Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life

How to Focus When You’re Juggling Lots of Different Tasks

2012-05-12T10:08:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that the times when you really need to focus are the times when it’s toughest?

On days when you have far too much to do — an overflowing inbox, meetings to prepare for, chores to complete — it’s easy to end up darting from one task to the next, never making any real headway.

When you’ve got a lot to juggle, you need a battle plan. Here’s what to do:

Write a List
It’s impossible to focus when you’re constantly thinking “I mustn’t forget to send that email” or “I need to call John.” Write down everything that needs to get done today. Your list doesn’t have to be complex, and you don’t need to worry about sorting it at this stage.

Some people like to keep their work and personal lists separate; it’s up to you how you do that. If something’s on your mind, though, make sure you record it somewhere — even little things like “buy milk on the way home” can drag down your mental energy.

Decide on Priorities
Once you’ve got your list, it’s time to figure out what order to tackle your tasks in for today. First, look for anything that can be delegated or postponed: pare your list down as much as possible.

Next, work out what you want to do first. It’s up to you how you prioritize; normally, it makes sense to tackle the more important and urgent tasks first, but you may prefer to go for a few quick wins in the first half-hour of the day to build up a sense of momentum.

Put some sort of mark against your first, second, and third tasks. (I use one, two and three asterisks; you might prefer numbers, or colors.) That way, you can relax and get on with your tasks in order, knowing that you’re dealing with things efficiently, and that you’ll be able to get all the important stuff done.

Resist the Urge to Multi-Task
However tempting it is to have your emails open in one window while you reply to Tweets in another and edit that document in a third … don’t. You can’t focus on several things all at the same time, and you’ll end up making silly mistakes or forgetting to finish part of a task.

Tackle things one by one. That might mean:
- Setting a timer while you work on the report for 30 minutes
- Dealing with your emails as a batch, perhaps every few hours, not as they come in
- Closing social media programs until your lunch break (if they’re part of your work, treat them like your emails)
Any time you find yourself trying to tackle several things at once, stop. Remind yourself that you’ll work more effectively when you complete task A before moving onto task B.

Work Steadily, Take Breaks
None of us can focus for hours at a time — but when we’re busy, we often try to. This just leads to slowed progress, mistakes, and procrastination. (You know the kind of thing; you tell yourself you’ll just check Facebook quickly while waiting for a file to download, then you end up clicking on links, leaving comments, sending happy birthday messages…)

To stop yourself procrastinating, plan for regular breaks. Work for, say, 45 minutes on your report, then take a 5 or 10 minute break to stretch your legs and grab a glass of water. When you know you’ve got a break coming up, it’s a lot easier to stay focused.

Hopefully, your too-busy-to-think days don’t come up too often. If you seem to be in a constant pattern of rushing around, juggling more tasks than you can manage, then look for ways to make changes. That might mean learning some better time management skills, or talking to your manager about your workload.

If you’ve got a great tip for staying focused when life is hectic, share it with us in the comments below.

Written on 5/12/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: Keith Ellwood

7 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Triathlon

2012-05-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

Triathlons can be intimidating.

The mere mention of one conjures up images of genetically perfect athletes speeding through race segments so fast that they're blurry. Fortunately, you don't have to be a genetic freak in order to be able to run your first triathlon. A sprint distance triathlon is typically only a 400-600m swim, a 12.4 mile bike and a 5k run and is one of the fastest growing sports in North America.

If you decide to race a triathlon, you can run your first sprint distance triathlon in about 3 months of training and as it turns out, triathlons aren't as intimidating as they sound.

After dozens of triathlons and a half ironman, here are 7 things I wish I knew about triathlon when I started:

You Don't Need A Wetsuit For Your First Race
You don't need a wetsuit for your first race. Not only is it an expensive piece of equipment that can take a while to get use to swimming in, a lot of times they're not even allowed! If the water temperature is above 84 degrees Fahrenheit you won't be allowed to wear the wetsuit and compete for awards. If you don't have a wetsuit, don't worry that much about it - lots of people race without one. Once you run one or two races and have them under your belt, you can look at renting or even buying a wetsuit - but it's not a "must-have" for your first race.

When You're In The Water Just Relax
Everyone is always nervous about the swim. When you’re in the water, waiting for the race gun to go off, it can be really, really tempting to get pumped up, overstressed spend all your energy thinking about the race. The swim is consistently the most feared leg for new triathletes without a swim background.

It's okay. Relax. Stay loose and don’t go too hard right out of the gate. If you have a lot of people around you kicking and splashing, breathe and go at your own pace - one that's quick, but (more importantly) sustainable. It's way too common for people to freeze up and panic during the swim. If you ever feel rushed, panicked or tired, simply stop, tread water, hold on to a buoy or a boat if you have to and take deep breaths until you calm down.

Keep Your Nutrition Simple
Nutrition for triathlon can get really complicated, really fast - if you let it. However, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. Simply eating well will cut out half the complexity of a nutrition regimen. Eliminating processed foods and choosing to eat real food and choosing water instead of sodas, and alcohol will help get your body get used to digesting real nutrients and utilizing your energy resources efficiently. It sounds really simple and it is. In fact, if you do this, you don’t have to worry about carbo-loading or any other nutrition hacks for your first sprint distance triathlon.

Follow A Training Program
A triathlon training program is immensely helpful to helping you get started doing your first race. Besides actually getting you physically ready for a race, a training program lays out a road map to show you where to start your training and how to finish based on your training level. It’s much easier to focus on a 30 minute workout you have to do today than it is to think about the triathlon you have to run in just 90 days. Not only does a training plan make things less intimidating but it also guides you from your current fitness level across the fitness line.

Practice Brick Workouts
If you’ve practiced swim, bike and run workouts and think that’s all there is to a triathlon, you’d be wrong. You’ll want to practice brick workouts before your first race.

Brick workouts are when you practice two disciplines back to back. The most common brick is the bike and the run. you’ll do your bike workout and then get off, change shoes if you need to, and do your run

The first time you’ll do this, your legs will feel like lead. That’s why they’re called brick workouts. After practicing this a couple times through, your legs will start to get the hang of it and your mind will get used to the fact that the first quarter or half mile of running is just going to be tough.

Your Bike Doesn't Matter Until It Matters
You really don't need a nice bike to get started racing. Too many new triathletes go out and buy a $5,000 bike, do one race with it and then let it collect dust in the garage. You can get a bike for $150 off Craigslist or borrow one to get started. It really doesn't matter what type of bike you start out, with one exception. Don't use a mountain bike. You might not realize it now, but a mountain bike is significantly slower and harder to pedal than a road bike. The frame of the bike is less comfortable for long distances, the overall bike is much heavier and the wheel is much smaller and wider, which means you go less distance every time you pedal and each of those pedal strokes harder. If you're like me, you might not full grasp the difference of this until you race your first triathlon on a mountain bike. Never again. Beg, borrow or steal a road bike if you can.

Start Now
Triathlon season is coming up. You’ll see the bulk of triathlons happening from May to late September. If you can exercise for just 15 minutes right now, you can train to do a triathlon in about 3 months. If you start now, you’ll be ready for early summer races and (if you enjoy your first triathlon), you’ll have a couple of months to do your second as well.

The absolute hardest part of doing a triathlon is the act of deciding that you're going to do it. Make that decision and everything else is just the legwork to make it happen.

On the fence, why not sign up for a triathlon today and run your first triathlon in 3 months.

Written on 5/7/2012 by Joel Runyon. Joel writes about triathlons and other impossible things at the Blog of Impossible Things and Impossible HQ. He recently released Impossible TRI: a triathlon guide for running your first triathlon in 3 months.

Photo Credit: photovandal

One Simple Way to Impress: Do What You Say You'll Do

2012-05-07T07:41:00.000-05:00

Over the past week, two people have – independently – thanked me for simply doing what I said I’d do.
In a perfect world, we’d take it for granted that people would actually come through on their promises and commitments. But in the real world, it’s the sad truth that many people – in business and in their personal lives – don’t always put their words into action.

You probably know a few people who always talk big, but never come through for you. Perhaps they promise to help out, and let you down at the last minute. Maybe they’re constantly running late. And, over time, you realize that this is just a habit with them: you can’t rely on them to do what they’ve said they’ll do.

Of course, none of us are perfect. I know I’ve had times when I had to reluctantly back out of a commitment, and I expect you have too. Stuff comes up. Problems happen. But you want to do everything you can to be a man or woman of your word.

Here’s how:

Don’t Over-Commit
The easiest way to avoid flaking out on commitments is to make sure you don’t take on too much in the first place.
This means learning to say “no” – not just to other people, but also to yourself. Opportunities will come your way constantly, and you need to be choosy about which ones you latch onto. Think of these opportunities as items on a restaurant menu: sure, you might be keen on half a dozen of the entrees, but that doesn’t mean you’d order them all at once.

Don’t Back Out at the Last Minute
If you do end up over-committing, and you think you won’t be able to stick to what you’ve agreed to, then let people know as far in advance as possible.
Let’s say you’ve said you’ll help your friend John to move his stuff to a new apartment one Saturday … and you’ve also agreed to take on overtime that week to help out in the office. You might realize that you’re going to be exhausted by Saturday, and that the last thing you’ll want to do is to help John.

Don’t put off a decision until Saturday morning, then cry off. Instead, let John know in advance. You might want to change your commitment (“I can help in the afternoon, but not in the morning”) rather than backing out completely.

Don’t Be Disorganized
Sometimes, people have great intentions, but live in such a state of confusion and disorganization that there’s no hope of them ever following through.
Mistakes do happen – but it’s hugely embarrassing to forget completely about a commitment that you’ve made, only to get a phone call asking if your colleagues (or fellow volunteers) should continue waiting for you before they start the meeting.

Make sure your diary or calendar system is easy and intuitive for you to use, and that it flags up reminders at appropriate points. When you make new commitments, ensure you record them somewhere: don’t rely on your memory alone.

Don’t Be Late
It might seem like a small thing, but being punctual shows your respect for other people’s time.
If you constantly seem to be running late, then look at what’s going wrong. Are you over-optimistic about travel times, only to get stuck in traffic? Are you prone to getting wrapped up in your work, to the point where you always leave late? Are you simply so busy that it seems impossible to keep on top of everything? Do other meetings always overrun, with a knock-on effect?

When possible, arrive early for meetings, appointments, and similar. Take a book with you, so you’ve got something to read if you have to wait around. If you find that meetings keep overrunning, then build in extra buffer time between one meeting and the next.

Like I said before, none of us are perfect – we’ve all over-committed at times, or just plain forgotten to do something that we’d agreed to. And sometimes emergencies crop up. But if you make a sincere, consistent effort to do what you’ve said you’ll do, you’ll find that you’re seen as someone reliable and trustworthy – the sort of person who bosses love to promote and who clients love to work with.

If you’ve got any tips to share on this, just leave a comment below.

Written on 5/7/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: ~twon~

14 Action Inducing Lessons from Benjamin Franklin

2012-04-29T08:58:00.005-05:00

Benjamin Franklin was a man of action. Over his lifetime, his curiosity and passion fueled a diverse range of interests. He was a writer (often using a pseudonym), publisher, diplomat, inventor and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

His inventions included the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove. Franklin was responsible for establishing the first public library, organizing fire fighters in Philadelphia, was one of the early supporters of mutual insurance and crossed the Atlantic eight times. Self-development was a constant endeavor throughout his incredible life.

Benjamin Franklin was clearly a man who knew how to get things done.

14 Action Inducing Lessons

Less Talk, More Action

“Well done is better than well said.”

Talk is cheap. Talking about a project won't get it completed. We all know people who constantly talk about the things they are going to do but rarely ever take that first step. Eventually people begin to question their credibility. Taking action and seeing the task through to completion is the only way to get the job done.

Don’t Procrastinate

“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”

This is probably one of the first quotes I remember hearing as a teenager. With an impressive list of achievements to his credit, Benjamin Franklin was not a man hung up on procrastination. He was a man with clear measurable goals who worked hard to turn his vision into reality. What are you putting off till tomorrow that could make a difference in your life today?

Be Prepared

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

You need a plan to accomplish your goals. Charging in without giving any thought to the end result and how to achieve it, is a sure way to fall flat on your face. Think like a boy scout. Have a realistic plan of attack and a systematic approach for getting where you need to be.

Don’t Fight Change

“When you're finished changing, you're finished.”

