Self Improvement Information

Many of the clients I work with in success coaching can relate to the following example.

If you have ever been to the circus, you have probably seen the side show in which a clown or juggler puts a plate on a stick and spins it. Then he puts another plate on a stick and spins that one, and another, and another, etc. A neat trick, but then he has to constantly run around to keep all the plates spinning.

Now there’s a metaphor for modern life if I’ve ever heard one.

In order to talk in a useful way about time management, we need to call it what it really is, which is life management. Each of us is given twenty four hours each day in which to manage our lives. That’s why I call my time/life management seminars “24 and No More.”

In order to manage your time and therefore your life, well, a very important distinction needs to be made. Do you organize your life around work or do you organize your work around your life? A key distinction to be made is that if you are part of a family, your most important job is not at work, it’s at home.

Having said all that, let’s put some hands and feet onto this idea of time/life management, and provide you with some solutions you can take home.

Get organized. That’s step one. So much time is spent and wasted looking for something or doing something over and over again, when a little organization can allow you to organize once and be done with it.

If you are at all like me and don’t come by organization naturally, either hire or borrow someone who has the gift of organization. Or you could get lucky like me and marry someone with this gift.

Create systems. Creating systems for doing things is a great time saver. In fact, an acronym for system is:

Saves
You
Some
Time
Energy and
Money.

Prioritized To Do Lists. Remember, a to do list is a tool that you use to work for you, not you for it. A prioritized to do list is divided into three categories, A tasks, B tasks, and C tasks. A tasks are things that must be done today, B tasks are things you would like to get done today, and C tasks are things you can get done with any extra time. If you have items left over at the end of the day, simply put them behind you for the day and move them on to the next day’s list.

“But what if all my tasks are A tasks?” That’s a question I often hear. Here’s a two part answer to the question. Part one is to go back through the list and ask this question, “What will happen if I don’t get this task done today?” If you can live with the answer, it may not be an A task. Part two is, if all your tasks are really A tasks, then the key is to…….

Delegate. That’s a fancy way of saying ask for help. It’s amazing to me how willing most people are to help. Just about every time I’ve gotten over my pride and asked for help with something, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

Block Scheduling. For those of us who have multiple projects and multiple daily demands, block scheduling can be a real life saver. Block scheduling simply means to set aside blocks of time on a daily, weekly, monthly basis in order to do certain tasks. Barring a true emergency, nothing is to interfere with the task scheduled for this time.

There are at least three clear benefits to block scheduling:

a time is set aside to accomplish key tasks
lower anxiety knowing there is time set aside
you get more done.

Visit secretsofgreatrelationships.com SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

Checking email too often is a significant productivity drain. Email by its very nature isn’t usually urgent unless it’s your entire job, such as answering customer support emails. Here are some tips to prevent email from taking too big a chunk out of your day.

1. Decide in advance exactly when you’ll check email.

Don’t check email haphazardly. You can easily waste 30-60 minutes per day checking email too often. In most cases you should be fine checking your email 3x per day maximum. I typically check mine in the morning, at lunch, and at the end of the workday. And that’s only if I’m involved in active open-loop communications. If I don’t have any active open loops, then I’ll usually check email once or twice a day. Handle your email in batches to increase your efficiency.

Experiment with how often you really need to check email. Realize that you’re paying a productivity price the more often you check it. Curiosity is not a good enough reason to check email. Have a legitimate business reason for checking email as often as you do. See how infrequently you can push it without causing problems. For many people once a day or even once every two days will work just fine.

Once you check email in the morning, promise yourself that you won’t check it again until the end of the day, and set a specific time. I’ll check my email twice today, so I won’t check it again until after 6:00pm. If it’s before that time, I won’t allow myself to check it.

If you get addicted to checking your email too often, you can help break the habit by making it harder to run your email program. Remove the program icon from your desktop and your quick launch bar, so you have to hunt for it on the Start Menu. Or make yourself launch Explorer and navigate to find the icon from there. Adding extra steps can help break the pattern of impulse checking. And if that still doesn’t work, setup your email on a separate PC like a laptop that you must boot up every time you want to check email.

2. Use email only for non-urgent communication.

Don’t turn email into an urgency-driven communication tool. It’s not designed for that. If time is of the essence, then pick up the phone. Now that you can get unlimited long distance for $25/month from companies like Vonage (also check out Skype), there’s no reason to be stingy with the phone.

