It is amazing how often we can get in our own way without even being aware that we are doing so. Even though we truly want to succeed, there are many reasons why we may sometimes block our own efforts. It may be that we are afraid to succeed, so we subconsciously create circumstances to keep ourselves stuck. Or it may even be that we are afraid that we will succeed, so we block ourselves by making the achievement of our goals more difficult than they really are. We may even approach our goals in a way that keeps creating the same unsuccessful results.

If you believe that you’ve been standing in your own way, you may want to take a piece of paper and record how you’ve done so. Write down the choices you’ve made that have hindered your efforts and the fears that may have prompted you to make these decisions. Take note of any thoughts and feelings that arise. It is important to be gentle and compassionate during this process. Try not to blame yourself for getting in your own way. Remember the choices we make always are there to serve us, until it is time to let them go. When you are finished, throw the paper away while setting an intention that you are getting rid of any obstacles you’ve created to block yourself. You can then let yourself start again with a clean slate. Doubts and fears are going to be natural, but with this new awareness, you should be able to prevent yourself from subconsciously thwarting yourself. Besides, now that you’ve decided to get out of your own way, the part of you that has always wanted to succ! eed can now do so.

Sources: Daily Om

Related articles by Zemanta

• Where are you going?
• Gretchen Rubin: Quiz: How mindful are you?
• Why “Goal Setting” Makes You Cringe
• How Do You Know When to Give Up?
• Eye Gaze Communication Review - A Guest Post
• The Ultimate Guide to Motivation - How to Achieve Any Goal

Trying to impose your will on others can be tempting for many reasons. You may feel that your way is the best way or that you have a keener insight into the direction their life should be taking. But, in imposing your will, you are indirectly saying, “I want to control you.” Even when you have the best of intentions, others may end up resenting you for your actions. It is always helpful to remember that it is possible to influence people and change their behavior through education or example without imposing your will on them.

If you’ve caught yourself being a bit bossy on a regular basis, make a note of it. Write down what the situation was and why you acted the way you did. You may have pushed a friend to try something new, because deep inside you wanted to try it yourself but were feeling hesitant. Or you may be unjustly interfering with work teammates, because you aren’t sure of their abilities. Next, make an effort to understand and accept their preferences and ways of doing things. It can feel natural to impose your will when you feel that you “know best.” But there is a freedom to trusting others to find their own methods and joys, even when they might differ from yours. Sometimes the best course of action is to step back and relinquish control. You may, in doing so, see everything from a different point of view.

Sources: Daily Om

Related articles by Zemanta

• Self Esteem Determines the Person We Become
• Dealing With Control Freaks
• 7 Steps to Being a Successful Positive Control Freak
• Manipulating Yourself for Your Own Good
• Boost your friendliness and likeability factor
• Personal Satisfaction

A few Tips for Your Health, Wealth, & Career Success:-

Optimism is the hidden key to your personal and business success. Optimists possess a clear vision of an exciting life, confidently work on goals to achieve their vision, and take self-responsibility. In contrast, pessimists have no clear vision of a fantastic life, and they love to complain, blame, and moan. How can you become more optimistic?

we will try to divulge five little-known “secrets” to help you immediately feel upbeat, confident, and optimistic.

Research: Why Optimism Is Good for You

Tons of research prove that optimists do vastly better than pessimists in their 1. Health 2. Wealth 3. Career success

Health.
A growing body of “psychoneuroimmunology” medical research links how a person’s emotions affect his or her health. Some intriguing findings: Optimistic people are less likely to get sick than pessimistic or depressed people. This includes illnesses ranging from common colds to cancer. Optimistic people also get well faster than pessimists.

Wealth.
A fascinating study found that self-made millionaires worry much less than people who earn as much money but have not achieved millionaire status. What is the connection between being optimistic and making yourself into a millionaire? Optimists are much more likely than pessimists to make a goal of achieving millionaire status. They also keep plugging away at being frugal, investing wisely and working hard to turn financial dreams into reality. In contrast, pessimists are less likely to set net-worth goals or consistently take actions to become millionaires.