Whilst many of us don’t like change, others thrive on it. Either way change is inevitable. The stronger we fight against it, the more time and energy it consumes. Give up the fight. Focus on proactively making positive changes, instead of having change merely thrust upon you. Wherever possible, try to view change as a positive instead of a negative.

Get Moving

“All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.”

There’s a reason we use the expression, movers and shakers. Movers are the ones who take action, the people who get things done, while the immovable are sitting around scratching their heads wondering how others could possibly be so successful. Which group do you want to belong to?

Avoid Busywork

“Never confuse motion with action.”

We are always running around doing things. We rush from one meeting or event to the next, sometimes without achieving a great deal. At the end of the day, how much of our busywork are we proud of? How much of that running around improves anyone’s life (including ours) for the better? Make your motion mean something.

Give Yourself Permission to Make Mistakes

“Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”

If we fear making mistakes, we become scared to try new things. Fear leaves us nestled in our comfort zone. Staying in your comfort zone rarely leads to greatness. Taking risks and giving yourself permission to make mistakes, will ultimately lead you to whatever your version of success may be.

Act Quickly on Opportunities

“To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”

Opportunities are everywhere. The trick is being quick enough and smart enough to seize them when they arise. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that something won’t work or can’t be done, allow yourself the freedom to ask what if?

Continue to Grow

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”

We all have vices of some description. The key is to keep them under control or preferably eradicate them entirely. Be kind to those around you, whether they are neighbors, family, co-workers or friends. Never accept that you have finished growing as a person.

Keep Going

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

Have you ever looked at a successful entrepreneur or business person and thought how lucky they are? Most of the time, luck has nothing to do with it. Hard work and sacrifice on the other hand have everything to do with it. Successful people deal with failure. They tackle their demons head on. They pick themselves up and keep going.

Know Yourself

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.”

Understanding ourselves is not easy. Sometimes we just don’t want to see ourselves for who we really are. It’s much easier to hold onto a romanticized version of ourselves or to simply view ourselves through other people’s eyes. Start by being brutally honest with yourself. Follow through with understanding, compassion and acceptance.

Don’t Self-Sabotage

“Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?”

We spend so much time worrying about other people hurting us, yet fail to comprehend the damage we inflict on ourselves. If you are using negative self-talk, lying to yourself or indulging in addictive behavior you are self-sabotaging. Life can dish up enough challenges without us adding to the mix. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself like you would a best friend.

Don’t Give Up

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”

Achieving our goals can be downright exhausting. There will be days when you want to give up. There will be times when your energy levels flatline and you wonder why you bother getting out of bed. Yet you push forward, day after day because you believe in yourself and you have the determination and strength to back up that belief.

Wise Up

“Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.”

Benjamin was definitely onto something with this one. Who hasn’t had the thought - I wish I could know then, what I know now? Unfortunately there is no time machine; there is no going back. The key is to wise up as early as you can to start forging a life of purpose, achievement and happiness.

Written on 4/29/2012 by Thea Easterby. Thea Easterby is a freelance writer, blogger and keen traveller. Her blog www.writechangegrow.com offers inspiring tips on writing, career change and personal development.

Photo Credit: andrewmalone

You've Got One Change Left. What Do You Do?

2012-04-16T10:12:00.006-05:00

Something extraordinary happened while you slept last night. Your world has changed forever, because today you woke up being able to make just one more change before you die. You get to make a single change before you buy the farm, pop your clogs and kick the bucket. One last thing you can implement. One last thing you can transform. One last thing you can make a difference to.

And everything else must stay the same for the rest of your life. Exactly as it is right now.

How will you react knowing that you only have a single change left to make in your life? How comfortable are you knowing that everything else will remain the same? What will you do?

You might experience some of this:

With your expectations of being able to make changes big and small for the rest of your life dashed, the level of dopamine in your brain will drop sharply. Dive-bombing dopamine hurts like hell (even matching sensations of physical pain) and can lead you into a downward spiral that's tough to climb out of.

Your brain will scramble for a solution to what's happened, trying to help you find a way through by matching the circumstances it finds itself in with something it's already learned. It'll come up with ideas both sane and crazy, but as you have no frame of reference it feels hard to know what the "right" thing to do might be.

The new territory you're in gives you ample room for second-guessing yourself. Do you make a change right now, today? Do you fix yourself up financially or fix up your health? Do you store up your change for a rainy day, or do you use it to help someone you love today? Your brain will be keen for you not to screw up, and for every idea or course of action you come up with it can find any number of counter arguments. Pretty soon you're in analysis paralysis.

Where you are is just about as risky and as dangerous as it gets; make a wrong decision and the rest of your life will be irrevocably screwed. Your Amygdala - one of the oldest parts of your brain that gives you strong emotional signals to go towards (that tasty berry on that bush) or away from something (that snarling sabre-toothed tiger) - will be screaming at you to run for cover.

With nobody else in the world affected by this just-one-change-left event it's hard to see how others can help you; they're simply not in the same situation as you and can't possibly understand. The levels of oxytocin in your brain - the neurotransmitter that makes you feel connected to others - drops, making you feel isolated and alone. This can also drop your levels of dopamine further and give you a really strong "run away and hide under the sheets" response.

With all the scrambling and changes in your brain chemistry, energy will be diverted away from the bit of your brain that helps you think clearly and deliberately. Without power to your pre-frontal cortex you won't be able to reason or think clearly, so you're largely at the mercy of the rest of your brain.

Holy mother of a nutcracker. Sounds like a nightmare doesn’t it?
Having a single decision left to make would be nightmarish indeed, but those same reactions in your brain (and a whole heap more) can happen with any choice you make, or even with every choice.

But here's the good news.

You don't have just one more change left. You don't have one more decision to make about your life or your place in the world. You have countless. You can make a decision at any time, and those decisions can be big or small, silly or serious. They can be imbued with what you really value in life; they can honor what's most important to you and they can bring alive what truly matters.

It doesn't matter whether a decision goes your way or amounts to a hill o' beans. You get to make a new choice. Making a decision is the hill o' beans. You have an extraordinary power at your disposal that you wield every single day of your life. The power to make a decision.

Are you embracing it or resisting it? Are you wielding that power with graceful intention or letting your brain call all the shots on your behalf?

Written on 4/16/2012 by Steve Errey. Steve is a superstar confidence coach who helps you build an extraordinary life. He'll promise to help you find your natural confidence so that you can put your dent in the universe. See more of Steve on Twitter and Facebook.

Photo Credit: antonkudris

How to Stay Motivated When the World's Against You

2012-04-15T10:25:00.004-05:00

As a blogger, an entrepreneur or even an employee you can tend to feel a lack of motivation when times are rough or your products and services simply don’t get the attention they deserve. It is easy to give up, drown in self-pity or insecurity, which ultimately leads to you giving up or simply not performing in the best way possible.

I have certainly been there and I am sure most of you have too. However, it is in those moments that we can show our real strength and our determination for success. Those moments distinguish the winners from those who will never make it big.

What is it then that we can do to stay motivated when everything seems to be turning against us?

The Mindset
Mindset is everything. I am not the first one to tell you this and I won’t be the last, but the transformation I have experienced in the last months by simply changing my mindset is incredible.

If you stop acting from a mindset of fear and start having trust in the world and in yourself, your entire outlook on life will change. You will feel happier, more balanced, more confident and stronger, which will weave itself into your work and your performance. By believing you will make it and by knowing that there is room for your success in this world no matter the economy or the circumstances, you will deliver your A game and you will be able to push through those moments of doubt and fear.

The People
The people you surround yourself with are crucial. Are they tearing you down? Are they trying to keep you small? Are they affecting your mood in negative ways? Are they limiting your thinking?

No matter how strong you are, not matter your confidence, when you spend too much time with people who have a limited mindset, it will affect you personally and ultimately hinder your performance.

However, if you seek people who share your vision or who have already achieved success far beyond what your situation is right now, you will automatically dream bigger and achieve more. These people will push you to new heights of performance and they will be there to celebrate your successes with you or keep you motivated when things are looking anything but rosy.

The more confident and successful people you surround yourself with, the better your chances for major success.

The Inspiration
Another huge factor in uplifting you is getting inspiration from all kinds of sources. Read books, attend classes, listen to podcasts, find a mastermind group or go to conferences. Inspiration is all around. You just have to find it. No matter the graveness of your situation, no matter your frustration, you can always find someone who has been where you are, but didn’t give up and ended up immensely successful.

By feeding your brain this positive and encouraging information, your thoughts will transform themselves and act as a catalyst for reinforcing you that you can always turn your business around. At the same time, you can learn from these people and find new ways of thinking and approaching whatever it is you’re doing.

The Goals
When I started my recovery from anorexia after 14 years of struggle, I had many days and weeks of depression, anxiety and complete loss of identity. But I had a goal in mind: I wanted to live. So I pushed through. I ate, not wanting to. I fought against the urge to overexercise. I stopped abusing laxatives. I gained weight, loathing myself, but I did not give up. I knew my goal and I went after it, no matter the measures of discomfort I experienced.

The same is true for wanting to create a successful business and life. You need to have a clear, tangible goal and action plans you can implement. The more precise the goals the better. The more detailed the action plans the more beneficial. I know it is tedious. I know most people would rather spend their time in different ways. But when you don’t know in which direction you want to go, you cannot expect to stay motivated in rough times.

Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will help you along the way and this is the safest way to always stay on track, remain motivated and keep working hard.

The Persistence
Sometimes you simply have to keep pushing through. Yes, bad times suck and they can wear you down, but if you really want to achieve something, you have to persist. By implementing my suggestions, you should believe by now that change is possible, so staying on track should not be too hard. However, if you still feel like giving up, simply don’t. Just keep going. Take one step at a time, but never lose sight of your big goal.

Don’t be fooled. We all have setbacks. We all have times when nothing seems to work and we seem to tread water. Having the right, positive mindset, surrounding yourself with encouraging people, keeping yourself inspired and always knowing your goals will keep you on the right road to major success.

Written on 4/15/2012 by Anne - Sophie Reinhardt . Anne - Sophie Reinhardt is a world traveler, an anorexia survivor, a positive body image advocator, podcaster, blogger, digital entrepreneur, speaker, wife, lover of books, aspiring yogi and social media enthusiast. Her blog, My Intercontinental Life, is focused around living a purposeful, free, healthy and passionate life.

Photo Credit: RLHyde

3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Brain Power

2012-04-10T01:08:00.003-05:00

Google "improve brain power" and you'll find all sorts of tips, techniques, books, and games explaining how you could improve your brain power. Most of them involve physical exercise, balanced nutrition and complex mental exercises.

While it would be cool if everyone could incorporate these tips, I highly doubt that after reading such advice you will start jogging for one hour every morning and change your diet to incorporate more fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. Some people don't do that even when they are at risk of having a heart attack!

For the lazy crowd looking to give a little boost to the brain functions, is there anything easier? Luckily yes.

Switch the side of your mouse-pad
Yes, it is as simple as that.

By switching the side of your mouse-pad you will force yourself to use your non-dominant hand. This, in turn, will stimulate the neural connections between the right and left hemispheres on your brain. Scientific research confirmed that people that use both hands equally have 10% more nerve fibers joining the two sides of the brain.

Ideally you want to perform as many activities as possible with your non-dominant hand, but some of them might become cumbersome. I tried to brush my teeth using my left hand for one week or so, only to find out that the tartar was building up.

Using the mouse with the opposite hand is something that you can easily integrate into your life. During the first couple of days it will feel weird, and you might need to switch back when using programs that require intense "clicking" sessions. After this adaptation phase however, you'll be navigating the computer just as efficiently with both hands.

Force yourself to remember things
Sometimes you want to remember the name of a song that is playing or the name of an old acquaintance that passed by . It is right there, on the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember it. What would you normally do in such situation? Probably ask some nearby friend for the name, and upon the revelation you will even shout marveled, "Oh yeah! That is it."

The next time this happens force yourself to remember that name. The brain can be stimulated just like your muscles and the more you exercise it the stronger it will get.

Do not limit yourself to remembering names. Are you calling your mother to get the phone number of your uncle? Forget pen and paper - you can memorize it. Try to look at the keyboard of your phone in order to create a mental picture of what the sequence of numbers looks like.

The worse that can happens is that you will need to call your mom again...

Play games that involve some thinking
You don't need to participate in the Mathematical Olympic Games in order to stretch your brain capabilities. Oh no, games and activities as simple as sudoku or crosswords will already have a tangible impact upon your brain performance.