If you have others pressuring you to check your email more often than once or twice a day, such as people that get frustrated if they don’t get a reply from you within an hour or two, then you need to push back. Let such people know that they should never use email for truly urgent communication with you — if they need a fast reply, they must pick up the phone or visit you in person (if you’re both co-located).

3. Disable email checking on program startup.

Don’t set your email program to auto-check email every time you launch the program. You want to be able to send an email at any time during the day without automatically checking email too. You may often need to send emails during the day as part of various tasks, but you don’t need to check email at those times. Check email only when there’s a legitimate reason for checking.

4. Log your email usage.

Create an email log, and record how often you check email. You can do this with a sheet of paper. Just record the start and stop times whenever you run your email program. Do it for about a week, and see how much time you’re spending on email. Is it worth it? If you’re checking your email more than 20 times a week without a legitimate reason, you’re wasting way too much time. Try giving yourself a daily or weekly email checking quota, and once you hit it, you can’t check your email anymore until the next day/week when your quota resets. Offer yourself a reward like going to see a movie or going out to dinner the first week you come in under quota.

Email is a powerful business and personal communication tool, but it’s easily abused. Why? Because it’s so easy. Checking and answering email is something you know you can do, so it provides an immediate sense of accomplishment. But it’s a hollow victory, and if you spend your days masterfully checking and answering email, you’ll go nowhere and crowd out those actions that could really move you ahead.

Replace frivolous email abuse with purposeful intention. Use it to enhance your productivity instead of to destroy it. Consciously scrutinize the way you use email, decide what legitimate role it will play in your life, and set boundaries to enforce that role.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
stevepavlina.com stevepavlina.com
stevepavlina.com/blog stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
stevepavlina.com/articles stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.

“Kundalini,” which means “the coiled one,” is the invisible holy energy that yogis believe resides at the base of our spines, coiled just like a snake in the equally invisible energy center (chakra) called “Muladhar,” close to the coccyx.

Yogis believe that no spiritual knowledge and “final liberation” (nirvana) is possible without awakening this Kundalini energy.

When awakened through long years of hatha-yoga, meditation, prayers and “grace,” Kundalini allegedly rises along the “shusumna,” the non-physical energy channel that parallels the human spine, and shoots up towards the brain.

Along the way, Kundalini supposedly “pierces through” (according to the classical description in yogic texts) the seven chakras until it reaches the one on the top of the skull – the Crown Chakra.

There are thousands of books in the market today describing each and every chakra, the colors, fragrances, sounds etc. that is revealed when the Kundalini pierces through each chakra. They are all a fascinating read, really.

The key concept to understand is that Kundalini’s upward travel along the “shusumna” is a CLEANSING process.

Yes, it burns its way up and yogis literally feel the tremendous heat generated during this process. But that is a “good burn” since it supposedly incinerates many lifetimes worth of bad impressions and energy blocks that prevent us from realizing our own true nature.

That’s the theory in a nutshell.

But my limited experience with yoga has suggested that sometimes there is a very fine line between a “Kundalini awakening” and flat out “delirium” or nervous breakdown.

I’ve witnessed scary cases where I couldn’t tell if the person was on his way to getting liberated and illuminated, or to the nearest mental asylum.

One early author, Gopi Krishna, whose Kundalini was awakened pretty much accidentally, wrote in great length about the agonies he went through for years to “control the fire” that was consuming him nonstop day and night.

Thus you should be very careful before you make any attempts to “awaken” your Kundalini on your own. I don’t think there are too many people in the world who really know the exact nature of this process and things can go wrong suddenly, sometimes without a remedy or a cure.

That’s why a well-trained bona-fide Yoga Master is always cited as a must condition for the yoga students who want to explore this esoteric topic. You should do the same and find a Master before doing anything on your own.

Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases, movie reviews and hi-tech documentation. He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

In addition to being an Ezine Articles Expert Author, he is also a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and a Member of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI).

You can reach him at mailto:writer111@gmail.com writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs.

You are most welcomed to visit his official web site writer111.com writer111.com for more information on his multidisciplinary background, writing career, and client testimonials. While at it, you might also want to check the latest book he has edited: lulu.com/content/263630 lulu.com/content/263630

Those words allowed me to have such a powerful shift. A friend was relating a situation at work where she had told her fellow worker, go ahead, “bring it on!” It really resonated with me. It felt so good and fearless. What could happen in the face of such an attitude?

