a never ending – and ever growing – to-do list, long hours, and the constant struggle to balance work and life, it’s not hard to let the pressure and stress of being one of your organization’s key decision makers get to you.

With that in mind, the side effects of becoming overly stressed can be dire if allowed to go unchecked. Not only do high stress levels make it difficult to concentrate on the tasks we have at hand, and stifle our productivity, but can actually lead to a number of physical symptoms, ranging from a weakened immune system to long-term and serious cardiovascular issues.

As a result, it’s crucial that any professional consciously takes steps to help alleviate the effects of stress in their lives, not only to enhance their mood, and feel better in general – but to ensure peak job performance, and ultimately, heighten your level of success.

Below are 5 simple stress reductions tips: 

1. Set an “Unplug Yourself” Time – and Stick to It

In a world of e-mail enabled smart phones, tablets that fit on even the smallest of night stands, and easily accessed wireless Internet, it’s growing increasingly difficult to step away from the digital forms of communication that dominate the modern business world. While that can be convenient during the working day, it can also give business responsibilities an avenue to leak into our personal lives, make it difficult to balance work and life, and even lead to late-night email sessions that prevent a good night’s sleep.

By consciously setting a concrete time each evening to step away from your inbox, and shut the laptop down, you can help preserve a solid separation between your professional and personal life, and help ensure that your mind and body have the time to rest and recuperate each night. It might be easier said than done, especially for those of us that work on a global scale, but there are rarely things that absolutely can’t wait until morning.

2. Make a Point to Maintain Healthy Habits

The connection between the mind and the body is often taken for granted by many fast-paced professionals. While it might seem like a difficult time constraint to exercise regularly, and pay attention to nutrition, a healthy and well fueled individual will always be more productive, and feel better, than one who’s hungry and lethargic. 

With as little as 30 minutes of light exercise every other day, you can release an increased level of endorphins (the chemicals that trigger “happiness” in the brain) that can go great lengths in reducing the reactions in the body that cause stressful feelings.

“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” – Tony Robbins

3. Learn to Forget Failure Fast, and Instead, Focus on Your Next Success

A bad memory is one of the greatest traits a professional looking to avoid stress can have. No matter how well prepared, intelligent, or talented you are, it’s guaranteed that you’ll have at least a few major failures in your career. It isn’t a comfortable truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.

However, allowing those failures to linger with you will only cause negative feelings, a lowered overall mood, and an increase in your stress levels. While it’s definitely a talent that requires some practice, one of the best ways to avoid stress is to always keep your mind focused on your next task or opportunity. After all, all it takes is one success to regain your momentum again.

4. Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Family Closer

Our close friends and loved ones typically provide us with support, smiles, and help us feel good about ourselves. Unfortunately, we often allow our work to keep us from them, which can lead to feelings of guilt and strain those valuable relationships as well. For these reasons, maintaining relationships is the most important facet of walking the tight rope that is attempting to balance work and life.

For obvious reasons, failing to invest our time into these relationships, can lead to often-insurmountable levels of stress in our lives. As a result, schedule time with those closest to you with the same diligence as you would with prospective clients or important business associates. It might get difficult sometimes, but the emotional benefits of healthy relationships will always pay dividends when it comes to managing stress levels.

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard

5. Always Remember to Reward Yourself

Ambition and drive are both great things, and they’re often what cause us to pursue professional success in the first place. However, when they keep us from ever slowing down to enjoy the fruits of our labor – and lead us to push ourselves too hard – they can turn into one of the biggest causes of stress we face.

With that in mind, when the going gets tough, be sure to always reward yourself with some time off for a mental or physical vacation, a purchase that relates to one of your hobbies, or an indulgent treat from time to time. Not only does this practice help enhance your overall mood and reduce stress, but helps you remember why you’re working so hard in the first place, and provide strong positive motivation as well.

How do you monitor your stress levels? Do you have any tips for our readers? If you do, please share them below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/5-stress-reduction-tips-for-the-always-working-business-professional/

Why Do We Have An Unconscious Bias and How Can We Manage It?

When I hear someone using my name once in a while throughout the conversation we are having, I cannot stop myself thinking “this person must have read Dale Carnegie’s books or must have been influenced by someone who read them…” Have you just recalled a similar moment and it felt nice?

As Dale Carnegie famously said, “Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and the most important sound in any language”. Why did Dale Carnegie highlight the importance of an individual’s name to that person in his “How to Win Friends and Influence People” book published in 1936?