Regularity is very important here, so try to incorporate these games or exercises into your routine. You could bring a crosswords book with you on the daily commute, for instance. Personally I like to play a chess match every day before I start working. It takes around 15 minutes, but it ensures that my brain gets a kick-start every morning.

Written by Daniel Scocco, the author of Daily Blog Tips, a blog focused on web design, online marketing, SEO and monetization tips. .

Photo Credit: jetheriot

Incredibly Simple Steps to Living a Truly Great Life

2012-04-09T04:42:00.000-05:00

Living a truly great life seems impossible. Days and weeks go by and is just feels like we're stuck in this never ending world of mediocrity. I don't know. Maybe we're all defining 'great life' the wrong way. What does it mean to live a truly great life?

I can tell you one thing. It’s different for every person, and each one of us has to come up with our own definition. It’s not up to society, our friends, or our family. And - it's certainly not up to me or some guy on the internet. I can list 40,000 things that make ME happy, and perhaps we'll have a few in common, however, it’s up to you to decide how you live.

With that, I can surely give you a handful of ideas that may help in your quest. Let me know what you think.

Go After Your Dreams
Go after your dreams and follow your passion. It's easier said than done but no matter what, if you put off your dreams, you will regret it.

It may feel hard, or scary to do what you love, but in the end, isn’t it one of the most important things in life? It doesn’t have to be radical. You don’t have to quit your job, but you do have to get started, and get creative.

Do not succumb to excuses.

Be Lazy
I love being lazy, but I have many ingrained beliefs that say that I have to keep pushing myself; I have to keep working. I’m still very young, but throughout the years I’ve learned to relax. I’ve discovered that being in a hurry, accomplishing goals, and being successful isn’t the #1 priority for me, although it is still up there.

This isn’t about being lazy all the time and never getting anything done. This is about being strategically lazy and allowing yourself to relax.

Besides, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you will feel too inspired to stay still for long periods of time.

Be Kind
Being kind infuses my soul with happiness. Sounds cheesy, but it’s true. I am often kind for selfish reasons; it makes me feel great to imagine other people being happy because of me.

It’s easy to put off making other people’s days better when we have so many problems to worry about. But in the end, we will always have more problems, so why not help others with theirs?

Cherish Relationships
Being connected, being in love, and having people around us is what makes us human, and it’s something we all value more than we know. Making money is nice, but in the end we want money because we think it will improve our social status.

Instead of going after money, go after relationships directly. Happiness is possible now, so why use money as the middle-man?

Take Risks
Have you ever just gone after something you initially thought was scary and later been happy that you did it?

Our minds have an uncanny ability to stop us from doing anything that isn’t safe or secure. We avoid risks. We avoid being bold, and we do our best to avoid anything new.

Now, I’m not advocating being stupid and jumping off a cliff. Use common-sense, and take risks that have a high chance of having a positive impact on your life.

Fail
Failing is another obstacle we have to overcome. We’re taught in school that failure is bad. They use red-markers and those that never fail are endlessly praised.

But in the real world failure is what teaches us what works and what does not. Failure is a stepping stone to success, not a death sentence like so many believe.

Be Aware of Your Thoughts
Be an observer of what is going on in your mind, and remember that you are not your thoughts, but the observer of them.

Notice what your patterns are. If you’re like me, you’re a worrier. I want to plan, make things perfect, and avoid any surprises in the future. But in reality, there’s no way I can control my future. Even with all the money in the world, something unexpected could happen to knock my world upside down.

Kill Your TV
Don’t waste away in front of the TV. Occasional TV watching is cool; in fact, I like to watch TV from time to time, but I don’t have a TV at home. The best way to cut down on your watching is to get rid of your TV.

When you sit in front of that hypnotic box, it’s easy to get stuck there like you’ve accidentally sat on a pool of superglue. You get passive, and your mind shuts off.

Face Your Fears
Our fears are there for a reason. Overcoming fear is a skill anyone can learn, and facing your fears helps you grow. Look at your fears as challenges. Each one you face you receive experience points, and when you’ve got enough of them, you level up.

The scarier the fear, the greater the reward.

Say Yes!
Say yes more. Simple, yet very powerful. You cannot know what will happen. We try to predict what will occur if we say yes to a trip, to an invitation, or to a meal with a friend, but it’s impossible.

You are not psychic, and neither am I (at least not yet). Instead of trying to analyze everything, say yes more, right now!

Written on 4/09/2012 by Henri Junttila. Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where he shares his personal tips on how you can live the life you know you deserve. When you feel ready to take action, get his free course: How to Find Your Passion (And Build a Business Around It).

Photo Credit: mikecogh

Increasing Your Productivity: The Big Picture AND the Little Picture

2012-04-06T14:20:00.004-05:00

Everyone wants to boost their productivity, whether it’s at your day job or your personal development goals. Why does it seem so difficult?

One of the reasons many people fail to see results when attempting to increase productivity is because they don’t realize there are two very different levels to which attention must be paid. Focusing on one to the exclusion of the other will usually result in only short-lived gains if not outright failure.

As the title of this article suggests there is big-picture productivity and little-picture productivity. This article will explain both and give you plenty of tips for boosting each of them.

Big-Picture Productivity
Big-picture productivity involves stepping back and taking a look at yourself from a bird’s eye view. These are larger basic traits and characteristics about yourself that you need to keep an eye on or develop. The following are 4 dimensions of big-picture productivity that fit firmly into the realm of personal development. Keeping an eye on how you’re doing with these will keep you heading in a solid, forward-moving and very productive direction:

Taking initiative
If you have developed a pattern of merely reacting to situations, circumstances and other people, you need to start looking for opportunities to take initiative. You can’t just wait for things to get better, you need to actively start making it happen. As Gandhi famously said, be the change you seek. Just keep taking initiative until it becomes a habit.

Envisioning your future
You need to have a destination in mind or the journey doesn’t make much sense, however enjoyable aimless wandering may be. What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish in your life? When you answer those questions, then you can map out goals and objectives and an action plan for getting there.

Saying no
Another critical thing to develop is the power to say no to those things that aren’t helping you move forward. Maybe that means cutting out television if it’s sucking up too much time and not adding value to your life. Maybe that means spending less time with negative people that bring you down rather than build you up. Maybe that means stopping unhealthy eating habits or not getting enough sleep. When you say no to the things that hold you down, you’re automatically saying yes to a whole new world of possibilities.

Seeking common ground
It’s easy to be combative and confrontational, but where does it get you in the end? Nowhere. To keep yourself moving in a positive and productive forward direction, you need to cooperate with others in the areas upon which you can agree. By emphasizing what you have in common with others, the differences and disagreements that remain won’t hold both parties hostage.

Little-Picture Productivity
Now that you know what to pay attention to in the big picture, there are also all kinds of things you can do to be more productive when you actually start working on any given task or project. Things to try at this level include the following:

Work on the tough stuff first
It can really help to start tackling the thorniest problems when you’re at your freshest. Once your energy starts to drain, take a break or switch to another task that’s less difficult. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean first thing in the morning, it means figuring out your most productive times of day.

Eliminate distractions
This can be tough in the digital age when various social media, websites and email keep demanding your attention. Turn them off and get to work. This also means making sure you’re working in a physical environment that helps you be productive. If music helps you, play it. If sitting in a coffee shop with your laptop helps, go there. A change of location once in a while may need to be explored if you get stuck.

Get the tools you need
A cook that doesn’t have any pots, pans, utensils or raw ingredients is going to have a tough time preparing a meal. If you don’t have what you need for a task or project, re-schedule it until you do, otherwise you’re wasting valuable time.

Just remember that in order to boost and maintain higher levels of productivity, you need to pay attention to both the big-picture dimensions and the little-picture tools and tricks. When you learn how to balance your productivity efforts between these two different but essential levels, you’ll be well on your way to a highly productive life.

Written on 4/6/2012 by Vic Lawrence. Vic is a US Army Veteran that blogs about Self Improvement and Personal Development. Vic wants to inspire motivation and passion into individuals that live a life of unhappiness. Vic offers practical advice for becoming your best self at Hang In There. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: demoshelsinki

Why You Need to Delegate More

2012-04-03T04:17:00.000-05:00

Do you live by the motto, “If you want a job done well, do it yourself?” And do you feel stressed out, rushed, or anxious a lot of the time?

Perhaps you’re worried about forgetting one of the many tasks on your mental list (you’ve not had time to sit down and commit it to paper). Or maybe you have a whole bunch of things that keep getting put off -- like sorting out that niggling problem with your computer, or organizing your files -- and you just know that this is eventually going to result in a crisis situation.

The truth is, you don’t need to do everything yourself. Good delegation is an important part of time management: it means figuring out which tasks you can hand over to other people, and passing them on in a timely fashion, so that your colleague (or family member) can get them done before a necessary deadline.

Delegating Frees You Up for Your Great Work
Taking care of every little task, whether that’s at work or at home, can make you feel productive -- even when you’re not really accomplishing anything worthwhile. You might be very efficient at entering data or doing the laundry, but is it really an effective use of your time?

By getting into the habit of delegating tasks to other people, you give yourself time for what really matters: your great work. That could be almost anything: a new vision for your company, a personal project like writing a book, or simply having more time to spend on nurturing your kids.

Delegating Empowers Others
If you insist on taking care of everything, then you’re not only failing to live up to your own potential -- you’re also stopping other people from progressing.

At work, if you’re always the person who sends the e-newsletter to clients, you’re stopping your colleagues from learning something new. Perhaps you’ve got an under-used team member who’s sitting around bored, and who’d welcome the chance to take on a new task. (Plus, what happens if you’re off sick? What if you leave the company?)

The same applies at home: if you insist on doing all the cooking and the chores, you’re stopping your spouse and kids from developing useful life skills.

Why Aren't You Delegating Enough?
Chances are, you agree with me that delegating is a good thing ... in theory. But when it comes to putting it into practice, you’re almost certainly not delegating enough.

Why not?

#1: You Don’t Have Time to Train Someone
If you’re already busy and stressed-out, it often feels easier to take care of a task yourself. Let’s say that writing and sending a short e-newsletter takes you an hour; it might take you two or three hours to go through the process in detail with a colleague.

Try planning ahead: handle today’s newsletter yourself, but block out some time in your calendar to train a colleague on the process well in advance of next month’s newsletter.

#2: You Don’t Trust Them to Do a Good Job
Maybe you’re convinced that your colleagues or kids won’t be able to produce sufficiently high-quality results. Be honest with yourself: have you even given them a chance before? If you have and you’ve been disappointed in the results, you can still delegate. You’ll probably need to try one of more of these:
- Have a trial period: let them handle the task a few times, and assess the results.
- Schedule in time to review and check their work: you may have to make a few adjustments, but it’ll still be quicker than handling the whole task yourself.
- Lower your standards: maybe you’re putting too much time and energy into a task that really doesn’t need to be completed to perfection.
#3: You Need to Get a System in Place
You might be struggling to delegate a particular task because there’s no real system for it. Maybe you don’t follow the same process each time -- you just have a rough idea in your head of how it should work.

Write down instructions for completing the task, step by step. Even if you don’t end up delegating it straight away, you’ll still have a useful reference document for your own purposes. This is especially useful for tasks that only crop up every few weeks (so they never become ingrained habits) or for ones where you constantly find yourself making mistakes or forgetting how you did something last time.

You don’t need to delegate everything all at once. Instead, each week, look for just one task that you could hand over to someone else. That might mean something as simple as showing a colleague how to change the toner and restack the paper in the photocopier, or teaching your kids to stack the dishwasher and turn it on. A few minutes of effort today could save you hours over the course of the next few months or years.

Let us know about your experiences with delegating (good or bad!) in the comments...

Written on 4/03/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: Menage a Moi

No Free Handouts – You Have to Work for your Happiness

2012-04-01T10:09:00.007-05:00

Are you waiting for happiness to fall in your lap? Are you waiting for someone to drop it in the tin cup of your life? Well, sorry to break it to you this way, but it won’t happen. It can’t happen. Happiness is not a thing someone can toss at you like change from a passing car window. It’s something that much more resembles the paycheck you earned at the end of a long and hard-fought work week.

Here’s the thing. Happiness is not an easy thing to get.

In many ways, it’s even more difficult than another perennial New Year’s resolution: weight loss. And here’s the reason why: measurable weight loss requires the consistent application of only one principle: Burn more calories than you swallow. Or, put another way, swallow fewer calories than you burn.