I was recently in a situation with some family members. I disengaged from an extremely dysfunctional interaction and stood my ground. I took back a part of my soul that I had been missing for far too long. I decided to be true to myself and kept the mantra going of Bring It On!!! I was not feeling mean or spiteful. I just needed to keep my stance and know that I would be met with great resistance and allow that to happen. It happened and it was painless. It was also the greatest gift I could bestow on the relationship. It was an act of courage that someone needed to take and that one phrase gave me the courage.

Where are some areas of your life where you need a little extra courage? What would you do if you were fearless? If used to empower you, the phrase moves you forward and creates an attitude of steadfastness.

Think of yourself as a warrior. What courageous act are you ready to follow through with? What powerful conversation are you ready to have? What can you do with a Bring It On! attitude?
Just for a day, allow yourself to stand up for your authentic self. Take a step toward your own freedom. See how liberating it can be.

Get my free e-booklet on how to create change. Go to newneuralnets.com newneuralnets.com and pick up your free copy now!

Dr. Nancy Heimstra is a mentor, Certified Comprehensive Coach, author and speaker. She loves teaching her clients how to connect with their authentic self and thrive in the world while honoring their essence and moving ahead fearlessly by taking inspired action!

You won’t believe what my son said yesterday! It was so funny. I was sitting at the computer typing away on my latest project and he walked up behind me and looped his arms around my neck (just like he does almost every morning) and said, “Mom, what cha writing?”

I calmly responded, “Content for my site.” And leaned back for his warm hug. I love it when he does that.

“So, who did you write about this time?” His voice sounded almost excited, as if he really wanted to know.

I typed in another paragraph with him reading over my shoulder including his name in the conversational dialogue. “Mom, you’re writing about me again.” I got another hug and he was off to work on his next book. Kenton has been writing an average of one children’s book every three or four months, including illustrations since he first figured out he could be a published author and make money from his writing, almost a year ago.

How often are we inspired by seeing our name in print? It’s awesome! What more could a writer want than to be quoted?

Not very long ago, I saw an article that said, “According to Jan Verhoeff… and a bit later in the article, referred to Jan (me) as HE.” It didn’t matter. I’m sure the author of the article hadn’t done any research on me as a writer, just on what I’d written about. The quote was right out of one of my more prominent Internet documents, and well stated, fitting extremely well with the topic of the article where I was quoted. For those of you who have seen my picture, I’m definitely not a HE, and for those of you who haven’t, but do read many of my gender specific posts, you already know I’m a woman.

I ran around for two weeks telling everyone within shouting distance that I’d been quoted! I think I even posted it on a favorite writer site, to hear all the congratulations and encouragement. It made me feel special to be written about.

If you want to impact your reader – make them feel like you are writing your article specifically for them, about them, and to them. Put personality in the article. Get personal. Motivate your reader by bringing them into the action.

Content motivates. Inspire your reader to follow the directions included in your signature by actively inviting them to participate in the content. If not by name; at least by implication, invite your reader into the action.

Let them get to know you, and get to know them. Get personal. Get involved.

Impact your market as never before. Be seen. Be alive. Be creative in your endeavors to brand your business and consume your market. Let eBiz Blitz empower your dreams by infusing your business publications with Dynamic Content. Visit Dynamic Content Creator, Jan Verhoeff, at freewebs.com/ebizblitz freewebs.com/ebizblitz

Some of succeed because of our personal commitment and persistent efforts.
Some of us succeed in spite of our poor beginning, upbringing or environment.
Because of or in spite of proves not to be important. It is just a place to start.
What is more important? How we respond to the challenges, obstacles and problems.
Our attitude, how we respond to these challenges makes all the difference.
When asked about his early failures in trying to invent the light bulb Thomas Edison
said, “I have not failed, I just found 1000 ways that won’t work.” And having done
these initial experiments he was able, through trial and error to arrive at a workable
usable solution which we all use today. He just kept looking for the best solution
and found it.

I heard someone say recently she was ready to quit her job because the actions of
other associates were continually making it more difficult to accomplish her goals.
It was evident she would be unable to reach her maximum income levels because
her sales efforts were not being supported by upper level management. She felt obligated
to seek employment with another organization where she could reach a higher income
level and her efforts would be supported by management
In our own lives if we experience apparent failure, it would be wise to make small
changes in the questions we ask, our attitudes or how we look at things.
If we quit or just give up, we will never know how close we were to success.