Career Success.
Many companies use firm’s Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ pre-employment tests when choosing applicants. To start, a company has high-achievers take the test. Also, underachievers may take the test. Then, it is identify how the high-achievers score, so the company can prefer hiring applicants who score like its profitable, productive employees. Intriguing finding: One of the Forecaster™ test’s 18 scales is Optimism. Typically, high-achievers typically score high on the Optimism test scale, while underachievers score moderate or low on Optimism. This repeated finding verifies that optimists achieve greater career success than pessimists.

So, how can you boost your optimism to achieve greater health, wealth, and career success? Here are five immediately useful techniques. Each takes only one minute to do, so you can start fast and get results today.

1st Technique: Straight Posture & Big Steps:

Optimistic people use straight posture, walk fast, and take big steps. Pessimistic people slouch, walk slowly, and use small steps. Imagine seeing someone walking with his or her head held high, shoulders back, walking fairly fast with big steps. That person exudes confidence. In contrast, a person whose head and shoulders slouch and walks with slow, small steps reeks a gloomy mood.

Why is a straight posture crucial? Because before you can straighten out your head, you first need to straighten up your body!

2nd Technique: Cheerful Voice:

A lightning quick way to feel upbeat is to use a cheerful voice. Think of a time when you felt annoyed. Then, your phone rang. You answered it, and your caller was someone you wanted to impress. I bet you spoke in a cheerful voice so you would impress your caller. Result: You immediately started feeling your mood lift.

Why is a cheerful voice an incredibly powerful optimism tool? Psychological research proved that a person emotionally feels the emotion he or she is acting at the moment. So, if you act cheerful, you feel cheerful. And a cheerful voice is the fastest way to act optimistic.

3rd Technique: Use Upbeat Words:

You can use types of words: upsetting and upbeat. Pessimists relish using upsetting words, while optimists excel at using upbeat words. Examples:

Upsetting Words

Problem

Tired

Depressed

Upbeat Words

Opportunity

Recharging

Bumming

For example, a pessimist says, “I have a problem.” In contrast, an optimist would say, “I have an opportunity to do better next time!”

4th Technique: Use Upbeat Attitudes:

I find the chief way to become an optimist simply is to focus on solutions – and not focus on problems. Every time a difficulty pops up, immediately create solutions and put them into action. Examples:

Upsetting Attitudes

Focus on problems

Dwelling on weaknesses

Thinking about financial woes

Upbeat Attitudes

Focus on solutions

Dwelling on strengths

Thinking about achieving prosperity

Why is a solution-focus ultra-important? Because you can only have one thought in your head at a time. So, if you focus on solutions, you cannot wallow in problems, complaining, blaming, or moaning.

5th Technique: Be a Magnificent Role Model

Remember a time you were a role model for someone. As you helped that person, you also helped yourself. As the proverb goes: “What goes around, comes around.” If you are a delightfully optimistic role model for employees, co-workers, family and friends, then you simultaneously make yourself optimistic.

How do you do this? Make sure people see you using straight posture, taking big steps, speaking in a cheerful voice, using upbeat words and focusing on solutions.

Anyone can become an optimist. When people use these five techniques, they invariably tell me they feel heavy burdens lift off their shoulders. They feel positive, upbeat, and confident. You only need a few minutes to put these tips into action. They can be your key to enhanced health, wealth, and career success.

Sources:Help taken from Sloveyourproblem.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Strategy for startups: 5 tips for building a performance culture
• Reasons to Build Your Self Esteem
• Think your way free of old problems
• Keeping it Real, even when it sucks
• PlanHQ Wants to Make Achieving Business Plans Easier
• Julian Baggini: Ignore the negative spin and look on the bright side of news reports

We often come into contact with the idea that our best isn’t good enough, as if this were actually possible. If you examine this notion, you will begin to see that it doesn’t make much sense. Your best is always good enough, because it comes from you, and you are always good enough. You may not be able to deliver someone else’s idea of the best, but the good news is that’s not your burden. You only need to fulfill your own potential, and as long as you remain true to that calling, and always do your best to fulfill your purpose, you don’t need to expect anything more from yourself.