And unlike happiness, weight loss can be pursued directly. Happiness, on the other hand, is an indirect pursuit. It’s attained as a sort of side effect or byproduct, something caught while out doing other things.

There are Two Reasons Happiness can be a Hard Egg to Crack

Most of the keys that unlock the door to happiness are character and personality related traits. These are often very difficult for most of us to acquire quickly ... or permanently. In fact, a quick survey of the final resting place of most of our New Year’s Resolutions over the last several decades will attest to the difficulty of making permanent changes to character.

Happiness requires much more than the single magic bullet necessary to kill the weight demon! Happiness requires bullets from many different guns, so to speak. They include conditions and traits that are themselves, difficult to master. To improve on your current state of happiness, for example, you’ll likely need to make changes in one or more of the following areas:
- Kindness (just try imagining a happy mean person)
- Gratitude (do you count your blessings or complain about your burdens?)
- Optimism (do you believe things will work out, that bad things are temporary? Or are you the victim floating in the waters of someone else’s bath?)
- Love (both giving and receiving it)
- Finding meaning in life generally
- Passion (for work, a hobby, your family, a club, something)
- Growth and improvement (stagnation is no recipe for more happiness)
- Human decency (indecent people find looking in mirrors a disturbingly empty experience)
- Patience (this one in itself already pushes happiness to the top of the difficulty list!)
- Faith (in yourself, in humanity, in a code of decency, in something higher than yourself, in God)
- Overcoming obstacles and challenges in life
- Accepting and coping with challenges that are insurmountable (age-related challenges, chronic pain, others’ poor use of free will)
- Developing a positive attitude (seeing the good in others, self and circumstances)
- Overcoming debilitating, growth-limiting fears, doubt and insecurities
- Building character (another inclusive condition itself of many parts)
- Overcoming character flaws (selfishness, greed, hate, hyper-judgmentalism, etc.)

Mastery or even improvement of any characteristic on the list above can add a measure of happiness to our lives. So pick one and begin the exhilaration of self-improvement! As we live life with greater passion and human decency, we elevate the sense of who at the deepest level to something we recognize as more noble and deserving of respect.

We start to feel increasingly good about ourselves, more confident in our own skin, comfortable about staring deeply into the mirror, beyond the surface, into our own hearts. Not a bad stab at happiness!

As we grow in optimism, gratitude and patience, we add even more layers of happiness to whatever level of happiness we enjoyed before. But the bottom line is that the realization that the true potential of happiness is dependent on our own willingness to do the work of developing those traits and characteristics that allow happiness to flow into our lives allows us to take decisive action, to draw up a game plan, to stop waiting for happiness to wonder up and smack us in the kisser..

Instead, we can reach out and touch it, cup it in our hands, deliver it to ourselves, one trait, one characteristic, one thought, one belief, one step at a time.

Afterthoughts
So, you get the idea. Happiness can seem elusive because often we associate it with doing just one thing, like thinking positively.

Then we try it on for size trying to convince ourselves that the cup is more full than empty. We tell ourselves that there must be a silver lining to the recession and that the growing bald spot up top is more like a halo than a vacant lot and the wrinkles only add texture.

It doesn’t take long before we start feeling cheated by all the seemingly false promises of exhilarating joy that were made by its advocates, even if we feel some improvement. The hype just wasn’t equal to the results. It’s therefore critically important to understand, as we search for that sometimes-elusive condition, that each addition, each area of growth, each improved characteristic is not itself the game-changer, but will add happiness to happiness or remove unhappiness from unhappiness, drawing us closer and closer, deeper and deeper into the longed-for state.

That way, measure by measure, we can grow our happiness until we realize one day that life is beautiful, even joyful, despite the difficulties inherent to living.

No Free Handouts – You Have to Work for your Happiness
So stay with it! Attaining a happy life is worth the effort. It may be helpful to look at it as though you’re starting a business. It takes lots of work and lots of time. Most start-ups, as a matter of fact, don’t see a profit for quite a while, sometimes several years. It may take you a while too before you begin to taste the fruits of your efforts in the area of happiness.

There are no shortcuts to building a happy life like there are no shortcuts to building a successful business. So don’t waste any time worrying about your happiness now and go get to work on making it better, one “paycheck” at a time!

After all, there is no government program that can give it to you and you won’t get paid for just wanting it; It’s gotta be earned. So start earning it!

Written by Ken Wert, a personal development blogger at Meant to be Happy where he inspires readers to live with purpose, act with character, think with clarity and grow with courage. Sign up for his free eBook, A Walk Through Happiness and newsletter! Connect with him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: lynch_m_j

15 Simple Changes That Will Quickly Improve Your Health

2012-03-24T02:44:00.001-05:00

Did you start January full of health resolutions, determined that this would be the year that you ate better, lost weight and exercised regularly?

If you’re back to your usual habits – skipping breakfast, grabbing chocolate to get you through that afternoon slump, neglecting your fruit and veggie intake and chugging down mug after mug of coffee – don’t feel guilty about it. Your problem isn’t that you lack willpower – it’s that you tried to change too much at once.

Instead, try making some of these very easy changes to your eating, drinking and exercising habits. Once you’ve got used to a few of them, add in more. You’ll be making huge strides towards your health goals, with hardly any conscious effort. Sound good? Read on...

Easy Changes to Your Eating Habits

Eat a piece of fruit before lunch
Get into the habit of eating an apple, banana, pear or other piece of fruit before lunch each day. It’ll take the edge off your appetite – making you less likely to dig into greasy fast food or bag or crackers. You’ll also be one step closer to hitting your five-a-day.

Don’t use vending machines
Let’s face it, have you ever bought anything healthy from a vending machine? They’re overpriced and full of sugar-and-salt packed stuff that your body doesn’t need. Plus, they’re open all hours (unlike your corner shop) and they won’t look at you funny if you buy ten candy bars at a time. Make a pact with yourself not to buy anything except bottled water from vending machines.

Go vegetarian one night a week
Most nutritionists agree that we eat more meat than we need to. Have a meat-free dinner once a week – it’s a great opportunity to try out some new recipes that are packed with vegetables and flavours. You’ll also save yourself some money.

Switch to wholegrain bread
If your lunchtime sandwich or sub is always on white, switch to wholegrain. The extra goodness in the grains (including lots of fiber, B vitamins, vitamin E, and various minerals) helps keep your heart healthy and cut your risk of cancer. Plus, fiber-rich foods make you feel you full for a longer period of time – very helpful if you’re trying to lose weight.

Switch to skim milk (1% or less fat)
Do you drink whole milk or put it on cereal? If so, switch to skim (less than 0.5% fat) or 1% milk. It might seem odd for the first few days, but stick with it for a week or so: your taste buds will quickly adjust. You’ll be getting just as much calcium and protein as before, but cutting fat.

Easy Changes To Your Drinking Habits

Keep a bottle of water on your desk
Many people mistake slight thirst for hunger, leading to unnecessary snacking. Keep a bottle on your desk and drink it whenever you get a little mouth crazing. Getting sufficient water also helps prevent you from becoming constipated. Note: Save money by using a refillable thermos or water bottle instead of purchasing bottled water.

Switch half your cups of coffee to herbal tea
How many coffees (or regular mugs of tea) do you drink in an average day? Try having just half of your usual amount – and make the rest a herbal, caffeine free tea. Many government health authorities recommend that we limit caffeine intake to 400mg per day, which is the equivalent of four cups of brewed coffee, or seven cups of instant.

Avoid milky drinks from coffee outlets
Do you have a giant latte every morning? You could be clocking up over 300 calories in just one drink, and chances are, it doesn’t fill you up at all. And don’t assume that being caffeine-free means you can get away with this: a hot chocolate with whipped cream has over 400 calories...

Have four alcohol-free days per week
If you go out drinking every day after work, or split a nightly bottle of wine with your partner over dinner, your habits are putting your liver under pressure. They could also be stopping you from losing weight: alcohol makes you peckish, and contains calories (around 200 calories in a bottle of beer or a medium-sized glass of wine).

Swap soda for water
Are you addicted to soda? Even diet sodas aren’t great for you – they generally contain a lot of additives. Try swapping some of your sodas for plain water (add a slice of lemon, or a dash of cordial, if you don’t like your water unflavoured). If it’s the fizz you miss, try carbonated water.

Easy Changes to Your Exercise Habits

Go for a twenty minute walk every lunchtime
If you’re struggling to fit exercise into your day, get away from your desk for a twenty-minute walk each lunchtime. It’s a good way to force yourself to take a break from work, and refreshes your mind and your body.

Walk (some of) your commute
Can you walk all or part of your commute? That might mean jumping off the subway a stop earlier, or even just leaving your car in the furthest part of the car park.

Take a gym class once a week
Wherever you live or work, chances are that you can find a convenient exercise class somewhere nearby. (Many gyms have quick pre-work slots and lunch-time classes, as well as several evening options.) Find one class you can do, once a week – and stick with it.

Make Sunday afternoons active
As Monday looms ever closer, you might find that your mood and energy levels take a dive. A great way to counter this is to do something active on Sunday afternoons. Mix this up from week to week: how about a long walk, a swim, ice-skating, having a kick around in the park...?

Exercise during commercial breaks
Whenever you’re watching TV and adverts come on, get up off the sofa and do some exercise. Fit in a few stretches, some jogging on the spot, or some weight lifting. You might only fit in a few minutes at a time, but over the course of an evening’s TV viewing, that could easily add up to half an hour. And if it stops you grabbing yet another snack, it’s definitely helping...

Do you have any easy, manageable, tips that help you meet your health goals?

Written by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: Joe M500

How to Find Happiness Without Buying It

2012-03-22T13:48:00.004-05:00

Our materialistic society has led us to believe that happiness cannot be obtained without having money.

Rather than learning to be satisfied with what we have, we are taught to want more. We learn from advertising, and from the media, that we need to buy trinkets and toys in order to make ourselves happy, or to fulfill emotional needs, and that the purchases they are trying to talk us into will provide us with the psychological comfort we are looking for.

Unfortunately, as a society we have bought into these misguided messages and have come to believe that spending money on certain items will bring us fame, fortune, happiness, beauty, or popularity. We end up using money as a crutch to provide us with something we ultimately must find within ourselves. As we become caught up in this charade, we trade precious hours of our lives trying to earn the money we have been taught to covet so much. We trade hours of our lives working, sacrificing time that could have been spent with our families, for the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

In order to find true happiness, we first must learn to change our attitudes about money. We must learn that money, and the spending of it, provides only a temporary relief but does not present us with any real long lasting benefits. We end up owning something we either do not really want or do not really need, and the underlying emotional issues remain.

Rather than focus on the temporary satisfaction you may feel from spending money, try the following to bring you happiness without it.

Imagine Having no Money
Imagine what you would do for happiness if you had no money at all. Think about how you would spend your time, and what you would do for enjoyment. Change your focus from material possessions to other things that bring you enjoyment, such as spending quality time with your family and friends. Rather than focusing on the accumulation of possessions, concentrate instead on playing with or reading to your children, or spending time out enjoying nature.

Want What you Already Have
Society teaches us to want what others have. Instead, shift your thinking so that you are satisfied with, or want, what is already yours. What tends to happen is once we reach our goals in terms of owning personal possessions, we trade those old goals in for a set of new ones that involves bigger, better, and grander objects.

Goals are good to have because they motivate us to work, and to continue to strive for self improvement. The key is to find a balance between having worthy goals and recognizing when we are allowing the desire for possessions to overwhelm the importance of other aspects of our lives. Rather than constantly striving for things we do not have, we need to shift our focus to being thankful for the things we already possess.

Volunteer Your Time
One way to appreciate what you have is to work with others who have nothing, or who have disabilities that no amount of money can overcome. Volunteering time to work in a food bank, or to work with underprivileged children, can really alter your perspective on where you are in life, and can create a deeper appreciation for the gifts you do have in your life.

Helping others can boost your spirits as well. There is a great deal of personal satisfaction to be gained from giving aid to those who are in need of it, leaving you with a sense of satisfaction that will carry over into your own life. Use the experiences of helping others to teach your children compassion and civic responsibility.

There are a number of ways to enjoy life without the need for a great deal of money. Certainly, it is important to work and earn enough to provide for our basic needs and the needs of our families, but it is important to recognize when the desire for personal possessions becomes overly consuming. There needs to be a balance between a satisfying work life and a rich home life, and the best way to achieve such a balance is to ensure the drive for material possessions does not become all consuming.