Positive Mental attitude. You hear this in the work place in the schools and in the Self Help books. What is positive mental attitude? It is basically the power of your mind. Beleiving in something and knowing it will happen. It is basically called faith. When you read the Bible it states in Matthew “if you beleive you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” You see God wants us to be wealthy, healthy and prosperous but it is our mind that can get us to doubt or not beleive.

Sometimes it is fear but if you know without a shadow of a doubt that you will be healthy. You will!! Now we don’t want to be selfish and pray for silly things that we know we shouldn’t be praying for. But we can walk in God’s promises. He wants us to walk in blessings and have a mindset of God’s goodness. Sometimes we need to declare it and beleive in it and know in our heart it will happen.

Weather it is finances, health or whatever the case may be. Start boldly declaring, “God’s face is smiling toward me, and He longs to be good to me.” That is not bragging. That is how God says we’re going to be blessed-when we start declaring His goodness.

We once in a while faced a lot of problems. We encounter what we do not want. We are overwhelmed with unfavorable situation. Then we imagined things to be worse. We are afraid of what are going to happen. We feel uncertain on our future. We are worried on the security of ours and our love ones. This is when stress comes and it can happen to everybody. The five strategies here will help us to see the stress as an unnecessary mechanism and how to cope with it.

When we have stress, body releases a hormone called “Adrenaline”. This hormone makes the heart beats faster. It also makes your blood flows more in all area, your organs function many times more than they regularly do. The point is if we have too much of this hormone, we may get cancers in some area according to the research. So we can see that stress is an unhealthy process. We should know how to not have too much of it and understand the strategies to find the effective strategies to deal with it. The five strategies that we would learn more here include:

1. Calm down. When we have problems especially the big ones, we normally react to it without much of a careful thought. We are panic and do not know what to do. Therefore the first strategy to deal with stress is to calm down. Pull yourself together. Do not let our mind wanders around to the unfavorable situation which will be the consequences of the problems. We create a monster to be feared in our mind and most of the time it is just a monster that stay in our mind. How many time that serious problems come to our lives and we can pass them by without much of the injury? In life, people occasionally face problems. Problems are meant to help us grow. To understand this we will feel more comfortable when problem comes.

2. Analyze the situation. Write down the problems. We must not just solve the problem in our mind because it will not work but it is the method that most people do. This is why most people live in a tough situation nowadays. Once we have the problems on paper, write down the details of the situation. What happen in the moment? Who are involved? What impact we are going to get from the problem? How bad it is going to be? Some time many problems come at the same time. Acknowledge all by writing them all down.

3. Write down all alternatives. Make a clear point to your mind that what we are going to do is to find the way to solve the problem not to find fault or to blame others. This is our life and we all are responsible to it no matter what or who cause the problems. Focus on what action to take and what will possibly be the consequences. Will you be able to handle it if things do not go well once we apply our action? What can be the worst? Write pros and cons of each solution. This is our life and we should be serious with it since nobody else will be. Using this method will help you get a few alternatives instead of sit there without knowing what to do.

4. Choose what action to take. Stress will not disappear if the unfavorable situation persists. We need to do something to make the situation be more favorable to us. We will have to take an action or a series of actions in order to get us out. We now have alternatives that we analyze the situation on the third strategy, we now have choice to make. Do not be worry if you make a wrong decision on your choice because you are going to be. Learn from your mistake is one of the useful experiences that we will have. When it comes to the problems regarding people, deal with it with mercy in your mind. You wish every body well and do not want to harm any people in order to solve the problem. No matter who they are, you will be mercy to them. This will give you peace in mind when you need to solve problems with people.

5. Visualize yourself to get out the stress. Visualization can attract what you want in life according to the law of attraction. The law says that what you regularly focus on will attract the situation and attributes that are favorable to the goals you have. Find a place that you can sit alone and close your eyes. Visualize yourself as you have already achieved what you want and feel it. This is one of the fastest ways to get out of stress. You may want to use some background noise to have your subconscious mind works better on the law of attraction. It is called attraction accelerator and is available on the market that you may want to check out. Regular visualization can also help you to achieve what you want in other areas including health, relationship, career or finance.