It’s easy to get tangled up with the idea of trying to be the best—the best parent, the best employee, the best child, or best friend. If we try to be the best, we run the risk of short-circuiting our originality because we are striving to fit into someone else’s vision of success. In addition, if everyone is striving for the same outcome, we lose out on creativity, diversity, and visionary alternatives to the way things are done. On another note, there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but examining where this feeling comes from is important because wanting to be better than others is our ego coming into play.

Letting go of the tendency to hold ourselves up to other people’s standards, and letting go of the belief that we need to compete and win, doesn’t mean we don’t believe in doing the best job we can. We always strive to do our best, because when we do we create a life free of regret, knowing we have performed to the best of our ability. This allows us to feel great personal satisfaction in all of our efforts, regardless of how others perceive the outcome.

Sources: Daily Om

…..

Six Key Skills:-

1. COMMUNICATION: -
Communication is about using your speaking, writing, listening and reading skills effectively for different tasks. You should be able to understand information and give a proper spoken or written response.

Examples of communication skills:

*summarising information
*taking part in a discussion
*writing different types of documents
*giving a short talk or presentation on a topic
*reading and understanding different styles of writing

2. IMPROVING LEARNING & PERFORMANCE:-

Every time you learn something new - from programming the video to rewiring a plug - you are improving your performance and learning. Because we live in a world where newer, faster and often more complicated ways of doing things arrive all the time, employers value employees who can learn new skills or acquire new knowledge.

Examples of improving learning and performance:

*setting goals and targets for improvement
*planning how you will achieve your targets
*getting support and feedback from others
*reviewing your progress
*collecting evidence of your achievements
*check out your skills

3.APPLICATION OF NUMBER:-

You should be able to use your number skills for a variety of tasks. Employers will want you to interpret information involving numbers, carry out calculations, interpret results and present findings. While it is important that you know how to measure and read scales, carry out calculations or draw a diagram, employers will also want you to interpret information from tables, graphs or charts.

Examples of communication skills:

• interpreting different sorts of information
• carrying out mathematical calculations
• interpreting results
• presenting and explaining findings

4.WORKING WITH OTHERS:-

Teamwork - working with other people is vital to business success. You should be happy and confident about working with other people. This skill is useful not only at work, but in school and at home too!

Examples of working with others:

• working with others, one-to-one and in groups
• deciding what you want to achieve
• making a plan and working with others to achieve your aims
• discussing and agreeing improvements

5.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:-

Nearly every business uses computers in the day-to-day running of their office. Employers will expect you to use a computer to source, select, enter and present text, data and images.

Examples of IT skills:

• writing a letter, report or presentation
• using a spreadsheet to keep track of a budget
• using the Internet to find information
• creating a company catalogue using a graphics program

6.PROBLEM SOLVING:-

Employers want you to use your initiative. They need you to be able to recognise problems and come up with solutions. It’s not about doing everything on your own - often it’s important to know when to ask for help!

Examples of problem-solving:

• identifying problems and coming up with different solutions
• planning and testing different options
• checking whether solutions have worked
• reviewing approaches to tackling problems

………………………..GET SUCCEEDED

Sources: bbc.co.uk

Accepting that you are not happy with your current job is the first big step. But once you have identified the problem, what then? How do you go about creating a work environment that suits your aspiration and allows you to create the life that you want? One way is to think about different ways of working. Below are some ideas that will help you to break away from the nine to five routine and allow you to steer your career in the right direction.