Written by David B. Bohl, the author of of Slow Down Fast

Photo Credit: lanmuoip

10 Ways to Find More Hours in Your Day

2012-03-20T06:51:00.000-05:00

We all wish we had just a bit more time.

Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar, or get a new qualification.

I can’t magically make all your days 25 hours long. But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.

Get Out of Bed Earlier
If you normally get up at 7.30am, try getting up at 7am. That half-hour might not sound like much -- but it could be time that you use to meditate, to exercise, to read that book you’ve been meaning to finish, or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start.

The first hour or half-hour of the day is often a great chance to work on something important, before other demands crowd in on you. And if you need your beauty sleep? Just get to bed half an hour earlier.

Use Your Commute Productively
How much time do you spend commuting every week? Unless you work from home, you’ve probably got at least a couple of hours each week when you’re traveling between your home and your workplace.

Use your commuting time for something useful. If you drive, you could listen to audio books. If you take the bus or train, you could read a book rather than grabbing a free newspaper. And if your workplace is quite close by, you could try walking or cycling to work -- this builds exercise into the natural rhythm of your day.

Tackle the Important Tasks First
Once you get to work, take a few minutes to prioritize your tasks. Get the important ones done first (not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones). You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones.

If you work like this, you’ll usually save time: the urgent tasks will still get done, and you won’t spend hours procrastinating over the important ones.

Don't Check Email So Often
Your colleagues and clients can wait for a few hours -- or even a day or two -- for you to reply to their emails. If there’s something truly urgent, they’ll pick up the phone.

Keep your inbox closed when you’re working, and only open it when you’re ready to spend 30 minutes or so dealing with emails. It’s much more efficient to batch-process your emails than to keep popping in and out of your inbox to deal with individual ones.

Reduce Interruptions
If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don’t just eat up time -- they also break your concentration.

When you’ve got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. If you have an office door, close it. If you work in a cubicle, wear headphones: having them on makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation (you don’t have to listen to anything through them).

Stay Focused on Your Work
You might have heard the saying “procrastination is the thief of time.” When you want more hours in the day, procrastination can be a real problem. A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, updating your Facebook status, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted time over the course of a day.

When you’re working, work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you’re facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it’s easier to tackle.

Go Home on Time
If you’re supposed to finish work at 4pm, but you never make it out of the office door until 6pm at the earlier, then it’s no wonder you don’t have enough hours in the day.

In some jobs, it is difficult to get away on time (if all your colleagues work late, you might feel obliged to do the same). But if you’re staying because you only ever seem to get any work done in a mad dash at the end of the day, then your working habits need to change.

Delegate Some Chores
Perhaps you seem to be the only person in your household who’s capable of unstacking the dishwasher or ironing the clothes. If your evenings get taken up with a long list of chores, see whether you can delegate some of those.

Your partner, housemates, or kids can pitch in and help out. Even if you just free up 20 or 30 minutes every evening, you’ll have a bit of extra time to spend on something important to you.

Eat Dinner at Home
Although going out for dinner might seem like it saves time (after all, you don’t have to cook) -- you’ve got the time cost of traveling to the restaurant, ordering the food, waiting for it to arrive, paying the bill ... and it might well be faster just to cook and eat at home.

If you don’t have much time to cook during the week, try making extra portions at the weekend so that you can freeze some. That way, you’ve got an almost-instant meal (and one that’s probably healthier and cheaper than a restaurant meal, too).

Limit Your TV Watching
If you put the TV on as soon as you get in from work, it’s easy to end up spending hours slumped on the sofa. Instead of watching whatever happens to be showing, try watching just one or two programs each night.

You might also want to have at least a couple of TV-free evenings; a great chance to read a good book, or to work on a project around the house.

Do you have any great tips for finding more hours in the day? Does one of the above ideas work well for you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments...

Written on 3/20/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: ~twon~

21Tips For Building the Body of Legend Bruce Lee

2012-03-16T09:02:00.008-05:00

Bruce Lee had one of the most iconic bodies in the film industry. Even the big-shots of bodybuilding like Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger have nothing but praise for him. Here’s what Arnold Schwarzenegger has to say about Bruce:

There's a lot of people that do all those moves and they do have the skill, but they don't look visually as believable or as impressive as Bruce Lee did. He was one of a kind. - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Even though Bruce looks small compared to most of today’s A-list celebrities, I bet most people would much rather look like Bruce instead of looking like a muscle-bound freak. But, to build muscle one must work hard and smart. Most beginners waste precious time on stuff that just doesn’t work. As a result, they end up looking the same year in, year out.

By following the tips below you’ll be able to instantly bypass beginner mistakes, pack on more muscles and just feel good in your own skin.

Sound good?

Get ready to find out what it takes to get the body of a legendary movie star.

Start Lifting Weights
Join a gym and start to lift weights. If you want to look like Bruce Lee then you need to have access to a barbell, a squat rack and a lot of weight plates. Body weight exercises just won’t cut it.

You can also train at home, as long as you’re ready to spend some money on a good power rack, a well built bench and a 300 lbs barbell set. You can get all three items for less than $1000 on Amazon. Obviously, if your budget won't take this expense, focus on the remaining tips in this post.

The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your work. The same rule holds true if you lift weights. 80% of your muscle and strength gains, come from just 3 lifts.

Which ones I hear you say?

Enter the The Big Trio:
- Deadlift
- Squat
- Bench press
Unlike most lifts, The Big Trio works your whole body. The more muscles a lift works, the bigger the spike of muscle building hormones.

Do Less, Be Intense
At the hearth of each of your workouts should be just a few lifts, on which you give 100%. The more you stress your body, the bigger the spike of muscle building hormones while you sleep. It’s that simple.

You need to let your body know that you want more brawn. The best way to do that is to train with intensity.

Focus on Getting Stronger
Size follows strength. You’ll never look like Bruce Lee if you keep on lifting the same small weights each workout. Focus on The Big Trio (2nd tip) and go hard while you’re at it. Strive to add a rep or extra weight to the bar each workout.

Log Your Workouts
If you want to lift more each workout, you need to keep track of how much weight you’re lifting. Your memory does a poor job at this task, that’s why you need to log all of your lifts in a small notebook. Write down how much you lifted as soon as you’re done with an exercise.

If you have a smartphone, you can use a web app like Fitocracy to log your workouts.

Make Your First Set the Heaviest
If any set counts it’s the first one. The logic here is that in the first sets of your lifts, your muscle fuel stores are filled up to the max. That’s why your muscles will be able to exert the greatest amount of force.

With this in mind try to do your main lifts at the start of your workout and make sure you give 100% while you’re at it.

Learn Proper Lifting Technique
Lift with good form and you shall reap the rewards. To be able to train long term with no injuries is a blessing many fail to grasp. Guys just can’t wait to be all jacked so they end up doing stupid stuff that gets them hurt. Most of the time good form is sacrificed in order to be able to add a few extra pounds to the bar.

Spend those extra 2 to 3 weeks at the start, and work on your lifting form. Once you move on to big weights you’ll be glad you did that.

Warm-Up Before Exercising
This is the first step of your two-part warm up drill. At the start of each workout, you must spend a few minutes to get your hearth rate up. A light cycle session of 5 to 8 minutes, done in a brisk way will do the trick. When you do this you raise your body’s temperature, your joints get lubricated and as whole, your body gets ready to bear the load of your workout.

Stretch Before Exercising
This is the next part of your warm-up drill. You should do it right after your cycle session. When I say stretching I don’t mean hold the muscle stretched for minutes on end. More and more scientific studies tell us that that’s bad if your goal is to lift more weights.

Do dynamic stretches. They are a great way to transition from rest to high-intensity exercise since they work your muscles through a full range of motion and make your nerves fire with more power. There are many dynamic stretches I could list, but if I had to pick just 3 that give you most bang for your buck, these would be the ones:
- High Knee Walk to Spiderman with Hip Lift and Overhead Reach (sounds hard to do but it’s not)
- Squat to Stand With Reach
- Kneeling Superman
Use Lifting Aids
Use lifting aids to make sure that your back muscles get worked up to the max. Most of the time, people aren’t able to train their backs as they should because their grip is too weak. This is a big issue for most pulling exercises - rows, pull-ups, pull-downs, etc.

Lifting aids like lifting straps or liquid chalk will boost your grip strength so your back muscles can get a better workout. For me liquid chalk proved to be the best tool for building more muscles. It’s cheap, mess-free and it lets you lift more weight instantly (all lifts).

Limit Aerobic Activities
Running and weight lifting don’t go hand in hand, at least not for most people. When you lift weights your body wants to add muscle. Running tells your body to drop weight - this also includes muscle. Just look at the marathon runners and you’ll see what I mean.

While it’s OK to run, try to keep it at a minimum.

Get Plenty of Rest
You grow while you’re at rest. There’s a big spike of muscle building hormones that takes place in the first hours of your sleep. That’s why it’s vital that you get at least 7 to 8 hours of good sleep each day.

Space your workouts so there’s at least 48 hours of rest in between them. Try to set up your routine so there’s at least 96 hours of rest between your squats and deadlifts. When you work out, 3 to 5 mins of rest time between your sets will be enough to fill up your energy stores.

Learn to Listen to Your Body
When your body tries to say something, be all ears. People take the “no pain, no gain” motto at face value and that’s not good. You need to discern good pain from bad pain.

A case of bad pain is when your knee starts to hurt while you do squats. Knee pain (bad) is not the same kind of pain as training to failure or muscle soreness (good).

Learn to love good pain but avoid bad pain like it’s the plague. Be also alert on slight cues your body gives when it starts to be drained.Take a few days off of your training if your body needs it - don’t want to risk overtraining.

Take Measurements of Your Body
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. You need to track the right things to be able to see if your moving down the right path.

Things to track while trying to build muscles:
- body weight
- body girths
- the look of your body (take pictures)
I didn’t list body fat on purpose. It’s really hard to track body fat if you don’t own costly gadgets.

Fix Your Diet

When you are a martial artist, you only eat what you require and don't get carried away with foods that don't benefit you as a martial artist.-Bruce Lee

The same rule holds true if a rock-hard physique is what you’re after. Try to eat as many whole foods as you’re able to and cut back on junk foods like sugary snacks, soft drinks, fast foods, trans fats, etc.

This may be hard to do at first, but as time moves on you’ll learn to love this new healthy way of living.

Eat More Protein
Muscles are made out of proteins. Try to get 120-160 grams of protein per day for. Diets high in protein help you keep your hunger at bay - you won’t feel the need to binge on junk foods.

Foods with high levels of protein are:
- meats - beef, pork, poultry, fish, sea food, etc.
- dairy - cottage cheese, mozzarella, Swiss cheese, etc.
- legumes - beans and lentils
- eggs
Use the Right Supplements
Most supplements are a scam. With that said, there are a few supplements out there that are worth your hard earned cash. Best of all, they won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Here are the only 3 supplements you’ll need for more strength and more health:
- Creatine - research-proven, creatine monhydrate helps you gain strength, size and cuts your recovery time … the best supplement you can buy, bar none.
- Omega-3 - these are essential fatty acids our bodies can’t make on their own, but are a must for brain health, joint health, eye health and a lot more.
- Vitamin D - used to boost your body’s immune system, helps keep your teeth, bones and joints healthy, etc.
Try Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is not a diet fad, it’s a way of life. Once you try this diet, you’re hooked for life. More muscles, more strength and less fat - you can do it with Intermittent Fasting. With tons of case studies and scientific research to back up its true power, Intermittent Fasting is slowly rocking the fitness world to its core.

Here are some more benefits of IF:
- more growth hormone
- lower insulin levels
- freaking easy to stick to
I’m sure even Bruce Lee would love this diet. In case you’d like to know more, Martin Berkhan from LeanGains covers the topic of intermittent fasting more in-depth.

Have a Strong Mind a.k.a. Stay Motivated
At some point in your quest for brawn, you will get scared and feel like you’re not enough. This is ok and you should not let these mind tricks get the best of you. You need to have a strong mind all the time, if you want to fight off these bad thoughts. But that’s easier said than done.

The way to do that is to use good results as fuel to keep your mind strong. If you keep track of your workouts and body stats, a quick glance at your notes will turbo-charge your mind strength to new heights.