Each and every one of us wants to feel special and unique. I guess he recommends using the person’s name in the conversation because that is one of the easiest ways to grab that person’s attention so that we can enhance the chances of getting our point across. However, I am more interested in this from the other side; hearing our names directly addresses our individuality, our need or desire to feel special and unique.  

Let’s park this one for now and we will come back. 

Categorization is essential to our survival

There is countless scientific research telling us about how our brains recognize similarities and put things into categories, which has been crucial to our survival in evolution and still helps us with a lot of things from learning new things to coping with the continuous influx of massive amounts of information through our senses. 

The continuous influx of information is mostly handled by our subconscious mind rather than conscious. It is estimated that our brains receive about 11 million bits of information every second through our senses, of which only 40-50 bits can be processed by our conscious mind. We process more information than we are aware of. The magic here is the subconscious mind.

An example is when you are at a very loud party where you hear a lot of words flying around without you recognizing each one of them, then suddenly, you immediately catch it when you hear your name. Your subconscious had been processing all of those words, without your awareness, but informed your conscious mind when your name was out there because it was relevant to you.

In order to most effectively process this much information and inform the conscious mind with only the relevant ones, our subconscious employs categorization as one of its strategies.

When our ancestors encountered some deadly predators in the African savanna, their subconscious prompted their conscious mind to immediately fight or flight by categorizing the information gathered through their senses into “predator / life threat / take action”. Most probably we are not descendants of the ones that were frozen rather than fighting or flighting! 

Although it is a completely different situation, the same strategy applied in remembering lists. Let’s look at the below two lists.

1. lion, eagle, shark, leopard, hawk, whale, panther, falcon and dolphin 
2. lion, leopard, panther, eagle, hawk, falcon, shark, whale and dolphin

The second list is easy to remember because it is reordered into relevant groups even though the content of the both lists are identical.

Subconsciousness is the magic and categorization is one of its key strategies. It is essential to our survival, learning new skills and processing information as well as bringing back the information we had processed and stored. 

This amazing skill has its drawbacks

As a result of our brains’ categorization strategy, we also categorize people, especially if we don’t know them as well as our closest ones.

Imagine I am sitting at the table next to yours while you are having your favorite coffee and working on your computer or reading your novel at your neighborhood coffee shop. I stand up, very calmly grab your bag, and start walking away. Your reaction might be quite different depending on my outfit. It could be much more vocal and harsh if I have a dirty T-Shirt and a pair of torn jeans on. However, if I have some navy colored, 3-piece suit and well-pressed white button up shirt on, you might even say something like “Excuse me, you might have picked up my bag by mistake”. (There is an experiment done by social psychologists which reported similar results)

Similarly, I would not be surprised to hear that my co-worker’s spouse is very skilled and knowledgeable in English grammar and literature because he is an English teacher. However, I would not expect it from my co-worker herself because she is an outstanding chemical engineer.  

This is defined as unconscious bias or stereotyping, as a result of our subconscious brain’s categorization strategy. The outfit I have at the coffee shop impacts your response to my action, because it puts me into a different category in your mind depending on my outfit. My co-worker’s and her spouse’s backgrounds make me put them into different categories, which might mislead me sometimes.

Just like we categorize things, it is very natural that we categorize people.  

The key question here for me is; how do we truly treat people as individuals so that they feel unique, just like as they would want, while we know that our brains categorize people? 

We can overcome unconscious bias 

Leonard Mlodinow, in his enlightening book “Subliminal”, suggests that “if we are aware of our bias and motivated to overcome it, we can.” That doesn’t mean that we need to fight our brain’s categorization strategy. We just need to employ our conscious mind more when we are working or dealing with individuals. 

Our unconscious bias might tell us scientists are bunch of technical nerds who cannot understand abstract concepts that marketers are talking about or it might say that marketers are some daydreamers who need to be grounded by scientists to the real world all the time. I am an engineer and I love thinking in abstract terms and I worked with quite a lot of marketers who thought primarily in factual and concrete terms. 

Spending some effort to learn more about individuals will help overcome unconscious bias. Gathering more information and qualities about them will make it easier for us to treat them as individuals rather than a member of the category we put them in our minds. 

The moral of the story here is to recognize the fact that our brains do categorize, and it is essential; but also, to recognize that every individual wants to feel unique. When we appreciate these two and keep reminding them to ourselves, we are one step closer to figuring out our own way to overcome unconscious bias and treat people more like individuals. 