Set goals

Make your life simple. Get away from the heat and pressure and try to put some sanity back into your life. Be sure of what you want, otherwise you may end up doing what you do not want. Take one step at a time and move towards your goal. Your determination to succeed will take you towards your goal. Don’t be daunted by failures. Ask yourself what you want and work towards it. Don’t exert yourself too much, otherwise you may suffer from burnout easily. Take it easy. Too much stress will press you down. Learn to be consistent in your work as it is the key to success. You should never lose sight of your goal. Remember the story about the rabbit and the tortoise? The tortoise won the race as it never lost sight of its goal till the end.

New window

Many of us believe that a proper job has to be a nine to five one. Most new jobs these days, however, are not full-time at all. See if you can give yourself the required space to try out something else. Try to find out new avenues of employment that might enable you to earn a part of your income from elsewhere.

Globalisation has opened up several job opportunities which were not thought to be lucrative some years ago. Find out whether you have an inclination for any other job. If you have the desire or the inclination to make some money you can work part-time.

Different strokes

Try to do things differently. Allow yourself the freedom to pursue several interests and be as creative as you can. You may find that some of your pursuits may not be lucrative, but are fulfilling at the same time. Try to instil creativity in your work as it helps to beat boredom and stress. You will find that you will enjoy your work much more and your productivity will increase. Doing the same thing every day leads to monotony. Therefore, try to spice up your life by developing interest in a variety of things. You may be a chartered accountant but that should not stop you from having an interest in gardening or paragliding.

Chill out

You don’t have to restrict yourself to self-employment if you choose to freelance. You could work for an employer part-time and freelance the rest of the time. A career break can also give you the chance to step back and re-evaluate your life. It will help you to judge whether you have been able to achieve the goals you have set for yourself or where you have failed.

Such evaluation is necessary to re-assess ourselves. Often we are so busy working that we don’t give ourselves the gift of stepping back and looking at our life and see what is working and what is not. Challenge the work ethic that says we are only useful when we work hard. Discover the values of shirking work.

Eyes wide open

Give yourself the gift of vision and dream about the kind of working life you would like to have that would thrill and inspire you to excel yourself. So many of us limit our ideas to what we think is possible, but we miss the fact that there are so many opportunities open to us. Also, what we would love to do may not exist right now, but we can create it in due time.

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)

…………………………………..

The good news is that you CAN get more done in less time by working smarter, not harder.

These are some techniques that can help you increase your efficiency while actually working less.

The 80/20 Rule:-

The 80/20 rule, also known as Pareto’s Rule, states that only 20 percent of your work accounts for 80 percent of your output. Be ruthless in cutting down the amount of time you spend on the less important 80 percent.

Parkinson’s Law:-

Parkinson’s Law states that “work will fill the time available for its completion.” Give yourself strict deadline and cultivate a desire to finish projects.

Energy Management:-

Think of results as afunction of energy, not time invested. Working intensely for a short period of time can accomplish more than working for days, tired and distracted.

Only Use Sharp Tools:-

Skill saves time. Don’t waste your time doing things that you can’t, or won’t, do well. Delegate them to someone else.

Rule With Numbers:-

Assumptions are the biggest waste of your time. When your intuitions don’t match the way the world works, you can never be efficient. Combat false assumptions by testing them, and paying attention to the numbers.

The Marginal Rule of Quality:-

Whenever the extra input you invest in perfecting something exceeds the output gained, stop working on that task.

Now, if you’re really serious about working less and accomplishing more, It is recommend to pick up a copy of Tim Ferriss’ bookThe Four Hour Work Week. It’s still one of the best resources on the subject.

Tim is the Indiana Jones of the digital age, and if you follow his advice, you too can find the time to dig up the hidden treasures buried somewhere in your currently too-busy life.

Sources:
Lifehack.org October 23, 2007

HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS:

Take it easy
Don’t try to fight stress. Acknowledge it and make it work for you. We can’t change stress in the workplace, only our reaction to it. If you do so, you can cope with stress or recover your losses. It involves taking risks, learning to live with uncertainty, and solving problems creatively.