Don’t Do Stupid Stuff
Don’t do stupid things that can put your health at risk. To show you what I mean, here are some of the things you should never do:
- bench pressing to failure without a spotter,
- deadlifting/squatting with bad form,
- doing stupid lifts like “squats on an exercise ball” (yes, people do that too!), etc.
Use good sense and you shall grow strong and big, just like Bruce Lee.

Love the Process
It’s not about the end goal, it’s all about the process. The skills that stem from your hard work in the gym (persistence, mental strength, ambition) will spill over to other areas of your life.

Success breeds success. All of the sudden, the idea of starting your own business won’t seem so far fetched. But in the end, do keep in mind that your is journey is unique to you so …

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” - Bruce Lee

Do you know of any other tips to help you build muscle, lose fat and just feel good in your own skin? Please share them in the comments section below, I’d love to hear them.

Written on 3/16/2012 by Dejan Antic. Get Dejan’s Free Muscle Building Course designed for people that are having a hard time growing more muscles. For more awesome fitness tips like these, check out No Brainer Muscle - Dejan answers every comment he gets.

Photo Credit: Ian Muttoo

Time to Kill Your Mental Boundaries

2012-03-12T06:28:00.000-05:00

What do you believe about yourself? It is remarkably easy to become convinced of your limitations. Frequently, people discuss what they would love to have or do but “can’t” for one reason or another. In some cases, there are huge challenges to overcome; however, all too often, what we perceive to be a physical, economical, physiological, or social boundary ends up being a mental boundary.

Buying into these mental limitations can be detrimental to your success. Here are 3 reasons to destroy your mental boundaries!

Mental Boundaries Cause Us to Accept Limitations That Are No Longer There
Much behavior is controlled by the subconscious mind. The subconscious is our autopilot, and one of its functions is to keep us in our comfort zones. This actually is very beneficial in many cases. For example, it would be a waste of time to relearn menial tasks everyday, such as buttoning a shirt, so the mind maps a blueprint of actions and behaviors required to button shirts, eliminating the need to pay too much attention.

Nonetheless, there are definitely other situations where ignoring the auto-response can be the difference between success and failure. For example, trainers shackle young elephants with heavy chains using deeply embedded stakes, so that the young elephants learn to stay in their place. The training is so thorough that even when the elephants are older and more powerful, they never attempt leaving, despite having the strength to pull up the stake and walk away. Even when there’s only a small unattached metal bracelet, meaning the stake is no longer there, the powerful elephants are still hostage to their previous programming. The key is that it is no longer the stake that is holding them prisoner. Their mental barriers are really limiting their movements.

All too often, we impose needless restraints on our lives. We have been so thoroughly convinced of our limitations that we dare not question them, even in cases where those boundaries no longer exist or no longer possess the power to stop our progress. There will always be seemingly valid justifications for why you can’t start that business, give the object of your affections a call, pursue that degree, or lose weight. Those justifications only point out the size of the problem, but they ignore the size of you. Do you know how great you are?

Recognize when your subconscious is acting as the personal saboteur to your dreams and aspirations. Don’t allow the shackles of failure to bind you when the only true barrier is your mind.

Mental Boundaries Will Limit Our Potential
Mental boundaries are also a great danger to your potential. Possibilities for you are determined by your capacity to believe. While this statement may be motivating, the tragedy occurs when your belief system refuses to acknowledge your ability to achieve the seemingly improbable. It was improbable that someone fired for lacking creativity went on to found one of the most creative and magical places on earth, yet Walt Disney persisted. It was improbable that someone ousted by his own board would go on to helm another company and lead it to unprecedented heights then return to his previous company and shatter record after record, yet Steve Jobs persisted. Just because a dream is seemingly improbable, doesn’t mean that you lack the potential to bring it into manifestation. Improbable is not impossible.

Sometimes we acquire these mental barriers from other people. Roger Bannister, the first man recorded to run the 4-minute mile was told by physiologists of his time that not only was running the 4-minute mile impossible for man to do but attempting to do so was dangerous to man’s health. Obviously, they were wrong, and once Roger Bannister proved so, the world was not only stunned, but the collective mental barrier was decimated. In around 3 years from the time Roger Bannister first ran a sub-4 minute mile, 16 runners did so as well, even though no others had accomplished this feat during the previous century. This substantiates that the speed barrier was only secondary to the mind barrier. Once Roger Bannister changed the expectation of possibilities through the achievement of his high goal, the entire paradigm through which the other runners viewed the world changed accordingly. He changed their potential by shattering their mental barriers.

Mental Boundaries Are Rooted in a Negative Sense of Worth
Too many people die with their music still in them. Steven Covey argues that we all desire to “live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.” However, it is hard to achieve something substantively meaningful when you feel miserable and unaccomplished. Likewise, developing a positive self worth is part of the basis for making deposits of success in OTHER areas of your life (health, spiritual, mental, etc) if you are out of a job. That way, your measure of success and failure won’t be wholly-defined by your job situation.

I recently became aware of Sylvester Stallone’s powerful story. Early on, he found it difficult to realize his dream of becoming an actor/writer. After watching a boxing match between Mohammad Ali and Chuck Wepner, he became inspired to write the script for Rocky. He then took his script to producers; they loved the idea but were not pleased that he wanted to be the lead actor in his own star vehicle. They even offered him $325,000 for the script only. This would translate into an inflation-adjusted $1.3 million in today’s dollars. Stallone turned it down, adamant that he should star in the film. Eventually, they acquiesced to his demand at the risk of losing the script, and he was paid $35,000 to star in Rocky. Now, films that he has starred in have grossed upward of $2.6 billion worldwide, earning him both critical and commercial acclaim. He clearly made the best decision. However, suppose he had bought into the producers’ assessment of his value rather than adhering to his own sense of his worth?

A real danger of having a negative sense of worth is that you never know when you are going to get a chance to do the extraordinary. If you don’t feel worthy of the opportunity, then it is hard to capitalize on it.

Winston Churchill said “to every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.”

Closing Thoughts
I hope you are convinced that it is not within your best interest to blindly accept mental barriers to your success. While such justifications may keep you comfortable, your reward is often in the discomfort. Don’t allow yourself to be robbed of victory due to false beliefs of who you are, what you can do, and where you can go. You possess the power to eliminate so many shackles and solve problems that enrich the world. Break free of your chains today!

Written on 3/12/2012 by Roshawn Watson. Roshawn writes at Watson Inc. on eliminating debt, investing money, and building wealth. Get my free eBook Your Foundation to Wealth by signing up for my email updates (no spam I promise). Get my RSS feed and connect with me on Twitter @roshawnwatson too.

Photo Credit: Benjamin Forrest

Five Surefire Ways to Kill Your Marriage

2012-03-10T09:40:00.004-06:00

I don’t have to tell you that marriages and lifelong partnerships are tricky and unfortunately, many fail. However, most of us dream of the one woman or man to spend the rest of our days with, blissfully happy until we take our last breath.

Why is it then that there such a huge gap between this wish and the implementation of it? Why do so many marriages end in broken hearts and shattered souls? Do we blame the other person, ourselves, both?

Most marriages don’t fail because of the obvious reasons of violence or cheating. Sure, those may be the climax or breaking point, but really, marriages end because of a slow process of drifting apart. In general, people are lazy and most believe that marriage doesn’t take work. Love will take care of that, right? Well no, it won’t.

People change and so do relationships.

If you’re really serious about keeping your marriage alive, then you should look out for these five common and destructive mistakes married couples make.

We forgot about date nights
During the initial phase of getting to know each other, you probably went on many dates, courting the other, always being on your best behavior and really making an effort. Over time you stopped surprising your partner, stopped spending time with each other and forgot about date nights altogether. It’s natural, it’s human. After all, life happens and you’re busy with work, social responsibilities and maybe even kids.

However, if you don’t schedule regular date nights, you miss out on important bonding time. Date nights, whether spent at home or in a restaurant, the movies or even theme parks, provide you with an amazing opportunity to have fun with your partner again.

Spending some intentional quality time with each other will remind you why you fell in love in the first place and it will strengthen your relationship. Simply taking an occasion to have a a great conversation, away from all the stress of your daily life, will go a long way in your marriage.

No Intimacy
Intimacy is a huge issue in most marriages, especially if you’re super busy, have kids and manage two separate careers. Sex can sometimes feel like a burden, a waste of time and energy, when there’s so much other stuff going on in your head.

It goes without saying that these thoughts are toxic when you want to keep your marriage alive. Showing your spouse that you still covet him or her, even after years of being together cannot be replaced by anything. Not even the daily “I love you” will make up for the lack of intimacy and connecting on a bodily, sexual level.

Especially if you’re stressed and exhausted, it is important to make it a point to be intimate. After all, there’s nothing more energizing than making love, is there?

Believing your partner is responsible for your happiness
Many people try to find their happiness in other people and if that doesn’t happen, they blame them. This is not the way it works. Even the strongest emotion of having butterflies in one’s stomach will eventually fade and the ecstatic feeling of being in love won’t always be so present.

You have to find that joy within yourself instead of searching for it in your spouse. Of course, you husband or wife should be part of what makes you happy, but they can never be the sole reason. You have to be your own reason to be fulfilled, content and inspired.

Don’t put that pressure on your spouse, they cannot fulfill your expectations and this will eventually lead to huge disappointments and maybe even the end of a marriage.

Holding on to the negative
There are negative aspects in every marriage, whether you want to admit it or not. Nobody always gets along and fights happen even if you understand each other. After all, you’re two individual people, with different views of the world, different characteristics and opinions. Not even soul mates always agree on every issue.

Yet, if you only concentrate on the negative sides of your spouse and your marriage, your relationship is doomed to fail. You need to shift your focus.

If you make an effort, you will see many amazing things about your situation. When you put those into your center, you will instantly lighten up and the fights and annoying characteristics of your spouse will be much easier to master and tolerate.

Don’t believe that there is a perfect marriage. There isn’t, but those that last, hold on to what is important instead of concentrating on wishful thinking.

Putting your children before your spouse
This one is a big one. In today’s world, children are everything. They need to be catered to, given a ride to different activities, helped with homework, formed into perfect little creatures that will eventually take over the world. By doing that, your spouse can become invisible and your marriage will ultimately fall apart.

Children are important, don’t get me wrong. But your marriage is the most important part of your family. You need to pay attention to your partner, give him your full attention and spend time with each other. Children will survive if they play second role, but your marriage might not.

In the end, having a successful, loving and lasting marriage is all about your mindset and your willingness to work on it.

Written on 3/10/2012 by Anne - Sophie Reinhardt . Anne - Sophie is a world traveler, an anorexia survivor, a positive body image advocator, podcaster, blogger, digital entrepreneur, speaker, wife, lover of books, aspiring yogi and social media enthusiast. Her blog, My Intercontinental Life, is focused around living a purposeful, free, healthy and passionate life.

Photo Credit: Unlisted Sightings

The Hard Truths About Building Your Own Success

2012-03-07T10:39:00.000-06:00

Have you noticed that society often looks at successful people in hopes of somehow copying their magic formula? I know I have done this and fallen into the trap - the trap of thinking, praying even, that there is one magic solution for success and that it can be replicated by anyone with enough sheer will and desire. Clearly this is not true.

I don't want to miscommunicate here; of course it makes sense to learn lessons from people who have achieved the goals we want. They did something right and some of their ingredients may indeed work in your success recipe too.

As Tony Robbins says: "Success leaves clues".

Clues however are not the entire story and as mentioned above, this is your success plan. Realizing this and taking full responsibility for yourself makes a huge difference. Look at you, your desires, your abilities, and with that, your chances of actually being successful increase substantially.

Here are some key realizations that I believe you should consider along your path to success. Take one, or a few, and if they are counter to your current beliefs debate yourself on how this view impacts your plan.

There is no magic formula
Sometimes we have a warped way of looking at success as a magic formula to be cracked. Life in this ‘post magic formula cracking’ world is easy, abundant, problem free, but completely illusionary. The other point is that successful people have put the effort into achieving their success. Most of the time success hasn’t fallen into their lap. To achieve success in any area of life we need to put one foot in front of the other and move towards our goal.

Life is never solved
Life is never solved. Recently, I have started working on a self employed basis as a mentor. I have wanted to be self employed for a very long time, particularly doing work I love like mentoring, and it is great to finally do that. However, I have realized that success often brings new sets of challenges that we might not have previously thought about! I am acutely aware of being grateful for where I now am, but also aware now that I am here that there is no magical place to get to! Doing what you love everyday is great but it is not problem free.