What was the most interesting part of this article for you? Share your thoughts below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/why-do-we-have-an-unconscious-bias-and-how-can-we-manage-it/

How to Manage Your Bouncebackability

I am spending my time trying to articulate how having an understanding of the Three Principles – Mind, Consciousness and Thought is useful for dealing with any area of challenge in our lives; in doing that I am sticking to only what I know to be true.

The outside world will not change and will throw curveballs at us at times:

•       A breakdown in relationship
•       Losing a job
•       Death
•       Not achieving what we want
•       Somebody’s opinion of us
•       A severe physical illness

Life can suck. It will throw challenges and it can hurt. ‘It’s OK to ‘NOT BE OK’. This is the kind of heartfelt message I’ve seen a lot across social media and I’m not questioning its seriously good intention.

Of course we should not punish ourselves for ‘not feeling ok’ – showing ourselves acceptance – as well as to others, is important as otherwise, there is a danger that our mood spirals downwards with our negative thinking of punishment for feeling a particular way. Our acceptance though is just our feeling in the moment – I don’t wish for that acceptance to be confused with accepting that ‘this is all we’re ever going to have’. That is not the case.

We are all equipped with the tools that we need to bounce back from anything – any curveball that is thrown our way. We can never be psychologically broken. Which means that, whatever we are feeling isn’t ‘our lot’ in life.

With our understanding in the Three Principles, we know that whatever we are feeling, it will pass. So, of course it is ‘OK TO NOT BE OK’, with the caveat, that we know it won’t always be like that.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

It is impossible to feel one way all of the time.

I once saw a short video of a man with no legs, literally just using his arms to lift his bottom off the floor every metre of the way, to complete a full length marathon. It just inspired me so much, almost bringing tears to my eyes. I was in awe of him, just mesmerised – it was uplifting for me.

We know that something that is uplifting and inspiring for one person may well work differently in terms of placing pressure on someone else to feel a particular way. That is not the intention here.

What is the same for every human being, however, is that we are creating our own reality in the moment. Our own story. 

What inspires you? Why is that? How do you feel right now thinking about that inspiration? This brings me back to those challenges we mentioned earlier, that we or people we know, have in our lives.

Whilst it may really, really look like it is the event (the outside experience) causing us to feel a particular way inside, this is the illusion and the common misunderstanding that most people have. We’ve seen for ourselves though, by thinking about our uplifting experience, it creates the experience from the inside out. Otherwise, we would all feel the same way about the man who carried himself through a marathon, which is not the case.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison

My experience

There was a period in my life when I spent a lot of time thinking about when I was bullied at work. This was perhaps even 6 months after it had finished. Remembering dates when things happened, were said or done. I must have spent time thinking about those experiences at some point whilst on holiday, whilst with children, when driving or when in the company of best friends.

My share does illuminate a very important point, in the sense that – I thought about my bad experience whilst involved in arguably enjoyable experiences, such as holiday or when with my children. This works the other way around – we can think of extremely good experiences when we find ourselves in not-so-good circumstances. Similar to what we did a short moment ago with our uplifting experience, when perhaps some of us were not in a good space.

For me, when thinking about the bullying, I punished myself for feeling a particular way that wasn’t healthy. However, those feelings should not mean that we punish ourselves for it – it’s most likely to be normal. We can accept it – accept ourselves for it. As long as we know that those clouds will pass as they are transient and it is impossible to always feel like that.

At that moment, just having the understanding is where our ‘bouncing back’ begins. We’re more ‘bouncebackable’ than we think!

We’re creating our own experience of feeling stronger, more resourceful, more able and hopeful. The truth is, we were always strong – all we may have done, is forget.

You may have noticed, but I purposely haven’t mentioned ‘positive thinking’ in any of this article. What I’m speaking about is something else at work; it runs deeper than sheer determination, resilience, willpower and a work ethic to bounce back. Those qualities without doubt, are important to have and we can use them as a good back-up!

However, understanding how we create our experience from moment-to-moment, accepting ourselves in the moment, knowing that we will continue to grow and that we can’t be psychologically broken – this is impossible, then we are already bouncing back. There is no line to say we have ‘bounced back’ as such, only in the parameters that we might set ourselves or what others have set us. And those parameters are all made up.

Trusting ourselves to know what is our next step is all we need to know in bouncing back. 

What about this article resonated most with you and why? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/how-to-manage-your-bouncebackability/

5 Simple Systems Successful Entrepreneurs Use to Achieve Massive Success

Entrepreneurs are all about the grind, the revenue, and the success. But sometimes, new entrepreneurs get stuck in what they think they “should” do and leave a lot on the table. 

