Establishing What You Need And Ensuring What You Already Have More Accomplished
Mar/100
If you had everything in this world you wanted; what would you do? Have you ever asked yourself that question before? Maybe you have and maybe you have not. Think about having everything; whatever that might be, that you think would make you happy. My thought would be that life would be pretty dull in that there would be no aspiration to life; it would no doubt be void.
In Life Coaching, my thoughts go to this; it is not what we do not have that makes us unhappy. It is that we do not know how to command what we have. We are all on a course toward something but we know that having enormous amounts of money does not supply full contentment, happiness or success. If it did, there would not be so many people in so much pain in Hollywood. They have lots of money, but they cannot be fulfilled with one woman or one man for any length of time, they adopt dozens of kids trying to prove they can be good parents, every time you turn around; someone has been arrested for a DUI. That is not the life that most of us covet, if we are honest with ourselves. The list goes on and on. You cannot buy your way into serene living…it takes looking into your soul and putting your priorities in order and starting at the top of the list working through those issues one at a time.
Do you know that the typical person cannot seem to do that? I do not know why it is so hard for us humans to take a course in seeking oneself and say; okay what I can do to make my life better. What am I doing incompetently and how can “I” fix it? I have seen people that I cared about who were helpless it seemed and they could not see that their negative attitude made their life lesstolerable . These are the people you want to shake and say, stop doing this to yourself. A negative attitude is worse than having a sickness sometimes, because if something good occur in their life; they tear it down immediately with the “what ifs.” We cannot life our life successfully with the what ifs or what could happen being the domineering factors in life. When I start to think a negative thought, I try to replace it with a thankful thought of what I am blessed with and ask for an ability to create within myself what I need to make things better.
Why not stop and ask yourself; what do I need to do better with what I have? Most of us could take what we have and make a few changes in our life and live an outstanding life, if we chose to. If you do not have the perfect job; my advice is in this economy it might be better to dedicate yourself to making your job more enjoyable if at all possible. I just saw a clip on television where a lady had applied for 600 jobs and had not had an interview yet. I am not kidding. If you have a degree and a lot of background in the same field and there are open positions available and know you have what it take to for the new job; then it might be time to move on. A lot of times it is not the job; it is what you might not be applying to it. If it is impossible, it is your call and a step forward is probably better than no step at all, but with caution and keeping it to yourself until you have landed the other job.
If you are unhappy in a relationship; maybe it is not the relationship you are unhappy with. It could be you are troubled with you. The only way to get happy with you is to be honest with yourself and make sure you are doing what you should be doing to make the relationship work. Especially if it is a marriage and you have children. There are exclusions to every rule when it comes to relationships. A good relationship does bring comfort and enjoyment in ones life and it is this part of life that is the most rewarding and best to keep embraced . A marriage that is successful is far more important than landing the VP job.
Change Your Focus For Better Results
Mar/100
In some of my workshops, I run a short activity which provides the audience members with an immediate and practical example of how and where we focus our attention and energy – and the potential consequences. It’s a pretty simple process used by plenty of facilitators.
How it works:
I ask my audience to spend sixty seconds looking around the room and to take note of everything that’s red. Any shade of red will do. Crimson. Fire-engine red. Burgundy. Maroon (are they the same?). If I’m feeling generous, I’ll even allow hot pink. I then tell them to commit as many red things to memory as possible. I tell them not to over-think the process, not to try to figure out the point of the exercise (and thereby miss out on the benefit), not to talk to anyone else, not to write anything down and to use whatever memory or recall method they feel will give them the best result. That is, optimal retention.
Turning Cogs
For sixty seconds there is total silence. An intense silence – if that’s possible. I can almost hear the cogs turning and the competitive juices flowing as each person scans the room frantically trying to absorb and remember as much (relevant) information as possible. Talk about focus – sometimes it’s as though they’re looking into the face of a loved one for the last time.
At the end of the allocated time I ask the group to keep their eyes closed. I then ask them a whole bunch of irrelevant and (seemingly) pointless questions for about two minutes. At this stage, the quantity and quality of their responses (to my questions) is pretty underwhelming as (1) their eyes are still closed and (2) they are desperately trying to retain the required information (the red stuff in the room) and to dispense with my stupid and annoying questions without being too distracted from their mental list.
But You Said….