It really is about the journey
While the end result may be a great new product, website, or service, it's the process of developing that idea that often builds your character and provides the most learning opportunities. Look back on something significant you have achieved. Now look at the lessons you learned along the way. Would you really swap them so you could have fast forwarded to the result? However difficult things may be it has made us who we are today.

What’s the rush anyway?
As society speeds up and we have more gadgets and technology to make life easier, we are getting used to quick fixes. If we don’t achieve something quickly we think it’s not worth achieving or that it is taking too long. Life isn’t a race. We don’t get a badge for the speed at which we travel through life. I sometimes find myself falling into that trap with my blog - thinking it should be more developed or have more subscribers. When I catch myself thinking like this, I try and take a step back and remind myself about what I enjoy about what I am doing and that building anything worthwhile takes time.

Nothing replaces hard work
Following on from my last point, there is no ‘quick fix’. Anything worthwhile does take time. We need to learn to develop the skills of being persistent and keeping the bigger picture in mind. I think this is why people sometimes say that personal development books don’t work. What they are forgetting is that the missing link is hard work. Reading a book or going to a seminar alone will not change our life. Knowledge, taking action, inserting inspiration, hard work and patience is what will make the difference.

You can’t be taught ‘passion’
It is for us alone to find our passion. No one can teach us their passion. Others can help us find our passion and can also share their experiences in a way that can help us find our own but our passion is fundamentally different for each of us. Our passion is a unique cocktail of our own inner whisperings, life experiences and individual skills and talents. It is our job to try new experiences in order to hunt our passion(s) down. For example, I didn’t realize I had a passion for blogging till I stumbled across the blogosphere last year whilst setting up my website for my coaching services.

Trust yourself
By all means, enlist the help of good mentors and learn from others who are further along a similar path. But, remember that we all have a unique path and it is our job to work out how to bring that to the fore. Sometimes the reason we look to others for the answer to ‘success’ is because we don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust ourselves to do our own thing, to take a risk and to shine. We need to learn to trust ourselves. Start today, listen to what your intuition is saying and start doing what feels right for you.

By seeing through some of the illusions bandied around about success we can get clear on what we need to do and see the wood for the trees. Things become much easier once we take responsibility for our own success.

Written by Jennifer Smith. Jen is a Life Coach and Personal Development blogger who can be found at Reach Our Dreams.

Photo Credit: Sugarmonster

Your Willingness to Fail Will Determine How Often You Succeed

2012-03-05T10:16:00.008-06:00

Learning how to surf was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I have zero natural athletic ability, and I’ve never been good at sports. To add to that, the conditions are different every single time you paddle out. But, I persevered. Every single day for several months I took a beating until I finally stood up on my board.

The Hardest Part is Standing Up
In the earliest days of surfing, I struggled endlessly just to stand up on my surfboard. If I did manage to stand up, I would fall almost immediately because I had no sense of balance. But, then one day it suddenly clicked and I found myself catching my very first wave. The first big dent you make in any endeavor is going to be one of the most difficult parts of it. But once you’re standing up, you just have to keep showing up every day and let go of the need for visible progress.
I thought it might have been a fluke so I went for another wave. I stood up again. Over the course of the next hour I caught one wave after another and I was hooked. I didn’t want to get out of the water. This got me thinking about how true this is in every area of life.

Progress Occurs outside your Comfort Zone
Early in life - thanks to report cards and grades- we came to view failure as a bad thing. Rather than try to fail, we started to do nothing at all; we took the safe path. But failure is what causes growth. When you’re playing outside your comfort zone, you increase the likelihood of failing. Anytime I’ve surfed a bigger than average day I’ve had moments when I thought I was going to drown. But it’s also those days that push my skills to the next level.

Focus on the Process instead of the Outcome
This is easier said than done. But once you can do it, you’ll find that you’re ability to progress rapidly increases. When you hit a roadblock or setback, ask yourself what you can learn from it. Some of my greatest life lessons have been the result of failing miserably at things.

It really is never a bad idea to try really hard things even if you fail.

Written on 3/05/2012 by Srinivas Rao. Srinivas is the author of the Skool of Life, where he writes about surfing, personal development, and things you never learned in school but should have. If you’re ready to to become a student, check out his FREE course on the 7 most valuable lessons they never taught in school. You can follow him on twitter @skooloflife.

Photo Credit: mikebaird

Do You Have Too Many Goals? Here's How to Prioritize Them

2012-03-03T06:39:00.000-06:00

How many goals are you chasing right now?

There's a good chance that you've got too many. It's a classic productivity mistake – and an understandable one. We all want to achieve the best we're capable of, and experts advise us to set challenging, even "audacious" goals.

The problem is, having ten simultaneous goals is worse than having none at all. You're likely to end up frazzled and frustrated, as you'll feel that you're never making enough progress.

The cure is simple: cut down your list of goals to something much more manageable. But if you're a bit of a goal-setting junkie, how do you even begin?

Step #1: Write Down All Your Goals
Record all the major goals that you've currently got on the go, or that you're hoping to start. You might want to divide this list into "personal" and "professional" categories.

It's up to you what counts as a "goal". I'd say that it should be something sizeable (if you can accomplish it in a day, it's not really a goal) and that it should go beyond your regular daily routine ("go to work" and "pay bills" don't count).

Here are some common goals to help you think through yours:
- Quit smoking (or drugs, alcohol, etc)
- Lose weight
- Exercise regularly
- Change to a new career
- Get a new qualification
- Meditate / pray regularly
- Gain a new skill
- Volunteer
- Strengthen your marriage (or another significant relationship)
- Write a book
- Redecorate a room (or the whole house!)
Take enough time to do this properly: you may find that you have unfinished goals nagging at you from months or even years ago.

Step #2: Choose a Good Method of Prioritization
Do you feel a sinking sense in your stomach when you look at your list? If so, you've definitely got too many goals. It's time to cut down and focus on one thing at a time.

To do that, you need to know how you're going to prioritize your list. There are several methods you could choose:
- Most important goal first. This has the advantage of letting you tackle something truly worthwhile (perhaps even life-changing) – but it can also be a bit daunting, especially if you're not always too good at follow-through.
- Smallest goal first. This can act like the "snowball" effect when paying off debt – a small win at the start motivates you to go on to bigger and greater things. The drawback to tackling small goals, though, is that you might never get round to the big ones.
- Big impact goal first. This isn't necessarily the most important goal, but it's the one that makes an immediate and large impact on your life. If you don't have much energy and you're unfit, regular exercise could be a big impact goal that empowers you for others – like a career change or new qualification.
It's completely up to you how you choose to prioritize, and you may want to consider all of the above three factors. A great first goal would be one that's important and has a real impact, but that isn't too big. You want to see results within a few weeks or months, not within years.

Step #3: Write Down Your One Top Goal
Using the method(s) you chose in Step #2, figure out your top goal. If you're struggling, ask yourself:

If I could only achieve ONE thing from my goals list over the next few months, which thing would I choose?

Write down this goal and commit to it. This is your primary goal: you can work on others too if you want (see the next step) – but this goal needs to come first.

You may want to set a deadline for this goal, if it's smallish. If it's a large goal, set milestones and dates. For instance, if you want to get a new qualification, you could set yourself the task of applying to a particular course by a particular date.

Step #4: Optionally, Choose One – Two Other Goals
You may want to pick a couple of other goals to pursue, using the same method of prioritization. (Ask yourself, if I could do one more thing... etc.)

If you can, make these goals complementary to your top one. For instance, if your main goal is to lose weight, a second goal of "exercise regularly" would work well.

Avoid having three big goals that all take up a lot of time, energy or money. If you want to learn the guitar and learn to drive and take an evening class, you're likely to struggle to manage all three.

What goal are you going to pursue over the next few months? Let us know in the comments!

Written on 3/3/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: banalities

16 Websites to Super Charge Your English Vocabulary

2012-03-01T16:58:00.005-06:00

It won't be an exaggeration if I say that English is the language of this world. Although Mandarin (Chinese) tops the list of most widely spoken languages, we know that it's English which connects people around the world. Hence, it can't hurt to get a deeper understanding of this ubiquitous language and work towards improving your grammar and vocabulary.

When it comes to online resources to improve your English language skills, there are millions of tools available. They range from software, tools, blogs, dictionaries, puzzles and much more. In this post I primarily mention websites which fall in the dictionary / thesaurus category. I'll preserve the other resources for another post.

Visuwords
Visuwords is an awesome visual tool to find new words and improve your vocabulary. When you look up a word in this tool, it shows a neat graph which connects that word to various other words based on different relationships between them. You can hover over each word to get its definition and also zoom-in and zoom-out using your mouse wheel. It's certainly an excellent dictionary plus thesaurus.

Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com is probably the most common and most comprehensive of all the dictionary tools available. Apart from giving the word meanings and pronunciation, it also provides various tools (like the dictionary.com toolbar), RSS feeds to improve vocabulary and word explorer podcasts.

Thesaurus.com
Thesaurus.com is a part of dictionary.com and gives an elaborate description of words, the part of speech they belong to and various synonyms and antonyms of that word.

Definr
Definr, as it says, is an incredibly fast dictionary. It starts suggesting the nearest possible word as you start typing a particular word. Most of the time you get the required word after typing 3 or 4 letters and then you can just click on the word to look up its meaning. Definr also provides some nice tools which make this service more useful.

Merriam-Webster Online
Merriam-Webster Online is a huge online resource for learning and improving your English. It provides dictionary and thesaurus which includes spanish-english and medical dictionaries. You can easily look up words and listen to their pronunciation. Further it provides other resources like crosswords and word games. It also has a visual dictionary which combines words with images.

MetaGlossary
MetaGlossary.com approaches the task of finding meanings of words in a different way. It aggregates various links on the web which provide an explanation to the term and shows the results. Hence it does the job of pulling definitions of the word from the entire web.

Thsrs
Thsrs helps you to get shorter synonyms of long words. Although it's not dead accurate but still can be useful at times. It also provides a browser plug-in to easily look up shorter synonyms of words with a right click.

Wordsmith
Wordsmith is a nice resource for new words, especially its ' A Word A Day ' newsletter, which is immensely popular and delivers new words everyday to your email inbox.

BBC Learning English
BBC Learning English is another comprehensive resource of not only English grammar and vocabulary but on various aspects of this useful language. It includes stories, pictures, quizzes and various communication tools to improve your English vocabulary.

ESL Quizzes
ESL Quizzes is a part of englishclub.com, a website which is a prominent destination for those who want to learn the language from scratch. Its vocabulary quiz section has some nice quizzes to help you learn new words and phrases.

Ninjawords
Ninjawords, like Definr, claims to be a very fast dictionary. Although it doesn't show words as you type like Definr but is certainly very fast in displaying the meanings and synonyms once you hit enter. It also has a random tab which can be used to play around and learn new words.

About.com's Quizzes
About.com's English Quizzes is a good place to find various quizzes related to grammar and vocabulary. It also provides listening quizzes for real time listening practice.

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is a free-to-try visual tool which shows related words in an interactive map and helps you to easily find their meanings and listen to their pronunciation.

AskOxford
AskOxford is the online version of the famous dictionary by the Oxford University press. It's comprehensive without a doubt and includes various other vocabulary resources and a quotations dictionary.

Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary stands out from the herd. It's a dictionary of slang words. So use this dictionary and don't miss out on slang words either. :)
Alpha DictionaryAlpha Dictionary doesn't directly show you the meaning of a word. Instead it searches all the available online dictionaries (most of them) and displays the results in the form of links to the meaning of that word in those dictionaries. So choose your favorite dictionary (if at all you have one) and click on the corresponding link to view its meaning.Each of the aforementioned websites tries to accomplish the same task in a different manner and hence helps you to further refine your vocabulary and get a stronger grip on the world's most cherished language.

Do you use any other websites to improve your English language skills ? Let's hear about them in the comments.

Written by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: teacherhax

12 Techniques to Help You Live a Happy and Fulfilled Life

2012-03-01T05:53:00.002-06:00

It seems that everything comes in a list format nowadays. “Wash, Rinse, and Repeat” or “Open box, Remove Contents, Try and Assemble”. Maybe it is because when we see things in a list format our brain interprets them as a set of instructions - rules that must be followed.