Root cause
Figure out what is stressing you out at work and try to solve it. If you are successful in identifying the source, you will not suffer from it or flounder in your work. Launching or changing a career is particularly stressful for young adults.

Change gear
Relocation is another stressful situation. You’re not just changing jobs; you’re changing neighbourhoods, leaving friends and relatives, all the while looking for new people to support you, like doctors, dentists, car mechanics, hair stylists and babysitters.

Hard times
Even good things like promotions and raises, buying a home, and having a baby can be stressful. Often getting what we want, ironically, creates new hassles. But we need to learn to handle it.

Live and learn
Work for a company that matches your values and your ideals. Find companies committed to training and development as it will help you to meet challenges head-on. Continue your education. Learning is one of the best strategies to make stress work for you and help you become resilient.

Blueprint
When you feel stressed out, stop what you are doing and breathe deeply, relax your mind and body, then visualise your goal and see yourself achieving it. A positive frame of mind will help you focus on your work and assess the problem at hand. Fretting over your problems won’t help. You need to pull up your socks and get going.

Think positive

Banish all negative thoughts and concentrate on your inner strengths. You can set some mini behavioural goals like “today, I will identify three new companies; find three networking leads; volunteer somewhere”. Follow up on your identified mini-goals.

Move on

Making stress work for you and becoming resilient takes practice. Like babies learning to walk, you’ll face setbacks. You need to take lessons from your setbacks and move on. The resilient aren’t perfectionists who think and talk about how things should be done. They try to figure out their shortcomings and then make an effort to rectify it.

Full circle

The resilient ones are those who take action, solve problems and reserve time for renewal. In turn, they are often among the people we admire. So start making stress work for you. Identify your stress, find employers who value resilience and follow an action plan. Sooner than later you will see that you have charted out a career path in the right direction. Way to go!

Sources: The Telegraph ( Kolkata, India)

……………………………………………..
…………………………Last minute preparations by the students before exam

In fact a certain amount of stress probably helps us perform better but too much of anxiety can block thoughts, lead to panic and potentially poor exam performance. Here are some tips for students to help them mange time and keep exam anxiety away:

Before exam

Do relaxation exercise(stretching and relaxing your body) to keep stress away.

Do not work to the last minute on the night or morning before the exam Last minute revision may leave you feeling confused and anxious.

Keep all your things like pencil box,entry card etc at one place.

Eat and sleep well.

Reach the exam centre 15 minutes early.

Do not discuss with your friends about their preparation- you will get confused. Engage in light talks.

During exam

Take a few deep breaths and do positive self-talk.

Read the directions carefully and manage time.

Start with questions you know well.

Write in points and highlight main points.

Try to stick to the word limit to save time.

Don’t panic when others hand in their papers. Focus on your work.

Review your test to make sure you have not left out any answers.

Taken From:The writing of a counsellor with Cambridge School, Noida

Starting new is most powerful when we focus our attention to what we are choosing to create. Giving all of our attention to the unwanted aspects of our lives allows what we resist to persist. We need to remember to leave enough room in the process of new beginnings to be kind to ourselves, because it takes time to become accustomed to anything new, no matter how much we like it. There is no need to get down on ourselves if we don’t reach our new goals instantly. Instead, we acknowledge the forward motion and choose to reset and start again, knowing that with each choice we learn, grow, and move forward.

Making the choice to start anew has its own energy—it’s a promise made to you. The forward momentum creates a sort of vacuum behind it, pulling toward you all you need to help you continue moving in your chosen direction. Once the journey has begun, it may take unexpected turns, but it never really ends. Like cycles in nature, there are periods of obvious growth and periods of dormancy that signal a time of waiting for the right moment to burst forth. Each time we choose to start anew we dedicate ourselves to becoming the best we are able to be.

Sources : Daily Om