Stress is a common problem in life and can be cope with if we know the strategies. The five strategies here will help you to deal with the stress easier and faster.

Jim Somchai
Read more of his articles from his site. visualizationmeditation.com visualizationmeditation.com
visualizationmeditation.com/cgi-bin/go/to.pl?l=Articles Get The Attraction Accelerator to help your visualization and attraction.
visualizationmeditation.com/rights Geting FREE REPORT ON SUCCESS SCIENCE and Earn Money.

You have a better chance of getting where you want to go if you have a map to your destination. Here are a few tips on setting goals that set you up for success.

I. Define your goals:

1.Be Specific – In order to keep your goals, you must have a clear idea of where you are going. Instead of saying “I am going to make more money in 2006”, say “I am going to make an extra $400 per week”. It’s easier to measure success when you have it written out this way.

2.Be realistic – If your goal is not realistic, then you will not work to achieve it. You should set goals so that they are slightly out of your immediate grasp, but not so far that there is no hope of achieving them.

3.Be enthusiastic – Don’t set goals that only look good on paper. Set goals that you really want to achieve.

4.Be positive- Set goals that use a positive tone, not a negative one. Instead of focusing on what you don’t want, focus on what you do want. For example, don’t say “I don’t want to work here next year” instead say “I would like to work at a job where I can set my own hours and I am adequately compensated.”

II. Write down your goals:

Most people forget their goals within 8 weeks of setting them. It is important to write down your goals not only so you remember them, but having them written out sets the process in motion. Once you have them written be sure to put them in a place where you’ll see them.

III. Review your goals:

Reviewing your goals is a great way to reinforce them it keeps you motivated and focused on success.

DJ Nelson is a corporate writer and marketing specialist. She hosts Bold Business Talk which helps business owners and entrepreneurs start and maintain successful businesses. Listen now at BoldBusinessTalk.com BoldBusinessTalk.com

While watching my 9 month old today, I was reminded of the rewards of determination and persistence. In our family room, we have a small art table for our toddler and on top of it are small clay figures that he created with the help of his mom. For about 10 minutes, I watched my 9 month old try and try to reach one of those clay figures that was well out of his reach. He went from one side of the table to the other, stretching out as far as he could. After a few minutes of observation, I was certain there was no chance of him reaching them but I wanted to see how long he would keep after it. Eventually, he squeezed himself between the table and the wall and reaching as far as he could, he was still a couple inches short. Finally, he pushed the table away from the wall, moved in a little closer, and the next thing I know he grabbed the clay and as he does with everything, he started to chow down.

If you have kids you know this story is not unique. Young children can be so persistent. Passing by those golden arches or taking a trip to Walmart and just passing by the toy isles is all it takes to remind us of this fact. That quality can drive us nuts sometimes, but it can also teach us a valuable lesson. If we want our life to be one that is filled with success, nothing can take the place of determination and persistence.

From our careers, to education, to marriage, to parenting, to ministry, to character, and beyond, success often hinges on this quality. In every area of our life, we are faced with the temptation time and time again to quit. It is always easier to quit than it is to continue. Continuing requires hard work and sweat. It requires rolling up our sleeves and not stopping until the job is done. It requires focusing on a goal and letting nothing stop us from achieving that goal.
Proverbs 24:16 says “Though a just man falls seven times, he rises up again.”

The key is how we react to what life throws us. Get ready because life will throw you pain, disappointment, failure, and a host of other negative things that are designed to get you to throw in the towel. Those with persistence get back up, time after time after time. Like Rocky Balboa who takes a beating round after round yet somehow finds the strength to get up and fight one more round.

Those who were members of the early church knew what this was all about. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;” (II Cor. 4:8-9) They were hit from all sides but refused to let life whip them. That attitude is one that we all need in order to live a victorious life.
Has life hit you hard? Have you been knocked down by the circumstances of life? Have you tried and tried and continued to fail? Determine to get back up and go at it again. Make a decision to get back in the ring. It ain’t over, til you say its over!

Tim Stone is a veteran of youth ministry with over 15 years of experience in that field. He currently serves as youth pastor at Freedom Fellowship Church in Magnolia, TX. He is also the founder of EquippingParents.com, a website designed to inform and equip today’s parents. For more tools and resources go to equippingparents.com equippingparents.com