The proliferation of articles about happiness as of late has been astonishing. Everybody is coming up with the magic formula for finding happiness. I don't know about you, but I need to keep things simple and in perspective at all times.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a simple set of instructions for living a happy and fulfilled life? How about an instruction manual for life? Something along the lines of “Enjoy childhood, Explore young adulthood, Engage in a rewarding career, and Enjoy life.”

Unfortunately, things are not that easy. That doesn’t mean there aren’t techniques and tips you can use in your everyday life that can help you find happiness and fulfillment as you go through the journey of life. Here's how:

Keep life simple.
Far too many of us are always over analyzing and looking for the most complicated way of doing things in life. Sometimes life was meant to be simple – a walk through the park, a simple yes or no answer, or a quiet evening with the family. Don’t try and clutter your life with unnecessary decisions by making everything complicated and complex. Keep it simple!

Practice being satisfied.
How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I had a few more dollars I’d…” or “If I just had another day off I could….”? Many people don’t know how to be satisfied with what life gives them. They are so busy wanting more that they squander what life has already given them.

Beware of indecision.
Nobody said life is easy, and sometimes you have to make the tough choices. Never put off a decision that you can make today. You may miss some of the best and most exciting opportunities in the world because you were indecisive. Successful people didn’t get where they were at by prolonging or going back and forth on decisions!

Practice cheerfulness.
You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it here again – it only takes a few muscles to smile! You would be surprised at how well being cheerful to others can spread like wildfire. We live in a society where it seems that glumness is the rule of order. A simple smile or kind word can spread through our culture like wildfire – not only will you feel better, but those who interact with you will feel better!

Learn to like people.
You don’t have to love everyone you encounter, so learn to like people – especially those who are different than yourself. Often you won’t agree with everything they do, or maybe all of their beliefs, but by learning to get along with them you will open your mind up to change – a critical trait that is absolutely necessary in today’s world.

Live and let live.
Is it really your concern what the guy across the street wants to do with his life or who he wants to share his life with? Learn to live your life to the fullest and let others live their life to the fullest. None of us is above anyone else, and none of us should think we should be allowed to dictate how another person should live their life.

Adversity teaches.
Adversity can be one of the most powerful teachers we will ever have in our lives. You will learn so much about life by overcoming adversity and learning how to face it head on. Adversity often comes dressed in many different outfits, but you will change your life by learning how to deal with it and prosper from it.

Don’t take yourself so seriously.
Here is a secret: it’s ok to be a little goofy now and then! You only get one shot at this life, so make the most of it. Have some fun and show your children and those around you that you know how to have fun. You aren’t the greatest gift to mankind this world has ever had – so don’t act like it! You may find you add years to your life, not to mention a ton of laughter!

Have a sense of humor.
Laugh, joke, and now and then pick up a cream pie and throw it! Laughter has been shown to help people live longer, reduce their blood pressure, and help them relate to people from around the world.

Practice objectivity.
Be objective in your decision-making and risk-taking. Know the facts and avoid letting racial, social, or any other type of bias influence your decisions. Great leaders perform their best when they act based on facts, not on emotion or prejudices. Become a great leader in your life.

Tolerate your own mistakes.
You will make mistakes – in fact, you will make so many mistakes you will never be able to list them all. Learn that mistakes happen and the best thing you can do is to learn from them. Don’t spend your entire life dwelling on a mistake you made years ago – learn from it and move on. The world isn’t going to wait while you live in the past.

Forgive yourself.
Stop beating yourself up over things that happened in the past - things you did or didn’t do, and mistakes you may have made with others.

Forgiving yourself is a skill so few of us have the ability to accomplish. It's such a shame that we spent a lifetime living in the past and never make it to our full potential in the future. Forgive yourself – and just as importantly, forgive others.

It may seem like a rather long list, but I encourage you to read it and then refer back to it every now and then. You’ll see each one ties into the others in some fashion and that these simple steps really do help you live a more meaningful, happy and fulfilled life.

Life happens. Be a part of it.

Written by David B. Bohl, the author of of Slow Down Fast

Photo Credit: joiseyshowaa

How to Craft a Killer Elevator Pitch That Will Land You Big Business

2012-02-28T23:54:00.000-06:00

What is an Elevator Pitch?

This is the 30-60 second business description of what you do and why someone should work with you. It's called an "Elevator Pitch" because it describes the challenge: "How would you explain your business and make a sale if fate placed you in an elevator with your dream prospect and you only had the time it takes to get from the top of the building to the bottom?"

This article will explain the elements of a powerful elevator pitch and then walk you through how to craft yours.

Why Is Having an Elevator Pitch So Important?

You only have 30-60 seconds to make a powerful first impression. The attention span of the average person is just 30 seconds before their mind starts wandering. The other reason is people have less time today. You need to grab them quickly or lose them forever.

Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch

Concise. Your pitch should take no longer than 30-60 seconds.

Clear. Use language that everyone understands. Don't use fancy words thinking it will make you sound smarter. Your listener won't understand you and you'll have lost your opportunity to hook them.

Powerful. Use words that are powerful and strong. Deliver the "Sis-Boom-Bang" to grab their attention!

Visual. Use words that create a visual image in your listeners mind. This will make your message memorable.

Tell a Story. A short story, that is. A good story is essentially this: someone with a problem either finds a solution or faces tragedy. Either type of story can be used to illuminate what you do.

Targeted. A great elevator pitch is aimed for a specific audience. If you have target audiences that are vastly different, you might want to have a unique pitch for each.

Goal Oriented. A kick-ass elevator pitch is designed with a specific outcome in mind. What is your desired outcome? You may have different pitches depending on different objectives. For instance do you want to: make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, or earn a referral.

Has a Hook. This is the element that literally snags your listener's interest and makes them want to know more. This is the phrase or words that strike a chord in your listener.

How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don't edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don't hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn't matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.

Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.

Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?

Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.

Record yourself. You can use Jott if you don't have a recording device. Jott is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.

Let it sit. Come back to what you've written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.

Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you've recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.

Put the best pieces together. Again you'll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.

Record these new ones.

Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.

Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.

Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.

Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business, your goals, and your clients' needs.

What's your elevator pitch? Share it with us in the comments!

Resources:

You Know What Your Company Does. Can You Explain It in 30 Seconds? By Alison Stein Wellner at Inc. Magazine provides a case study of this process.
How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less by Milo O. Frank is a great resource for clear concise communications in general.
Here are loads of examples on YouTube.

Written by K. Stone, the author of of Life Learning Today, a blog about daily life improvements.

Photo Credit: numine

The Real Way to Lose Weight Fast – With Pen and Paper

2012-02-28T01:20:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've seen plenty of weight-loss ads. They pop up in newspapers, on television, and all over the internet. Typically, they'll promise amazingly fast weight loss for very little work.

Feeling skeptical? You're right to be – companies get up to all sorts of tricks (like fake before and after pictures, exaggerated results and falsified testimonials) just to get you to part with your money. Some products are staggeringly expensive – and potentially harmful to your health.

But the good news is ... you really can lose weight fast, with just a few minutes extra effort each day. It doesn't cost you anything, either.

Here's how.

Write Down Everything You Eat
Studies have shown that you can lose twice as much weight just by keeping a record of what you eat – a food diary. That means writing down everything, including the quantity (not "chips" but "30g chips" or "multipack bag of chips", for instance).

You can create a simple chart in Word or Excel that you can fill in each day, or use online programs to track your food intake. There are dozens of apps for iPhones or other devices that will do just this.

It doesn't sound like such a little thing could make such a big difference – after all, it only takes a few minutes each day to write down what you're eating. But people typically lose weight just from recording their food intake ... without even being "on a diet".

Why does it work? Because you become instantly more conscious of what you're consuming. Instead of dipping into the cookie jar as you walk past, you ask yourself "do I really want that?" Instead of succumbing to that impulse purchase of a candy bar, you think "do I want to record that?"

A food diary alone will speed your weight loss, helping you lose a safe and sustainable 1-2lbs per week. But the humble pen and paper can be used in other ways, too...

Record Your Exercise Sessions
How often have you skipped exercising, telling yourself that you'll work out tomorrow? It's easy to let one missed gym session turn into a week and then a month of inactivity.

To keep yourself motivated and on track, record the exercise that you do (you could write it alongside your food diary, or jot down details in your calendar). Again, this might not sound like much of a change to your usual habits – but seeing your activity in black-and-white will encourage you to do more.

Your exercise log can be as simple as a tick for each day that you exercise. Ideally, though, you'll want to record a few details – like how far you jogged and for how long, or what weights you lifted. This lets you look back over past weeks to see the evidence that you're progressing.

Keep a Journal
Some people end up overweight just because they have poor eating habits, or love large portions. But for many dieters, food has become tangled up with emotions – they comfort-eat, or snack when bored, or turn to chocolate to combat stress.

Keeping a journal lets you spot patterns. For instance, you might realize that your snacking tends to happen after dinner, because you're bored and don't have much to do. Some dieters like to write down how they were feeling in their food diary, every time they record eating – hungry? Bored? Upset?

You can also use a journal to work through difficult feelings. Perhaps you're stressed at work, or sleeping badly, or struggling with a particular relationship. Getting your thoughts out on paper is a really effective way to tackle them – the writing process helps you to work through your emotions, and get some objectivity about them.

Grab a blank notebook, or set up a document on your computer or online. Try keeping a food diary, exercise log and journal for just one week – and see what a difference it makes.

Written on 2/28/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: sunshine city

Ways to Minimize Your Chances of Regret in Life

2012-02-27T07:08:00.002-06:00

I have a fear that is shared by many people. I fear waking up one day in the future and regretting how I've spent my life. Like you, I want to live my life to the fullest and avoid the "should-haves". Sounds like a good goal, right?

As you may know, it's really easy to say, but harder to live in your day-to-day life. It's hind-sight that's 20/20. You get caught up in day to day troubles and somehow you just don't seem to have enough time to get to all of those goals and dreams.

If you don't prioritize them, you will end up regretting the missed opportunities. To minimize regrets, take these steps:

Really Think Through Your Goals and Dreams
Ask yourself what you want your life to be like 10 years, 5 years, 1 year, and 6 months from now. Do all these visions work together? These visions will probably change some as you live your life, but having a general idea of how you'd like to see yourself will give you the focus to move yourself in that direction.

List out in detail what characteristics and skills you want to see in yourself. List out anything that you hope to accomplish. Use these to make a list of all of the things you would likely regret not doing.

Here are some examples for inspiration:
- Be able to bike 50 miles in one day (1 year)
- Overcome fear of flying to travel more (1 year)
- Master Italian and move to Italy (5 years)
Audit Your Current Life
To get where you are going, you need to know where you are. Look at how you spend your time - both at work and in your personal time. What activities get in the way of your goals? If you really want no regrets, you may need to give up or limit non-forward moving
activities, such as TV or games, in favor of practicing a new hobby or working on your goals.

Also look at what you are doing right. Do you find that when you work in the morning, you concentrate better than in the evening? Use this to your advantage. It's much easier to work with your natural rhythms instead of against them.

Get Help Where You Need It
Some goals are hard to do on your own, but easier if you get professional help with them. For example, goals like "get in shape to run a marathon" or "overcome my fear of flying to visit Europe by next summer" would be easier with the help of a personal trainer and a
psychologist respectively. Professional help can minimize time and effort when facing big goals that may seem daunting.

The external help that you receive can also be a motivating factor in you putting in the work. A professional can hold you accountable when you would normally let things slide.

Find Ways to Remind Yourself
It is really easy to become complacent and fall back into your comfort zone. By setting up motivational triggers in your life, you can regularly remind yourself of the you that you want to become and put the effort in to get there.

You can use songs, images of your goals, notes to yourself in well placed locations, or really anything that can act as a reminder of your goal or dream. These can really help you experience the emotion tied to your goals, which will help keep you motivated.

Track Your Progress
This step is a must if you want to reach your goals and have no regrets. Find some way to track progress on all of your active goals. I keep a daily log where I write down what I eat, how I feel, and any steps taken towards my goals.

You can also use charts and graphs for visual tracking, if your goal can take advantage of them. The visual-ness of the chart can be very motivating.

Life is to be lived, not just coasted through. Take the steps needed to get what you want out of life. Think about 20 years from now. Which are you going to remember more: watching that TV show or reaching a goal you have always dreamed of?

Written on 2/27/2012 by Hailey Rene. Hailey helps people dream big and start making progress on their dreams no matter how crazy or out of control their lives are to start with. Find her at Pursuit of Focus and stop ignoring your dreams.

Photo Credit: Jason A. Howie