Just when they’re about to storm the stage and punch me in the head, I ask them if they’re ready to share their memorised list with me. I place myself in front of a whiteboard with a marker in hand and say, “okay, keep your eyes closed and give me a list of everything in this room that’s… brown.”
At this point, I can literally sense the frustration in the room.
“But you said red?”
“I know, but now I want the brown list – keep your eyes closed.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s like that.”
Over the course of a few minutes, with all eyes still closed, the group begins to shift its focus and to review the room (in their mind’s eye) in a different way. Typically, most people will recall less than a quarter of the brown things in the room while being able to recall almost one hundred percent of the red.
“But you all studied the room before you closed your eyes”, I tell them.
“Yeah, but we were looking for red, not brown.”
A New Perspective
After a few frustrating minutes, I allow them to open their eyes and to instantly see what they hadn’t before: all things brown. It’s amazing what becomes apparent when we look at the same thing (room, relationship, career, business, opportunity, person, health) with a totally different focus. What was once invisible, becomes immediately apparent. Obvious even. When we shift our attention, we can find gold. We find ourselves with a different level of consciousness and a new appreciation for, and awareness of, what has always been there. In some ways, it’s like we’re opening our eyes for the first time.
This brief activity (looking for red) is a simple, yet effective, one – we find what we’re searching for. When we have a narrow focus (which we often do), we don’t see the entirety of what’s there. The potential. The gifts. The joy. The fun. The good. The opportunity. When we look for bad, we’ll find it. When we expect rejection, we’ll find that too. If we’re constantly searching for problems, we’ll never see the solutions.
Our focus becomes our reality and we wind up creating the very thing (situation, outcome) that we desperately want to avoid.
Sometimes we’re so obsessed with, and fearful of, the bad, we miss out on the considerable good in our world. Sometimes we’re so preoccupied with finding the red things in the room that we don’t notice (enjoy, celebrate, appreciate) any of the other amazing colours. Today I’m encouraging you to consciously take a look at your world through the eyes of optimism, gratitude and greater awareness.
Consciously find the good. It’s there.
So now it’s your turn to share a thought, idea, story or experience relating to this post… and yes, even you Newbies. Have you ever shifted your focus to shift your reality? Tell us about it.
Craig Harper (B.Ex.Sci.) is a qualified exercise scientist, author, columnist, radio presenter, television host, motivational speaker and university lecturer. For the past 25 years he has been a leading presenter, educator, motivator and commentator in the areas of personal and professional development. You can visit Craig’s blog at Motivational Speaker.FREE eBook – So… You’ve Decided to Get in Shape (Again) Craig’s FREE eBook takes 20 – 30 minutes to read, and addresses the REAL getting-in-shape issues based on his 25 years of experience. To get Craig’s FREE eBook click here, weight loss books.
9 Ways To Handle Interruptions Like A Pro
Mar/100
Are you easily distracted? I bet you are. If I told you this link led to a list of funny pics of deranged kittens, you’d likely click through and quickly forget our conversation.
That won’t happen this time!
Interruptions do the most damage when we allow their appearance to affect us long after we’ve returned to our initial task. This can happen for a few reasons:
- We treat any break in our work flow like it’s a fracture in the final product.
- We resent our seeming inability to avoid distractions and end up treating their appearance as a personal weakness.
- We view distractions as a change in our journey instead of just another bend in the river.
What can you do about it?
1. Embrace Your Fear
You are not, contrary to what your mother may have told you, different from the rest of us. We all get distracted. We all get annoyed when a productive moment is interrupted. We all get fed up when scheduled events don’t go as planned. If you allow trepidation to sneak into your mind at the prospect of distractions, you’ll cripple your productive abilities.
Fearing distractions also fosters resentment against the ones doing the distracting. Recognize that you will be distracted sometimes and accept those distractions as opportunities to improve. You can’t stop distractions but you can keep them from taking over your day. This is your time!
2. Plan For Interruptions
Effective planning is a cornerstone of the productive lifestyle. Planning for interruptions might seem impossible. Does it to you? Here’s an easy visualization that will help you get started with your planning:
Start each work session by drawing a few squares on a small piece of scrap paper. These represent distractions that will almost certainly pop up. As you encounter and conquer distractions, put a check mark in the appropriate box. After awhile you’ll be able to do this in your head. Sounds easy, right? An expected distraction has no power over your day. You still have control.