I’ve seen so many people getting burned out of entrepreneurship before even making money. And this is because they are doing what they “think” they have to do instead of what they really have to do. 

If you take a closer look into the routine of different successful entrepreneurs, such as Andy Frisella, Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchuk, Joel Marion, Tai Lopez, and others, you will see a common characteristic: they work by systems. They understood the importance of habits early on and they worked their butt off to create systems that allowed them to complete the task that they needed to do every day, without putting their health or their business at risk. 

And this is something actually really simple. Once you create a habit, it isn’t something to think about anymore, it’s just something that you do. Everyone’s journey is different and every business requires their own different set of skills, but there are some systems that are common to every successful entrepreneur. 

Here are the top 5 and how you can use them to set the base of your entrepreneurial career:

1. Power 5

This is a concept that is very common among successful entrepreneurs. Sometimes we get caught up in a lot of different tasks during the day that aren’t getting us any closer to our ultimate goal. 

In order to avoid this, the power 5 method encourages you to write a list every day of the five most important things that you need to complete that day. It needs to be stuff that you wouldn’t normally do if you didn’t propose to do it. For example, writing a sales funnel or making a certain amount of calls.

This method is basically a way to put into perspective what is really important and what is not that important. If you write this information down, you are putting yourself in a situation where you know what you have to do. 

This is something that requires some thought upfront. What are the 5 tasks that you need to do today to move you towards your ultimate goal? Once you figure it out, write them down and try to make them your priority for that day.

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” – Stephen R. Covey

2. Schedule

Many people are entering the entrepreneurship world looking for the freedom to work whenever they want and escape their 9-5 job. Yet, the truth is that if you don’t make a schedule for yourself, chances are that you won’t be as productive as you should be in order to build a successful business. This doesn’t necessarily need to be any specific time period or amount of hours, but it needs to be something you know is going to move you a step closer to your ultimate goal every single day. 

3. Fitness

I haven’t heard a single successful entrepreneur talking about how much time they get out of not exercising or not taking care of their body. As an entrepreneur, you need to understand that you can grind as much as you want, but if your body collapses because you aren’t taking care of it, it will be all for nothing. 

You don’t need to spend two hours per day at the gym or to have a super strict diet, but you do need to take some time to exercise and to eat healthy. 

By having fitness as your top priority, you’ll have more energy, vitality, and a clearer mind when you get back to work. So at the end of the day, taking care of your body is an investment in your own business. 

4. Learn

The best investment you could do is to invest in yourself. Successful entrepreneurs are always learning something new by reading books, going to conferences, applying for courses or masterminds, and listening to podcasts. They care about getting better at their craft. 

Invest time in educating yourself. Make it a priority in your life. It’s true that sometimes we can feel like we don’t have time for stuff like this, but take it as what you are doing that’s differentiating yourself from your competitors. It might not show instant results, but if you make it a daily priority, it will pay huge dividends down the road. 

And if you are just getting started, you don’t even need to spend a lot of money on it. There are tons of really great books on entrepreneurship, finance and personal growth that aren’t that expensive, and dozens of free podcasts and articles that can help you get closer to your ultimate goal. 

“Income seldom exceeds personal development.” – Jim Rohn

5. Tempo

Knowing the tempo of your business is crucial. This can be the difference between a business succeeding and a business falling flat. Every business, in every stage of its life, has a different tempo, and you need to recognize it. 

Some entrepreneurs fail because they think that entrepreneurship is the way to go from a 9-5 to working from the beach in just a couple of months. Others fail because they think that they need to go all-in and pull up 20 hours shifts every day until they consume themselves. 

Entrepreneurship is a long game. And you need to adapt to the different stages of it. Some stages are gonna require you to grind to a level of exhaustion, but you gotta make sure that you are reserving some energy for the rest of the game. Grinding extremely hard for 6 months is worthless if you are going to drain yourself and not be able to stay in the game for 6 more months. 

In entrepreneurship, there’s a time to grind and a time to relax. Even in the stages where grinding is key, make sure that you don’t burn yourself out. Sometimes, taking some time off work can actually help you be more productive and reach your ultimate goal at the end.

Are you already taking care of these? Which are other keys that you think are crucial for entrepreneurs? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/entrepreneur-profile/5-simple-systems-successful-entrepreneurs-use-to-achieve-massive-success/