3. Delegate And Postpone
Once you’ve identified an interruption as something that needs attention and not just a nascent longing to goof off, try to postpone your involvement. The brute way of doing this is to shout out, “I don’t have time right now. Don’t bother me!”
The classy option is a bit more involved. Take a moment to understand what the distraction involves. Is somebody dying? Is there a deadline you’ve forgotten? Is there a networking opportunity here? If it turns out that you’re not facing an emergency, postpone your involvement and delegate as much of the detail work to somebody with available resources.
4. Attack Procrastination
It’s safe to say that most of us welcome far more distractions than we should. Why? Because we’re chronic procrastinators and distractions offer us a way to slack off without being overtly lazy. The simplest way to attack procrastination is to synthesize urgency with truncated deadlines. If it normally takes you 3 hours to do something, hit the bathroom, grab a glass of water, set a timer for 90 minutes, and tear into your work! This won’t work for every project but it’s a lot of fun when it does!
5. Split Your Day Into Targets
Distractions are most dangerous to the person working without short-term goals. You can keep yourself out of the danger zone by setting targets throughout your day. You’ll probably only need to do this for tasks you really don’t want to complete. For example:
- Send uncomfortable email by 9am
- Complete meeting agenda by 12pm
- Say pleasant thing to annoying boss by 2pm
The power in this process is that you now have time-sensitive targets to steer toward once you’ve escaped distractions. That 8:45am phone conversation that might have gone on for an hour? Nixed by the email deadline. Crops dying on Farmville at 11am? Overruled by the meeting agenda!
6. Limit Inputs
The more you limit channels people can use to distract you, the less likely it is that you’ll be distracted. It takes strength of character to ignore social media and your ever-friendly smartphone. It takes trust in the people who work for you to step away from the rush of business and crunch numbers in the back room. It’s hard to disconnect because we often feel a tinge of irrelevance when we step out of the rush.
Do it. Your results will be proof that it was worth the effort.
7. Batch Outputs
Responding to emails in batches and scheduling a block of time to make phone calls can seem like a dreary way to do business but it’s a highly effective way to keep distractions at arms length. Batching is even more effective in minimizing the collateral damage caused by Twitter and other social networks if you jump in without a set time frame.
To get started, make a list of the things you must do every day to maintain good communication in your business and throughout your social networks. Give each tool or action it’s own time slot and allow a bit of margin at the end. You won’t get the momentary social high of constant real-time interactions but the long-term benefits will make up for your loss.
8. Communicate Your Schedule To Others
When it comes to managing people-based distractions, communication is key. Need to finish a project? Let the people in your work group know that you’ll be off-limits until a certain time. Trying to finish a freelance project in a houseful of kids? Let them know that unless somebody is dying or the house is burning down, you’ll murder a kitten if they interrupt you.
Obviously, if you haven’t taken the time to create a realistic schedule for yourself, sharing that schedule won’t help as much.
9. Begin With The Main Point
When you encounter a distraction, get to the heart of it immediately. Your “get to the point” style may go over badly with some people who prefer to give back story before sharing their main point. Apologize for any possible rudeness and ask for the main point anyway.
Once you know the main point you can ask for supporting information and make a smart decision about what to do before getting back to work.
Getting back to work is what you were about to do, wasn’t it?
If you’ve found a particular tip or trick helpful in your quest to beat distractions, I hope you’ll take a moment to share it!
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ~Thomas Edison
Seth Simonds is an editor here at Lifehack.org. Get even more tips by following Lifehack on Twitter or subscribing via RSS.
I’m an editor here at Stepcase Lifehack. I know the value of long walks, good books, joyful repartee, and a well-made martini. Say hello in the comments here, find me on my blog or hit me up for a follow on Twitter.
Freebie Giveaways May Increase Your Website Traffic.
Mar/100
Since everybody likes freebies, giving them away makes your chances higher to increase traffic. It is even advised to offer something new each week. In that case there will be a steady stream of repeat traffic. Since there is always a list of the site that offers the users different freebies after the people conduct the research they get an access to this list. As a result your products will always attract more and more customers.
There are a lot of people who are giving free stuff away. E-books and e-reports is the free stuff you can get easily. As soon as you found the freebies you can download them to your disc and after upload to the server. Rebrandable files are considered to be the best freebies. You also have a chance to create a freebie yourself. It is possible to do that and it will not take much efforts and time. Some users got to be converted into their own freebies. It is very powerful since you have a total control with your file. The content can be added and later your products or services can be endorsed. Since for a lot of people it is very difficult to create the item from the scratch in that case you are not required to do that
There is a chance to see some of the sites that provide the users with private label right contents. You can easily transform them in your own freebie and give it away on your site. However, you do not have to give some products or offer some free services to attract more clients. In that situation you can simply have a drawing every week. It is not recommended to give away mainstream things such as games and utilities if you are planning to bring people from target market to your site. Make sure that you are offering the product that only people who are really interested in your industry would like to get it. Since more and more traffic comes your way you are recommended to offer the things that are really useful for the users.
Since it is not so easy to attract users’ attention to your site you are advised to have a button near the freebie so-called “Tell a friend about this”. With its help users will get an opportunity to contact heir friends easily and quickly. In that case also the dynamic pop up can be used so there will be a possibility to capture first time visitor. This pop up will make an announcement of the freebies you are offering at the present moment and the user will be provided with possibility to fill the subscription for immediately.
Looking for a place where you can get some freebies? Then make sure to visit this free stuff, freebies and free samples site.
And some general tips – today the Internet technologies give you a really unique chance to choose exactly what you need at the best terms which are available on the market. Funny, but most of the people don’t use this chance. In real practice it means that you must use all the tools of today to get the info that you need.
Search Google or other search engines. Visit social networks and check the accounts that are relevant to your topic. Go to the niche forums and participate in the online discussion. All this will help you to create a true vision of this market. Thus, giving you a real chance to make a wise and nicely balanced decision.
P.S. And also sign up to the RSS feed on this blog, because we will do the best to keep this blog tuned up to the day with new publications about freebies and how to get the best of them.
Freebie Marketing Secrets
Mar/100
Only big list of the customers can guarantee a big possibility to earn money. In that case you are strongly recommended to follow the next tips. So, first of all, you do not have to think that there is no need to offer freebies because they usually attract the customers who are not going to spend money but just are looking for the freebies. In reality sites that offer freebies attract both types of the customers. What is more, you will get the people to trust you if you also offer free pdf report.
Since you are going to attract people who are in a “thinking about buying” mood you are advised to use similar keywords when you are promoting the products. If the keywords are chosen correctly then there is a high possibility that right kind of people is attracted. What is more, you will add more people to the list and will get better conversion rates.
As soon as you get around 100 opt-in rates you are strongly recommended to make a note of the particular features of the opt-in rate. After that you are advised to change the headline of the page and after some time see the results. If your rate is great then there is no doubt that you will get more customers and as a result will increase the income.
Forum signatures ids also considered to be one of the best methods of getting the traffic. Almost everybody does it in the Internet niche. In comparison with the other niches in case you are interested in working there you have to make sure that people can really trust you. Since people are always cautious no matter what you offer you have to make sure that your newsletter and your freebie are excellent.
All these tips are going to be helpful for all of the manufacturers who are aimed not only at advertising new product but also at making a big list of the people who were interested by the offer. Since there are so many sites in the internet that are offering a lot of services and products you have to make your site really special to attract the attention of the customers. Offering freebies is a great chance to make the list longer. However, you have to make sure that your offer will interest the clients and they will eave their contact information that can be used later for advertising other products. You have to be aware of the fact that people will trust you only after you count up the post. Besides, people are often cautious so you are strongly advised to make the freebie and newsletter special and worth their time and attention.
Looking for a place where you can get some freebies? Then make sure to visit this free stuff, freebies and free samples site.
And some general tips – today the Internet technologies give you a really unique chance to choose exactly what you want for the best price on the market. Strange, but most of the people don’t use this chance. In real life it means that you must use all the tools of today to get the information that you need.
Search Google or other search engines. Visit social networks and have a look on the accounts that are relevant to your topic. Go to the niche forums and participate in the online discussion. All this will help you to create a true vision of this market. Thus, giving you a real opportunity to make a smart and nicely balanced decision.
P.S. And also sign up to the RSS on this blog, because we will everything possible to keep updating this blog with new publications about freebies and how to get the best of them.